> Yup, just what we might expect -- hordes of downvotes, zero discussion.
You were likely downvoted and flagged mainly because of the accusation that Snowden is a "Putin asset". If you want discussion, then making accusations like that is not helpful, particularly given that these documents being published by The Intercept are documents handed over before Snowden ever set foot in Russia.
EDIT: For context, the comment I'm referring to above, is the deleted/flagged grandparent of this comment which you need showdead on to see.
It is not an accusation, it is the fact of the matter.
He's a defector, he had help before and during his defection, and he is staying in Russia at the pleasure of the FSB (successor to the KGB), who, as we have seen has no problem terminating people for whom they have no use.
There are many more, if anyone cares to read them, but this audience remains far too enamored of the 'state surveillance is always evil' mentality (and I formerly had the same attitude, not that it cannot be very evil, but certainly not always so).
Snowdon and Putin's efforts to spin the 'hero/whistleblower' yarn, partly through outlest such as Sputnik, RU, Intercept, do not change the facts, and these outlets should be read with extreme skepticism.
All of this is speculation without a shred of evidence behind it, but even if we postulate that all of this is true, it is irrelevant with respect to the contents of the article.
If you wanted to raise a point about the article, do so, and you'll see that others have also made the point that there's nothing particularly shocking about the NSA "tracking down" Bitcoin users without being downvoted, because they managed to make the point without making emotion-driven unproven accusations.
If you want to get your points across here without ending up getting comments flagged on a regular basis you might want to consider sticking to the point, and not making accusations like in your flagged comment and this one without actually presenting evidence (and your links do not present evidence).
Actually, there is quite a bit of evidence, some linked in the articles in the previous post. And there are many other sources if you search. Did you read the linked articles? they aren't just opinion ...
BTW, what is the deal with being flagged? First, other than your highlighting it, I see nothing in the UI (displayed on Win/FFox) indicating to me that I've been flagged. How could I tell, and what is it flagged for (If I'm somehow violating some rule or norm, it's kind of hard to change behavior with no info)? What am I missing?
I agree with most of the posters here about the article that it was unremarkable that the NSA searches the identities of BTC users and it's in their job remit.
The point, which I probably could have made more clear at the outset, is to look at the reason behind the article's existence -- it's published to promote the RUS narrative that the western intelligence services are untrustworthy, and by extension the western governments and alliances are untrustworthy. This is a primary theme in the Russian Active Measures directed at the West.
> BTW, what is the deal with being flagged? First, other than your highlighting it, I see nothing in the UI (displayed on Win/FFox) indicating to me that I've been flagged. How could I tell, and what is it flagged for (If I'm somehow violating some rule or norm, it's kind of hard to change behavior with no info)? What am I missing?
HN moderation can be quite opaque. You get the opportunity to downvote first when your karma has reached a certain level. Beyond downvoting comments can be flagged. Once they're flagged enough they get marked "dead". Once they're dead, they'll still look live to the person who posted them, but not to others (you can verify by opening the site logged out/in an incognito window). This is intentional because while in some cases people are just not aware they've stepped over the line, a lot of the flagged comments are spam or abusive. There's an option (I'm not sure if that's available to everyone or if it needs a certain level of karma) on the settings page called "showdead" which will let you see flagged/dead comments. I keep it on because the volume is small enough and occasionally interesting comments gets caught up in it. The "headline" of your comment shows up like this for me:
> toss1 17 hours ago | parent | flag | vouch | favorite [flagged] [dead] | on: The NSA Worked to “Track Down” Bitcoin Users, Snow...
It's worth noting that the presence of politicized topics on HN at all is a thorny subject, and politicized articles are far more likely to be flagged (the whole article) or taken down by moderators if they're perceived to attract too much controversy, or see comments flagged repeatedly. HN tolerates a quite large range of political viewpoints, but rarely tolerates direct attacks on named individuals unless the evidence is very clear (I'm sure there are exceptions).
Get flagged too much, and you can get shadowbanned - basically everything gets marked dead but it still looks like normal to you. This is rare, and when a user seems to have been shadowbanned for no good reason the moderators do tend to be good about undoing it. You're not subject to that - it's only individual flagging.
> The point, which I probably could have made more clear at the outset, is to look at the reason behind the article's existence -- it's published to promote the RUS narrative that the western intelligence services are untrustworthy, and by extension the western governments and alliances are untrustworthy. This is a primary theme in the Russian Active Measures directed at the West.
I see this is additional unsupported conjecture, but it'd likely have stood up better to downvotes than a direct accusation against Snowden.
I personally agree that the guy was naive and had no idea what he was doing, seeing as most of the news coverage is not actually substantiated by the source documents when you look through it all. That would be a valid criticism.
However, unsubstantiated claims of being an asset is pointless to use as an argument, there is no evidence and it does not help the discussion even if you really do believe it.
The very title of the 2nd article I linked specifies that Russians have admitted that he is an asset, and there were FSB people cooperating with him.
From the article:
"In a remarkable interview this week, Franz Klintsevich, a senior Russian security official, explained the case matter-of-factly: “Let’s be frank. Snowden did share intelligence. This is what security services do. If there’s a possibility to get information, they will get it.”
With this, Klintsevich simply said what all intelligence professionals already knew – that Snowden is a collaborator with the FSB. That he really had no choice in the matter once he set foot in Russia does not change the facts."
Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. And, again, I used to think Snowdon was great, but I've since read a lot more data which has changed my mind.
I changed my mind as well after reading through the source material itself. I am not defending the leak.
Once again, there is no evidence he is an “asset” or collaborator. Maybe there will be actual public evidence in the future, but at the moment it is not useful as an argument as nobody will believe it without hard evidence. Vague quotes from officials do not meet that standard.
As I'm using it, it could be a wide range of intentions, including:
* a willing ideological traitor,
* a paid agent,
* a double agent,
* a person cooperating semi-willingly to get out of a jam,
* a compromised person unwillingly cooperating,
* a dupe or 'useful idiot".
The only thing in common is that they have people on the other side successfully working to make some of their actions work for that side and not ours.
I do not believe that we'll ever have specific detailed classified evidence revealed to us, at least withing the next 75 years. However, we can take a clue from the people inside the intelligence agencies who have seen the evidence, and they unanimously classify Snowdon as a full-on traitor.
I;m not sure I go that far, but he's at least a step above useful idiot. This can be judged just by Snowdon's own a public activity since his taking up residence in Russia (Manning, and Reality Winner, OTOH, are probably mere dupes).
