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May 26, 2015

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says the NSA whistleblower “gave up his own life . . . to help the rest of us".

Apple co-founder says the NSA whistleblower “gave up his own life . . . to help the rest of us”

Steve Wozniak reaffirmed his staunch support for digital privacy in an interview over the weekend in which the Apple co-founder called National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden “a hero.”
Wozniak, who helped build Apple  AAPL -2.07%  with Steve Jobs before leaving the tech giant in the mid-1980’s, has expressed an affinity for Snowden in the past. Over the weekend, Wozniak reiterated his admiration for Snowden in an interview with ArabianBusiness.com in which the inventor said Snowden “gave up his own life . . . to help the rest of us.”
Wozniak went on to tell the publication more on his feelings about Snowden:
“‘Total hero to me; total hero,’ he gushes. ‘Not necessarily [for] what he exposed, but the fact that he internally came from his own heart, his own belief in the United States Constitution, what democracy and freedom was about. And now a federal judge has said that NSA data collection was unconstitutional.'” 
Two years ago, Wozniak favorably compared Snowden to Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Last year, Wozniak also told reporters that he briefly met Snowden at a small event in Moscow, where the former NSA employee is currently living.
Wozniak has expressed some regret in the past for the role technology has played in allowing the government to expand its surveillance efforts. “We didn’t realize that in the digital world there were a lot of ways to use the digital technology to control us, to snoop on us, to make things possible that weren’t,” Wozniak told CNN in 2013.

3 comments:

  1. Jobs might've been the face of Apple, but the Woz was its soul in the early days. And, he seems like a legit human being on top of it.

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  2. Edward Snowden (a.k.a. "Snowjob") isn't a hero; he's a shill.
    If he were a genuine "whistleblower" the response would have been a media blackout, and a hit team, but instead we see the media turning this into an endless drama that insures you remember his name.
    His purpose is to silence dissent, and prevent you from discussing politics by convincing you that their "all seeing eye" can hear your every word, and know every thought.
    Any genuine whistleblower would have dumped all he knew on the internet, but the Snowden psy-op team releases documents a little at a time to extend the drama, and make sure he's not forgotten.
    There's precious little on the TV that doesn't exist to manipulate your behavior and thinking. Real whistleblowers, like real protests, are covered up.

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  3. I tend to disagree on the "not a 'genuine' whistleblower" part.. Here's why:
    Whether he is viewed as a hero or a villain, it's a documented fact that the USA definitely wants him in custody, and took steps initially to apprehend him before he was granted temporary asylum in Russia, which put him geo-legally (is that even a term?) out of their reach. He could still be kidnapped though, hence the need to hide still.
    As far as the actual flow of information.. His delivery time frame is his; After all, did you pay money to learn of or read any of the released documents? Have you read them?
    And think of this: If you were in fact a whistleblower, would YOU want to blow your load all in one go, knowing how short term memory deficient the public can be, and also knowing that it's more likely to be combed over by the press if its a one shot deal, rather than an ongoing thing that won't just 'go away' as it were?
    And this is beside the fact that he seems to have lost everything he had and now lives in exile?

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