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Could you please elaborate on this? I recently had dinner with a friend in intelligence, who was trying to convince me that Snowden was in bed with Russia from
by l33tbro 10y ago
Could you please elaborate on this? I recently had dinner with a friend in intelligence, who was trying to convince me that Snowden was in bed with Russia from the get-go, and that the 90% of the leak had nothing to do with privacy concerns.
I took his opinions with a grain of salt given his background, but also couldn't refute due to being relatively unfamiliar with the Snowden saga.
- danenania 10y agoEvery bit of the leak was about mass surveillance--how could it not have to do with privacy concerns? The "in bed with Russia" thing is just a smear. No one has produced any evidence of this, and it's really hard to make it match up with how everything unfolded.
- SilasX 10y agoAnd if someone did produce such evidence, they would be obligated to ask for that very same person's arrest for the breach of trust involved in such wistleblowing!
- sintaxi 10y agoGood grief, Your friend actually said that with a straight face?
- l33tbro 10y agoPerhaps attributed to the infamous Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- EdHominem 10y agoYour friend is full of shit. If they knew anything real they wouldn't be allowed to tell you. The biggest clue that what your friend says is wrong that Snowden wouldn't have gone public and announced himself if he was spying for Russia.
- rudolf0 10y agoRussia was one of his last choices as a refuge; they were just one of the only countries to accept him. I doubt he's fond of Russia, either, and he's made some passive-aggressive jabs at them on his Twitter. That said, it can't be ruled out that he divulged even more secret information to Russia's intelligence services as a condition for asylum, but I don't think there's any evidence it was one of his motives when leaking.
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoHe wasn't even trying to stay in Russia. He was just traveling through on his way to Ecuador but he got stuck there because the US revoked his passport.
- hendersoon 10y agoThat is the consensus of US intelligence, yeah, but they have no actual proof. Basically it's his word against their hypothesis. Do you really believe Snowden was a double-agent, or that he was a conscientious whistle-blower? That's what it comes down to.