[liberationtech] Centralized control of the debates on the Snowden docs

[Ryan Bartos]

Hi LibTech,

The debates that rage on after every trickle of snowden release
justifiably causes much resentment. However, one crucial point about
these debates are often missed. And that is that the exact debates we
are having and the exact evidence on which they based are controlled
by a tiny select few of now celebrity journalists.

We are face unknown risks, given the information taking place on
there, affects our daily lives. What devices, proceses and
organisations we can trust will be and are being influenced by the
contents of the documents. This not to say that all centralized
control of a valuable set of information is always bad. But in this
case, the trickle of information out comes with slivers blacked out,
terribly skewing the terms of the debate that ensues. We're unable to
see a fuller picture of even the little we see, and the values guiding
the framework of debate of the releases are a mysterious black box to
us. If anything we've seen so far is something to go by, we really
ought to be more cautious about who we let control the terms of public
debate and why.

Regards,
Ryan Bartos