Isn't it obvious that anyone can accuse anyone of anything? Usually it's more meaningful when they have evidence.
[edit: since this is receiving downvotes - clearly we have evidence that the NSA is dangerously overreaching and should stop. We have absolutely zero evidence that it is their mission to keep an elite in power 'at any cost']
Software in general is 'picking up steam and maturing a across the board'. We now have almost 2 billion consumers carrying a unix box in their pockets, not running open source.
If anything, the relevance of open source is dwindling by comparison.
It does allow many eyes to inspect source code - which is certainly important in developing cryptographic software.
However it currently does nothing to ensure the timely delivery of patches to consumers. Also, usability of open source security solutions is terrible, and unless people understand cryptographic signing, and the web of trust, and build all their software themselves they have no guarantee that their software isn't compromised.
Useful software takes a lot of time and effort to write, and there is a lot of investment in learning required to get to the point where one can do it.
Unless a person is independently wealthy, a significant portion of ones time and energy must be devoted to efforts that will be paid.
Therefore open source is either subsidized directly by other paying ventures e.g. corporations for whom it is strategic, of it is engaged in by individuals in the time left over after their paid work.
Until the world changes so that people don't need money to live, developer hours will flow preferentially to the ecosystem according to the available monetary rewards.
The ecosystem that makes it easiest for the most developers to get paid will attract the most developers.
This could be the "open source" ecosystem at some point depending on what business models prevail, but I see no reason why it should automatically be so.
That comment isn't well worded, but I've made similar ones.
It's a counterpoint to people saying that Snowden is being 'persecuted' and that the USA is now a place that freedom loving people flee from.
Whilst I agree with the view that we should not have mass surveillance and it would be horrifying if someone were persecuted for expressing that view, that is not why the US is chasing him.
He is being chased for intentionally stealing classified documents. Can you name a government that wouldn't pursue someone who did this?
Its no less terrifying than the fact that the US gov't can send you off to a top secret location for whatever reason it feels is an appropriate reason, whatsoever, and you will be left there without recourse or access to any Internationally-recognized forms of justice ..
The USA on May 11, 1973. (OK, the ruling was not exactly innocent. But Daniel Ellsberg walked free after intentional theft of classified government documents.)
Sorry to have a somewhat real answer to a rhetorical question.
Obviously. We were in an acknowledged but undeclared global war with the Soviet Union. We're not with Russia.
To me the more interesting change is that Ellsberg believed (correctly!) that a story like his could go to US media and would get out. Today nobody trusts the US media to report critically on the USA. (Hrm. If the 2000 election were to happen today, once the Guardian began digging up evidence of concrete, massive, and clearly illegal suppression of black turnout in Florida, would that get reported in the NY Times? Or on something that big would they maintain silence again until it was a mere footnote months later about the state of Florida having admitted to it, been sanctioned, and having promised to not do it again?)
Snowden is not a persecuted person. He's someone who deliberately lied in order to gain access a government spy agency and then stole state secrets which he is selling to the press.
No government would consider that to be acceptable.
Note: This is no defense of the NSA. However it is dishonest to claim that people who criticize the US government are persecuted and need to flee.
The US is not chasing Snowden because he criticized them. They are chasing him because of the stolen documents.
This is obviously much bigger than the leak of some classified documents that expose secret surveilance programs. The reaction of the US government (in this case, the decisions are probably made by Obama himself) is a lot bigger than a random criminal prosecution.
Just look at the measures taken in order to intimidate or capture Snowden: In effect, the US government grounded the private jet of a foreign head of state. If a similar action was done against the US, it would be considered an act of war. A persecution is exactly what this is, under the plausible (even legal) guise of criminal proceedings.
Nobody is saying this is a random criminal prosecution. He's being pursued for fraudulently obtaining a security clearance and stealing classified state secrets.
[edit: since this is receiving downvotes - clearly we have evidence that the NSA is dangerously overreaching and should stop. We have absolutely zero evidence that it is their mission to keep an elite in power 'at any cost']