Comment by notepad0x90
3 days ago
Since it's been a while now, what are the thoughts on the snowden leaks contributing to the rise of distrust in the government and governmental institutions in the US?
I'm wondering if trump could have ever succeeded without that path being prepared for him by snowden's leaks and occupy wallstreet. I'm not saying snowden did anything wrong, to the contrary, he thought things would change and they didn't, I'm wondering whether that contributed to the feeling of americans feeling disenfranchised. Relations with europe also started souring around that time.
I think snowden did the right thing, but like many in tech (especially here on HN), he didn't understand that American's didn't care about what's in the leaks all that much. it wasn't his burden to weigh the pros and cons, his burden was to do what he thought was right. But looking back, nothing good came out of the leaks, I wish they didn't happen to begin with. Of course if you're not an American lots of good things came out of it. I'm certain we have less privacy now, more governmental spying, and even more support for it. at least before we had the illusion that we had some rights to privacy from the government. Now that they're exposed and gotten away with it, I fear they've become more emboldened.
I guess I am glad the whole thing was exposed, but I am regretful of how things turned out. Would it have been better if there was more trust in governmental institutions, and if the US IC kept their capabilities secret for longer? would they have been able to interfere with russian influence campaigns in 2015-16 if so? Is the world better of now?
I suppose in 5-10 more years these things will be historical events and historians might answer these questions with a more objective perspective.
The trends that elected a populist leader were more economic in nature and can be more traced to the 2008 crisis. I doubt the average person can even name Snowden or what he did.
So you'd prefer the blue pill, instead of the red one you've gotten, Neo?
For me personally it certainly contributed. I don't see Trump as an opposition to this, but it made clear that the current administrative landscape in most western nations is hostile, corrupt and criminal. Not only politicians, it is the whole administrative level as well.
I do think that the leaks did something good and we have more of a focus on government being a hostile data proprietor and schooled people to take more care. Perhaps not the masses, but for those that deal with hot information.
Trust in government is low. An achievement that took a lot of work, I guess. The Russian influence campaign was at least partially made up as well, government disinformation. Propaganda is mostly a domestic issue.