<story><title>Reform Government Surveillance</title><url>http://reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>friism</author><text>I feel the same way, and have also been hoping for internet companies to put a stake in the ground.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, it frustrates me that the tipping point for how Snowden&amp;#x27;s legacy will be viewed is action by a set of corporations, and not action by elected officials, the media, or an informed public...</text></item><item><author>pg</author><text>Among other things, this is the tipping point for how Snowden will be viewed.&lt;p&gt;If all these powerful companies agree, in an unprecedented show of unanimity, that this is an important problem, then Snowden is ipso facto a hero for bringing it to our attention.&lt;p&gt;The curious thing is, I feel the linkage works in the other direction too.  If Snowden had been caught and was now having his brains scrambled by solitary confinement in some secret prison, these companies would have been at least slightly more reluctant to issue such a statement, because it would have seemed to be espousing the cause of someone people were hearing described on the news as a criminal.&lt;p&gt;Snowden made his disclosures much more effective by escaping.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tedks</author><text>&amp;gt;On the other hand, it frustrates me that the tipping point for how Snowden&amp;#x27;s legacy will be viewed is action by a set of corporations, and not action by elected officials, the media, or an informed public...&lt;p&gt;Democracy is effectively dead; who could we have voted for that would not have done these things if not Obama?&lt;p&gt;The United States is an oligarchy, just as the Internet has become feudal. Sometimes we&amp;#x27;ll agree with the decisions of the oligarchs; other times we won&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;But that isn&amp;#x27;t the question. Should we live in an oligarchy?&lt;p&gt;(Personally, I&amp;#x27;m less optimistic that this is any sort of &amp;quot;tipping point.&amp;quot; Humans rarely change their minds, and Snowden became a traitorous footnote to most people a long time ago.)</text></comment>
<story><title>Reform Government Surveillance</title><url>http://reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>friism</author><text>I feel the same way, and have also been hoping for internet companies to put a stake in the ground.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, it frustrates me that the tipping point for how Snowden&amp;#x27;s legacy will be viewed is action by a set of corporations, and not action by elected officials, the media, or an informed public...</text></item><item><author>pg</author><text>Among other things, this is the tipping point for how Snowden will be viewed.&lt;p&gt;If all these powerful companies agree, in an unprecedented show of unanimity, that this is an important problem, then Snowden is ipso facto a hero for bringing it to our attention.&lt;p&gt;The curious thing is, I feel the linkage works in the other direction too.  If Snowden had been caught and was now having his brains scrambled by solitary confinement in some secret prison, these companies would have been at least slightly more reluctant to issue such a statement, because it would have seemed to be espousing the cause of someone people were hearing described on the news as a criminal.&lt;p&gt;Snowden made his disclosures much more effective by escaping.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thaumasiotes</author><text>I kind of like it.  It&amp;#x27;s a nice blow to the straw viewpoint that corporations should have no rights to speak.&lt;p&gt;Everything these companies say is informed by discussion in the media, among the public, and, yes, with elected officials.  The line you want to draw is extremely fuzzy at best in reality.&lt;p&gt;I have read that Genghis Khan&amp;#x27;s original plan after conquering China was to raze the farming villages to provide more pasture for horses (and the Mongols that horse populations supported).  Some bureaucrats pointed out to him that he could &lt;i&gt;personally&lt;/i&gt; do better by taxing the Chinese farmers. And he sold out the Mongols to do it, which worked out great for him and the millions of peasants he didn&amp;#x27;t kill.&lt;p&gt;Do we count that as action by the peasants, who held essentially zero formal power, or by the mandarins, who could never have afforded to pay for the deal themselves?</text></comment>