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Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

reuters.com

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Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#181

Post by viraptor »

jtsuken wrote: post #179
tinus_hn wrote: post #22

The big question is what Russia has to gain from this. Is it just to troll the US?

Never thought I'd need to lecture HN about Occam's Razor: Permanent residency is a status for foreign citizens, who have been residing in the country permanently i.e. living there for a long time (e.g. 7 years) and might stay indefinitely. Rather than applying for a visa renewal every year, it saves time and money to grant those people a permanent residency.

Exactly. The article doesn't say if there was anything unusual about his application process. 8 years is enough to get a citizenship in the UK. 5 years in Australia.

The standard requirement for a permanent residency in Russia is 1 year in on a temporary residency. Honestly, I'm surprised he hasn't been given a permanent one before.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#182

Post by heavenlyblue »

elefanten wrote: post #90
mikestew wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you weren't alive or old enough to pay attention back when Russia ballet dancers/athletes/et. al. would come to the U. S. for the Russian Nutcracker Ballet tour, then ask for asylum. Or maybe your country-that-is-not-the-US didn't make a big deal of it, but it would be all over the news about how some ballet performer seeks asylum from The Evil Empire(tm). Of course the person would seek asylum in the U. S.,…

Maybe because they don't really have a story for why anyone would want to move there, other than running afoul of the same state security organizations that Russia is already opposed to. It's not exactly a huge draw for anyone who does NOT have those unusual security concerns.

It’s harder to only make a moral argument in the case of America which is generally richer than Russia.

Why would anyone go to Russia apart from some moral consideration, given that Russian has nothing else to offer? I think that’s a pretty valid argument in certain circles.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#183

Post by nradov »

btilly wrote: post #163
dirtnugget wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I liked Obama, his government would take any chance at spying on others.

As a senator, Obama missed around half his votes due to campaigning. During 2008, he missed close to 2/3. But he made sure to be back in Washington in July to vote for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to retroactively give immunity to AT&T for cooperating with a massive illegal wiretapping operation for the secret services. That was the point where I knew where Obama would stand on mass surveillance.

Congress is like the only job where you can take off as much time as you like and use it to apply for a better job.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#184

Post by seppin »

buran77 wrote: post #126
seppin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it really matter that Snowden received assistance from Russia considering the data he leaked was proven legitimate and courts even found the program he leaked from as being illegal? One program he leaked was found to be illegal. 98% of what he leaked had nothing to do with domestic surveillance, wasn't illegal, and only was released to hurt US intel efforts and standing in the world. Which is why people view t…

Not that long ago people were running from Russia and doing their best to defect to the US, with any information they could bring with them. I'm sure that if you were alive back then you never once characterized that the same way you do it now with Snowden. If you wanted accuracy you'd have come here with way more than a flimsy story and a conclusion that's pure speculation. But that's what you brought. > people view…

You make a lot of assumptions about what I think, and none of them are correct. Your writing style is also all over the place and hard to follow.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#185

Post by seppin »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #122
seppin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia can come off like the benevolent country protecting freedom. Not even the most devoted partisan can claim this was a straight face. Russia kills journalists that speak against Putin, poison political opposition, and paint with microwave radiation any diplomat misguided enough to attempt a dialogue. It's a mafia state, pure and simple.

Yes, but mafia states do PR so that they aren't recognized as clearly as mafia states.

Yes, and if you are a citizen of a free country that defects to a mafia state to help in their PR efforts, such an action should be called out for what it is.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#186

Post by seppin »

whateveracct wrote: post #110
seppin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia can come off like the benevolent country protecting freedom. Not even the most devoted partisan can claim this was a straight face. Russia kills journalists that speak against Putin, poison political opposition, and paint with microwave radiation any diplomat misguided enough to attempt a dialogue. It's a mafia state, pure and simple.

HN contrarians don't wanna hear that - they routinely gobble up the narrative that the US is less free than Russia and other autocracies.

I think it's more than Snowden is living the dream of every underappreciated IT worker and to speak against him is to speak against that dream, too.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#187

Post by TheCoelacanth »

seppin wrote: post #185
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but mafia states do PR so that they aren't recognized as clearly as mafia states.

Yes, and if you are a citizen of a free country that defects to a mafia state to help in their PR efforts, such an action should be called out for what it is.

Snowden didn't defect to Russia. The US trapped him there by revoking his passport while he was traveling through on the way to Ecuador.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#188

Post by rmrfstar »

mikestew wrote: post #53
tinus_hn wrote: post #22

The big question is what Russia has to gain from this. Is it just to troll the US?

Perhaps you weren't alive or old enough to pay attention back when Russia ballet dancers/athletes/et. al. would come to the U. S. for the Russian Nutcracker Ballet tour, then ask for asylum. Or maybe your country-that-is-not-the-US didn't make a big deal of it, but it would be all over the news about how some ballet performer seeks asylum from The Evil Empire(tm). Of course the person would seek asylum in the U. S.,…

Has anyone on this thread seriously discussed leaving the US with their partner, based at least in part on the growth and aggressiveness of its domestic security services?

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#189

Post by class4behavior »

seppin wrote: post #180
class4behavior wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that because that's the very likely truth. We know his passport got declared invalid. It's standard procedure. The timeline is also normal as the story was developing quickly once he revealed he was the source. There are a lot of claims that he gave the Chinese intel, so somehow, after they didn't give him any protection, he just immediately gambled on selling info to Russia?

> It's standard procedure. If it's "standard procedure", then he would have fully expected to stay in (be stuck in) the first country he landed at once leaving HK. Like I said, it was planned.

Ah, yes, the trained master-mind Snowden. It was all a ploy to embarrass the US and hide the fact that Snowden actually collaborated with Russia, which the US for some reason would never even assert.

Re: Russia gives Edward Snowden permanent residency

#190

Post by manquer »

rmrfstar wrote: post #188
mikestew wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you weren't alive or old enough to pay attention back when Russia ballet dancers/athletes/et. al. would come to the U. S. for the Russian Nutcracker Ballet tour, then ask for asylum. Or maybe your country-that-is-not-the-US didn't make a big deal of it, but it would be all over the news about how some ballet performer seeks asylum from The Evil Empire(tm). Of course the person would seek asylum in the U. S.,…

Has anyone on this thread seriously discussed leaving the US with their partner, based at least in part on the growth and aggressiveness of its domestic security services?

During the peak of red scare, McCarthyism it quite likely there were people who left because such concerns, so it possible.

Plenty of people from the tech world have had unpleasant experience with US security apparatus, leaving them hesitant take a job in the states. The maintainer of curl project comes to mind notably

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