Illegally monitoring anyone, citizen or not, is excessive and supremely uncool.

Actually it is not excessive. It is legal for CSIS to monitor non-citizens and it is even legal for them to investigate citizens if they may be assisting foreigners that Canada disapproves of. I was interviewed by CSIS because I did some technical work on a server for a foreign-born Canadian who was suspected of being involved in white-power/neo-nazi orgs. The goal of CSIS was to find out if a certain prominent foreign white-power speaker might sneak into Canada. There was a well-known leaky spot in the US border not far from the town where this guy lived.

This Nadim fellow is a suspicious guy doing suspicious things who travels to terrorist hot-spots and to the USA, which is also suspicious. And I bet that CSIS is reading every word on HN right now. After all, where do you think that CSIS finds the hackers to set up the kind of hacks that Nadim has described? Same goes for CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS.

> Actually it is not excessive. It is legal for CSIS to monitor non-citizens and it is even legal for them to investigate citizens if they may be assisting foreigners that Canada disapproves of.

Just because something is legal doesn't mean its not excessive. Just because the government does something, doesn't make it right.

> After all, where do you think that CSIS finds the hackers to set up the kind of hacks that Nadim has described?

From the description of what happened I'd guess probably at the local high school, by asking if anyone likes Bond movies.

> "And I bet that CSIS is reading every word on HN right now."

Well, on that off chance, let me be the one to say to our CSIS guys and gals: for fsck sake, don't do something like this. We could all use some better role models, and the number of comments and votes on this thread reflect how monumentally-offensive the suggestion is.

> "This Nadim fellow is a suspicious guy doing suspicious things"

Nadim is a smart guy working in computer science. What would the reaction be if he were Dr. Kobeissi and a computer science professor?

This isn't reddit.

Len is such a wonderful person, it's really hard to put into words how much he meant in my life.

He was so incredibly encouraging of taking big leaps and always striving to do courageous things, even if it meant taking on risk. You could always count on him for a totally unvarnished opinion of your code or project, which is both rare and incredibly cherished.

It was amazing to work on a project for two weeks and have him tell you in two minutes what was wrong with it, why, and a better way to do it. For a plebe like me, it meant the world for him to actually take the time and explain things to me.

On top of everything else, he really made a difference at a time when I was struggling with depression.

It just seems like there are not enough words to truly talk about the impact his life had on the world. His legacy is just tremendous.