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Snowden decries Russian surveillance bill as dangerous, urges Putin not to sign
- BWStearns 10y agoI'm shocked! Shocked! To see oppressive surveillance expansion in Russia! Good on Snowden for calling Putin out, but I don't think it'll mean anything. It is reassuring to see a reminder that his warm welcome in Moscow was just a diplomatic на хуй/fuck-you to the US. Reading some comments about Snowden made me think I had unwittingly Rip Van Winkled my way into some weird future where Russia was a bastion of individual liberty and respect for human rights.
- capote 10y ago"an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights" in Russia? Shocking. But seriously, will anyone relevant hear him? This type of thing is common in Russia and has been for a while. Snowden ran to hide in the mother of all government surveillance after blowing the whistle on government surveillance. I'm not belittling Snowden; I'm belittling the amount of attention and respect he gets relative to the action and help he provides. He just sort of says things… that are unimpressive… from hiding… in Russia.
- bbcbasic 10y agoHe was bound for Cuba via a safe route. What would you have done in his situation in Hong Kong, if preventing irony is your number 1 priority.
- capote 10y agoI wouldn't have been in his situation in Hong Kong because, while I see his actions as positive overall, I do not think they're worth having to run off to a place like Russia (which does what I'm trying to fix on a much larger scale) to escape jail. Preventing irony in this situation is important, because all the good he is doing is sending a message. If that message is ironic, it's not a very productive message—in comparison to the surveillance activity of Russia, the NSA surveillance looks like less of a big deal (and, in my opinion, is less of a big deal).
- sawthat 10y agoCuba is also not very free in this regard.
- dalke 10y agobbcbasic was incomplete. He was bound for Ecuador, which had offered asylum. His planned to go through Moscow then Havana, but Cuba was not his final destination. He was unable to carry out his plan because the US canceled his passport when he was in Moscow.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zerr 10y agoAs if signing or not signing something in Russia mattered...
- kafkaesq 10y agoIt does, quite a lot. To not understand this is not understand the philosophy and ideology of the system by which Putin (and the heads of other modern hyper-autocratic states) operate.
- zerr 10y agoWell, my country is affected by Putin/Russia actions an every day basis and I know that no matter what agreement they sign - they doesn't give a shit. It is something western elite can't understand.
- kafkaesq 10y agoOf course Russia routinely violates peace agreements with its neighbors. That doesn't mean these agreements don't have a significance in another, more psychological sense. In particular, that significance is: "See? We got you to think you can feel safe in exchange for swallowing your pride and making major concessions to us. Then we attacked you again anyway. Now you're really our bitch." It is something western elite can't understand. Dividing the world between east and west, or thinking "westerners think in such-and-such way, they'll never understand our situation" -- is exactly the mind trap that Putin and the secessionists in eastern Ukraine would love to have everyone fall in.
- zerr 10y ago> "westerners think in such-and-such way, they'll never understand our situation" -- is exactly the mind trap that Putin and the secessionists in eastern Ukraine would love to have everyone fall in. Well, the future aside, I'm talking about it post-factum. So yes, so far the ineffectiveness of the west plays hand in hand with Putin.
- Pica_soO 10y agoThere is a man, standing for his ideals, even if it would cost him the last save harbor he had. Now lets belittle that, so we can stop feeling small. And maybe, if all sides, put equally amounts of scrap on the scale, so it evens out, we might be able to lean back- and call the equilibrium "good".
- BWStearns 10y agoNo one is belittling his advocacy for his ideals even in Russia. I explicitly said the opposite. Him standing for his ideals, even and especially towards his hosts, does not however mean that we have to pretend that his host government shares those ideals.
- icebraining 10y agoWho is asking you to pretend? Clearly not Snowden - he's the one pointing out they don't!
- golergka 10y agoIt won't cost him anything because nobody in Russia will care much about it: those few who will hear about already made their mind about it, one way or another.
- tptacek 10y agoThere's no good-faith HN comment that closes by asserting that anyone who disagrees with it must be doing so "to stop feeling small". If you believe strongly that Snowden's actions are heroic, you could do a better job of making the case, or, if they're self-evidently heroic, you needn't comment at all.
