Perfect... bring up the NSA every thirty seconds, until everyone is utterly sick of hearing it and automatically ignores anything related to the NSA... we can't thank you enough noonespecial, you are doing God's work.
What a shit attitude. Try taking into consideration that people feel helpless. People are desperate to try and change things. People may be acting - not in concert mind you - to affect some change. Try to respect that these people you lament are at least fucking trying.
"helpless", seriously? The guy had his privacy invaded and it is EXTREMELY unlikely that he was negatively affected by it. People drowning in debt or dying of disease feel helpless. This guy is just another person with an axe to grind. Imagine if someone tried to turn every thread about tax law into a debate about abortion. That is what has been happening lately.
Though I should not be surprised, you misrepresent me. There's nothing wrong with covering the issue. It's just not helpful at best, and actively harmful at worst, to try to inject the issue into every possible place. We are intelligent adults; we are more than capable of thinking about more than just one issue.
It isn't like there are many people left who haven't heard about it, and even if there were, the front page of HN has consistently contained several articles covering the NSA specifically for a number of weeks now.
As I'm not surprised you condescend me by insulting my ability to interpret your post, I guess.
My point is: why inhibit it no matter the context? Perhaps this is a new user who isn't privy to the daily dealings of hn? Maybe they aren't aware that their effort might be better spent on a less-informed forum? Why immediately dismiss and discourage their input?
Helpless? I can't vote and have only a fraction of the rights that you do (assuming you're a US citizen) but I feel far from helpless about my standing relative to the government. Discussing the issue is healthy, obsessing about it so that nobody else is allowed to hold a conversation on a different subject without paying lip service to the NSA issue is not.
I didn't mention the NSA specifically, just the surveillance state. My example was actually a British journalist, being intimidated by the detainment of his Brazilian SO, in London, traveling from Berlin, to Rio de Janeiro, abusing Section 7 of the British Terrorism Act.
Its a lot deeper than "the NSA". Something's bad wrong. And yeah, I'm going to preach about it until it gets fixed or I end up a crazy man on the corner wearing a sandwich board. (I believe that's what usually happens to those doing "God's work").
It's not the NSA doing this intimidation, though they may well be facilitating it. I do agree that journalism is under siege in the US, however. I feel like the Obama administration would really like to put a stop to even the possibility of another major leak by stopping it before it starts. I thought this was a much bigger deal than Greenwald's SO being detained:
