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by gyardley 4737 days ago
Good lord, there was something up here this morning that talked about the pizza and fried chicken Snowden had for his birthday. Before that, it was 'his girlfriend's a pole dancer and here's the cache of her deleted blog'.

This guy stabbed his own cause in the back by going public, doing press interviews, and doing whatever else he could to make the story all about him, and for some inexplicable reason y'all want to shove the knife in deeper and twist.
3 comments
mcherm 4737 days ago
> This guy stabbed his own cause in the back by going public, doing press interviews, and doing whatever else he could to make the story all about him

Really? Because I don't think "the goal" is to get detailed articles written up in blogs that will show up on Hacker News, I think "the goal" is to get the story out to as many people as possible and raise its profile in hopes of influencing governments.

And you have to understand the way that the press works. They've already WRITTEN a story about PRISM... so they can't write another one, because it's not "new". However, they CAN report on the daily movements of this guy, Snowden. And they can publish every interview he gives. And each time they can (will!) review just what it is that he revealed.

I think that, intentional or not, Snowden has successfully managed to bring media attention to this issue in a way that previous efforts had not.

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gyardley 4737 days ago
Yeah, really. Just anecdotal, of course, but from my own conversations with (and eavesdropping on) normal people around my town, it's clear that some people know who Snowden is and are following his travels but they don't have the slightest clue what he revealed. 'Some military secret to the Chinese' is the best guess I've gotten so far.
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rgraham 4737 days ago
I tend to think he knew they would find him and he preferred to be famous and hopefully talked about when they did. He wanted to control what he could of how he might be presented to the public. He probably also did not want to disappear one day with nary a word about him or spoken by him ever again. He wanted change. He risked a lot for it.

I don't think he risked it so he could do a few interviews. The fame and media attention is a tool.

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darkarmani 4737 days ago
> This guy stabbed his own cause in the back by going public, doing press interviews

Yeah. His cause is completely dead. No one is following the spying on Americans issue now.

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