[enko]

I think it's OK for now. This is big news; very very big. I am a fan of trying to keep HN on topic but for now I am very interested in what everyone here has to say.

I have to say, I thought I was very up to date on US spying - I know people who have worked with Echelon and would not say certain words on the phone - but I have still been blown away with the revelations. They're game-changing. They're relevant to HN. Business exists in a context; that context is changing around us, or at least being revealed for its true form. It's very relevant.

And FWIW I am astounded at the lengths "they" are going to get him and the massive political capital they seem happy to burn in the attempt. Genuinely amazing stuff. I have no idea what's next; no-one has. We're in a genuinely unprecedented era here. Anything is possible.

[eli]

This particular linked story really isn't very big news.

[enko]

Well maybe not for you, but for me it's another piece of a jigsaw which is beginning to show a very ugly picture indeed.

You're a US citizen I see. Well, maybe you don't understand or give a shit, but from the outside, the opinion of your country is being revised dramatically downwards. Very dramatically. All of this human rights, freedom of speech, fourth amendment stuff is being exposed for the bullshit that it is.

The damage to the reputation of the USA from these events is incalculable. Do you have any conception of what it means when normal people are suggesting that a whistleblower on the run from the USA seek refuge in Russia or China?

[enko]

> Maybe you view the scanning of the outside of people's letters differently now... but it's not a new story and the article says as much.

I guess it's the context of an all-pervasive spying culture that lends it a new relevance.

And who cares if it's "new". We might only realise the relevance of an old story years later. We might only realise a whistleblower was telling the truth after years of dismissing their tall tales.

edit: eli deleted the post I quote. Oh, don't like things you say online being used against you later? That's not new either.

[eli]

No need to attack my character. I deleted the comment immediately after writing it because I decided it contributes to the thing I'm complaining about, which is many front page stories full of repetitive comment threads that are only tangentially related to the linked story and contain little new information or insight.

[enko]

Fair enough. Usually I would probably agree with you. But in this case, I feel the "reaction comments" are important. The reaction is going to be the main story, after all.