◼ THE SURVEILLANCE SCANDALS: Steve Wozniak: Snowden ‘Is a Hero Because This Came From His Heart’ - Lloyd Grove/Daily Beast
He’s especially troubled by the secret intrusions into the private emails of American citizens by the National Security Agency—secret, that is, until the recent detailed revelations of the NSA’s Prism program of electronic surveillance by a 29-year-old NSA contractor-turned-fugitive named Edward Snowden.
“I think he’s a hero,” said the 62-year-old Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs and invented the Apple I and Apple II personal computers that launched a technological revolution. “He’s a hero to my beliefs about how the Constitution should work. I don’t think the NSA has done one thing valuable for us, in this whole ‘Prism’ regard, that couldn’t have been done by following the Constitution and doing it the old way.”
...Referring to the secret proceedings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reportedly granted comprehensive warrants for the NSA’s Prism activities, “Why do you set up a little private court? That’s like saying, ‘I need a warrant and I’m going to give one to myself.’ What it leads to is judge, jury, and executioner. It’s the same thing as lynch mobs.”
When Wozniak and Jobs started Apple Computer in 1976, the Internet was in its infancy, unknown to the general public and not a factor in everyday life. But today the World Wide Web presents a serious threat to personal privacy, Wozniak said.
