[obmelvin]

Personally, I don't doubt that Snowden caused some damage to the IC community. However, I would argue that the benefit to people who would like to live in a modern democracy far outweighs that damage.

I truly believe that the only reason more people are not be outraged by the IC's actions is by not understanding their capabilities. I'm a graduate student in CS and am still amazed at what they could do. There's no way in heck I expect my mother to appreciate the gravity of the danger of such a surveillance state because she can't even begin to comprehend what is possible.

EDIT: why delete your comments? You should stand by your views even if others disagree. Well, not to the point of being stubborn, but in this case I don't get it.

[Bartweiss]

Since it's gone now, I'll toss in context for those confused: there was yet another comment descending from this one that was also deleted.

It too advanced a weird suggestion that the Hi Capacity makerspace was somehow deeply tied into politics and the intelligence community, and was disrupted by Snowden. (And, of course, offered no support for that claim.)

[gtcode]

I had edited/removed the comment for a reason, so your revival of it via inaccurate takeaway isn't particularly appreciated.

In light of the responses, I re-considered whether it was best to keep such information here, but you've simply made things more difficult for me with a false representation of a removed post, that I cannot remove and to which I do not wish to respond.

It was my mistake for deciding to share what was posted here, but it would have been common courtesy to let it go (and not revive the comment in interpretive form), since it was removed by me. You could have contacted me privately to discuss further, as a courtesy to me.

[opportune]

Confused as to the deletion of comments as well. The parent didn't seem to be alluding to any confidential or classified information specifically enough for it to matter, merely its existence, which is obviously already public knowledge