201–210 of 242 posts
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What is it about Snowden discussions that brings out all the moral grandstanders and internet tough guys?
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A lot of people refer to him as a whistleblower because he exposed what the NSA was doing. A lot of people consider this a public good. Your definition of whisleblower seems to be closer to a government bureaucrat's definition. I'm curious why you brought that up?
> I'm curious why you brought that up? It’s a direct quote from the article.
Most of the article was discussing the illegal secret data collection he exposed and the worldwide response to those revelations in the ten years since.
I wasn't sure what difference it made that the official government whistleblower processes didn't work for him. Someone else mentioned he therefore lost legal whistleblower protections. I don't think that the public worried about big brother, the tech companies like Google who promptly encrypted all their traffic, or allies like Angela Merkel that were spied on, cared that Snowden stepped outside the government's whistleblower process when it didn't work.
I didn't know if this is what you meant, or if you thought that what he did (double cross the government) was worse than what the NSA did (double cross the public), or if he should have kept his mouth shut when the official process wasn't working, or something else.
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Ah, yes, the technical correct, best kind of correct. Remind me, why the country an ocean away has it's troops in these countries? And while we are it, can you explain why the country with only two countries on it's borders (one is allied, the other one is clearly not hostile) has a standing Army (not navy, not air force) of 460k+ active personnel?
OP claimed it was reasonable to say "Russia won't invade" because he claimed the US does things similar to Russia's buildup, but it doesn't invade. I was saying that, whatever your thoughts about US military policy, its deployment patterns are not, in fact, anything like what Russia did in late 2021/early 2022. Pointing out that the US has troops in other countries, and a massive military in general, does not address…
US doesn't have an army on the Russian border because it's at least an ocean away, so asking 'how many US forces at the Russian border' is naive at bedt and comparing apples to oranges at worst.
You are clearly are separating US from NATO, which is technically correct but absolutely ignores how US sees the world.
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OP claimed it was reasonable to say "Russia won't invade" because he claimed the US does things similar to Russia's buildup, but it doesn't invade. I was saying that, whatever your thoughts about US military policy, its deployment patterns are not, in fact, anything like what Russia did in late 2021/early 2022. Pointing out that the US has troops in other countries, and a massive military in general, does not address…
> Pointing out that the US has troops in other countries, and a massive military in general, does not address the point. US doesn't have an army on the Russian border because it's at least an ocean away, so asking 'how many US forces at the Russian border' is naive at bedt and comparing apples to oranges at worst. You are clearly are separating US from NATO, which is technically correct but absolutely ignores how US…
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> I downvote it because it’s been repeated a dozen times and there’s a lack of intellectual honesty to say that a prediction that Russia wouldn’t invade is the same as spreading Russian propaganda for deliberate and malicious reasons. It wasn't just a good-faith prediction, he was quite cocky and arrogant about that[0], including, ironically, accusing others of amplifying disinformation campaign: "So... if nobody sho…
I'll be charitable by assuming that people here are getting defensive by their hero not living up to expectations. Snowden is (justifiably) angry about the US treatment of him and happily amplifies Russian propaganda as some sort of badly considered revenge. It's a shame that he uses his platform for this, especially as the current propaganda is in support of Russia rolling their tanks across the border and killing t…
He is completely at their mercy and he knows it. What is he going to do, cry out to the world that Russia is hounding and harassing him, or otherwise making his already beleaguered situation even less tenable? First of all, who is going to care that can do anything about it, second, it will delight people he almost certainly views as his enemy for him to make any such pleas and thirdly, it starts down a path of no return to start calling out Russia for abuses while you are stuck there with no allies and no way out.
Being on reasonably amicable terms with the power-elite in Russia is pretty much the last, best hope he has in this world. Whether consciously or not, the severe ramifications of burning that bridge are going to weigh on every decision and proclamation he makes. Of course he may always consider this effect and choose actions that upset Russia/Putin without regard for personal consequences. But it becomes increasingly easy to justify the path that doesn't lead to the complete crushing of your spirit the longer you have lived your life staring down the barrel of 5 or 10 different shotguns trained right between your eyes.
And of course it gets easier still when you feel wronged and martyred by the enemy of your friend, even if that friend is born purely out of necessity and circumstance. Anyway, all that is to say, thought I am grateful for his attempt to protect American citizens' constitutional rights and hold the government that professes to fight always for freedom to a higher standard... I have to take anything he has said in recent years as extremely biased and a product of "soft" but very serious coercion (from multiple fronts).
I urge everyone interested to read the intel report and tell me what about it is false or inaccurate. https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/snowden_report_... https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_snowden_r... > “The Committee further found no evidence that Snowden attempted to communicate concerns about the legality or morality of intelligence activities to any officials, senior or otherwise, dur…
I will tell you that three letter agencies in the US have a proven and undeniable track record of lying incessantly and basically nothing that comes from them can be trusted.
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Then perhaps the US shouldn't have forced him to stay in Russia?
According to what I am reading on Wikipedia about the specific timeline, the US revoked his passport before he left Hong Kong. He claims he was planning to fly to Ecuador and was just going to pass through Moscow. And yet there are direct flights from Hong Kong to Ecuador. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Flight_from_the... The US government is not responsible for him flying to or staying in Russia.
I found no direct flights from Hong Kong to Ecuador. And a direct flight path would enter the country he fled.
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I agree that it looked like a crazy thing to do. But I'm not one of those who reaches for the word "madman" when someone does something that seems to me to be irrational. With the benefit of hindsight, it doesn't seem so irrational to me now. * Russia was under sanctions for the invasion of Crimea; the central bank had built up a huge stock of foreign currency, but it was only going to diminish with time. * The Russi…
I think it is astute to look at things in these terms, and avoid the lazy but quite common exercise of labeling motivations and actions you don't understand as "not understandable." George Kennan, who came up in a recent HN post [0], has a fair bit to say on the subject. Namely, that throughout its history, Russia has been obsessed with expanding and securing its border for perfectly understandable strategic reasons.…
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The guy was regurgitating Russian propaganda talking points on twitter just days before the invasion and then accepted Russian citizenship after the fact. At this point considering him a Russian asset seems reasonable IMO.
Isn't the big threat the US government's illegal and omnipresent spying on its own and other countries citizens, rather than what Snowden been up to lately?
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I downvote it because it’s been repeated a dozen times and there’s a lack of intellectual honesty to say that a prediction that Russia wouldn’t invade is the same as spreading Russian propaganda for deliberate and malicious reasons. I can’t be bothered to explain it more than this because any ability to not see this means I’m wasting my time explaining it further
> I downvote it because it’s been repeated a dozen times and there’s a lack of intellectual honesty to say that a prediction that Russia wouldn’t invade is the same as spreading Russian propaganda for deliberate and malicious reasons. It wasn't just a good-faith prediction, he was quite cocky and arrogant about that[0], including, ironically, accusing others of amplifying disinformation campaign: "So... if nobody sho…