On Mon, June 10, 2013 00:44, Ryan Simpkins wrote: > Did Mr. Snowden do the right thing by disclosing PRISM and similar programs to > the world, or did he violate the trust of his employer, government, and fellow > countrymen by reveling secrets that aught not to have been reveled?
When I asked this question I simply had no idea it would turn in to such a deeply emotional debate. This is arguably one of the most important discussions to have ever taken place on this list. I want you all to know I have read every single post and considered them all carefully. Every post has been incredibly valuable and filled with meaningful point of view. Every comment was needed (except sjansens, what is wrong with that guy?). I have a message I'd like you all to read: Mormon, Christian, Jew, Atheist, Buddhist, Humanist, Hindu, Muslim, and other isims, ists, and religious or non-religious persons. Here this! The United States Government has likely been tracking the following information for all Americans: * Who you have telephoned. * Your location during the call. * The length of that call. * Who called you. * What you said via text (presumably). * Certain aspects of your Internet activities * Possibly some of your private communications, up to and including phone calls, e-mails, videos, etc. The government has been doing this irrespective of your religious points of view, and in some cases possibly because of them. Do not let those points of view stop you from applying the same reasoned thinking you brought to the great top post flame fests of 2010, or the "language wars" of 2008, or even the heady days of the "editor battles" long ago (vim won, by the way). Turn on those geek brains and start thinking about how to either solve this problem, or please go blow away your Ubuntu partition and install Windows 8. If you can't see why this is important then NO ROOT FOR YOU! There is a great deal of room for people of all religious points of view and walks of life. I participate in the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable. An organization that is dedicated to the understanding and cooperation of all religious beliefs and backgrounds. Every major faith in the area participates, as does the LDS church, including most of the minor faiths. What I have learned will shock you: We are all exactly alike. It is fine if you point to scripture, philosophy, or science as your moral guide so long as you come to this basic conclusion: We need to work together to stand up for what we collectively feel is right. Before we can do that we need to narrowly decide if the United States Government is right or wrong in the case at hand. That certainly takes communication. It also takes humility. Here is a helpful phrase to repeat 10 times a day: "My root partition may be corrupted. My memory may be throwing errors. Someone may have chmod'd all my binaries 0400. It is okay to be wrong, so long as I can fix it. I have a rescue disk." This list, right here, is one of the last totally open community based public forums with a culture of rational thought and deep analysis in our area. You all collectively decide what will fly and what will not. I do have one suggestion: Please remember that ~500 people will get your message. Therefore, I trust you will be considerate of their point of view and potential sensitivity to petty argument and lack of reasoned analysis. Geeks simply won't tolerate it. - note - Please do not respond to this thread unless you include ALL of the following words in the post: sjansen, bacon, Nazis, soap on a rope, Illuminati, a lyric from any Pink Floyd song. -Ryan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
