Can anyone fill me in on more details of the Snowden connection there? The rest of this article is quite thorough, and this topic certainly deserves more publi

Can anyone fill me in on more details of the Snowden connection there? The rest of this article is quite thorough, and this topic certainly deserves more public discussion of what went wrong and what should be done in the future. Obviously this episode should unsettle those who have concluded that the claims are true, and even those who are uncertain should take a look at how these issues circulated for so long without being brought to a head. The Snowden comment, though, confused me. Appelbaum accepted an award on his behalf, but as far as I knew that's about the extend of it. CCC and Assange have been tied into the community for long enough to have heard these things, and I can understand the comment about how they should have vetted Appelbaum. Snowden (to my knowledge) had no real connections in this community, and Appelbaum only stepped up to bask in his glow once he was in hiding and largely restricted from 'vetting' others. There might be questions about why no one else who knew the claims stepped in, but barring more evidence I have trouble with the claim that Snowden has something to answer for. I don't want to push too hard on one off-hand comment in a much larger piece, but I've already seen this used as ammunition to discredit Snowden: "If his actions are so good, why did he have anything to do with Appelbaum?" It seems like a bad meme to spread without some explanation of why he should have known about as-yet-unpublicized accusations.