General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What the "Snowden is a traitor" crowd don't get [View all]KoKo
(84,711 posts)they go along with your Jefferson quote, I think:
Alex Mierjeski Its astounding, the predictability with which any given administration responds to these sorts of leaks.
Greenwald: Its just a natural instinct for people in power to want to hide what they do, because secrecy is the lynchpin for abuse of power, and transparency is the antidote to it. This is not only a tenet of Americas founding, but of political theory in general, that thats the only way power can be checked. And people in power dont want to be checked.
Greenwald: The real measure of how free a society is isnt how its good, obedient servants are treated; its how dissidents are treated. And if you go and do any kind of investigative journalism and talk to whistleblowers, or talk to people who are dissenting or are otherwise engaged in activism against the government, or journalists who do that, you find this incredibly disturbing, intense climate of fear. Nobody will talk unless theyre using very sophisticated encryption technologies.