Charles Cooper reports that venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has called former NSA contractor Edward Snowden a traitor for leaking national secrets about US surveillance practices and says that foreign nations may use the disclosures as an excuse to promote their domestic technology suppliers over American rivals. "Obviously he's a traitor," says Andreessen. "Like if you look up in the encyclopedia 'traitor,' there's a picture of Ed Snowden. Like he's a textbook traitor. They don't get much more traitor than that. I will say that I'm in the distinct minority out here. Most people in Silicon Valley would pick the other designation."
Andreessen added that NSA leaks may well wind up getting used as a cudgel by foreign governments against American companies that depend on overseas sales. "There's a big open question right now how successful our companies will be when they go sell products overseas," says Andreessen. "I think there are a lot of foreign companies that are very envious of Silicon Valley and America's domination of tech and wish that they could implement protection policies. And they are going to use this whole affair as a reason to do that ... as an excuse."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mytundra on Saturday June 07 2014, @02:50PM
>And don't forget kids
If you had wanted a thoughtful response you would have acted more maturely.
We all know why he had to flee the US (see Chelsea Manning and Thomas Drake) and how the U.S. Department of State revoked his passport, forcing him to stay where he is. We all know how you are, predictably, desperate to attack his character (as if we're here to discuss his personal glory) and avoid the really difficult questions about the government itself.
The game is already over. You might want to go back to your patriotic echo chamber. But since you view more and more of the general public as enemies and traitor worshippers, that chamber will have to get thicker as well.