- Pica_soO 10y agoIts rather obvious that criticizing the government in a more archaic society, will be viewed as "biting the hand that fed" and he will get a hard time for this. Despots remember well, too well.
- mc32 10y agoOh, Mr. Snowden. Now you learn the nature of the bear. Snowden, by revealing the surveillance on domestic inhabitants of the US did a service to his country, exposing overreach. However, turning over unrelated state secrets, to me was unnecessary and deplorable. On the other hand, now he's learning Realpolitik and he's now a forgotten thorn. Moscow might be shopping him around, get him out of their craw. Who knows. But certainly meddling with internal politics of the regime will not procure favors, but from the decimated (not only as a metaphor) opposition. Maybe he's itching to get out, or he's gone mad. This can't be a viable political move on his part.
- gruez 10y ago>However, turning over unrelated state secrets, to me was unnecessary and deplorable. Source?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- BWStearns 10y agoHe did exfiltrate more than the specific programs he had issue with and trusted Greenwald et al to differentiate between public interest or not, which I've heard as a pragmatism issue (filtering in situ exceeding risk tolerance). I have yet to see any evidence that he has turned any data over to Russia beyond what has been published for all. I'm sure Russia would prefer he did, but that doesn't mean he did (or for that matter, that he didn't). Just pissing off the USG is sufficiently explanatory for his being allowed to stay in Moscow, so I generally weakly hold the belief that he has not made extraordinary disclosures to Russia regarding things not published for public consumption.
- dalke 10y agoYour comments comes across as if this was a change in his behavior. But his criticism of Russia is not new, so "now he's learning Realpolitik" makes no sense. For example, a headline from Sept 2015 - "Snowden criticises Russia for approach to internet and homosexuality" - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/05/snowden-criticises-russia-internet-homosexuality https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/05/snowden-crit...
- golergka 10y agoHe was front and center in russian media when he spoke about US — but without even checking, I can guarantee you that this will not appear on a single TV channel and will be downplayed in any media that decides to run the story.
- banach 10y agohttps://www.rt.com/news/348404-snowden-russia-terror-law/ https://www.rt.com/news/348404-snowden-russia-terror-law/
- hartator 10y agoI think it's so weird to have so much negativity in HN comments towards Snowden. This guy should be our nerd hero. He was and he is risking his life, freedom and assets for solely calling out the US agencies on illegal activities.
- lisivka 10y agoHN means "Hacker News", and hackers are smarter than average people, so deviation from average in comments is expected.
- shit_parade2 10y agoMods silence and van accounts who support Snowden and denounce government surveillance.
- creole99 10y agoMy first suspicion whenever I see such comments is that maybe they are coming from astroturfers. (A well documented problem on Reddit). The negative comments here are generally weak and naieve even when they include valid points i.e. focusing on the "too much operational info" argument, while usually avoiding acknowledgment of the "secret illegal undemocratic global surveillance" argument. But then I think astroturfing (or meta-astroturfing) would be way too obvious, and such a fact would inevitably be discovered and cause a loss in faith. But who can say anymore in this crazy anything-goes Internet. Nothing surprises me anymore, and thats what makes me sad. Or yeah, maybe they sadly are just real comments. Perhaps we need vettable National IDs behind our social media accounts so I can see which of you are shills, spies and/or robots :)
- capote 10y agoThis isn't too much negativity (2 or 3 top-level comments that aren't even purely negative, but just questioning his heroism) and they were downvoted into the ground. Rest assured, HN is clearly pro-Snowden and doesn't question it. I'm not impressed by Snowden because I've seen worse than NSA surveillance (communist Romania, my grandfather was beaten to death in jail for having an anti-government journal) and I don't think the US can fall down such a slippery slope that we need to worry about it at the cost of security and massive irony. The formula that makes oppressive countries oppressive through surveillance just doesn't exist here. Not even close. Even by modern standards, we're not even in the same league as Russia and China in terms of oppression via surveillance. We should probably stop it at some point but it's not at the top of my priority list right now, and I'm not worried we're going to fall off some metaphorical cliff anytime soon. Anyway, to see Snowden in such a positive light requires thinking that stopping NSA surveillance is a top priority that should be done at any cost.