Comment by gwinkle
11 hours ago
Snowden is comparing two things that, in fact, are not alike. Surveillance gathers information, whereas censorship suppresses expression. It might sound like clever rhetoric to people of a lower intellectual capacity, but these are fundamentally distinct concepts.
Or he was not comparing those two things to say they are the same thing but rather making an analogy based on the common factor of people in the US often wanting legal protections for both speech and privacy to draw his point that one is giving up their rights by making the excuse about not wanting privacy which they would probably not do when it comes to speech.
Thinking comparisons of two similar things are always for the purpose of saying that they are the same thing is ridiculous, don’t you think? It might sound like clever reasoning to people of a mediocre intellectual capacity but it is not logically coherent.
> Surveillance gathers information, whereas censorship suppresses expression.
Surveillance suppresses expression through chilling effects.
It only chills when the watchers are hidden. See David Brin's The Transparent Society for an example of how sousveillence ought to work.
He's comparing two rights and how giving up one right (to privacy) because you think you have nothing to hide is like giving up your right to speech, because you have nothing to say (and therefore don't have to worry that someone in power might find it offensive).