Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by autoexec 2383 days ago
> The Snowden revelations are up there with 9/11 in terms of American history significance, and when they happened, barely anything changed, especially in the general public.

I'm not sure the American people have the ability to change it at this point. We elected Obama when he campaigned on a promise to end the mass surveillance of American citizens, but once he was in office he expanded the NSAs ability to do just that. James Clapper repeatedly lied to congress about what was happening and has publicly confessed to doing so, yet he faced zero consequences for it.

At this point it doesn't seem like the US government represents our best interests and we have very little ability to change that. We've got actual research showing that:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

In this kind of environment what exactly do you expect the general public to do? We have no power or representation in American government.