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> Is it still possible to trust anything that Snowden says? He has clearly exposed as a Russian agent and has history of releasing fake documents. These are pr

• nexusselexus 9y ago
  The parent post is a great example of the "the Russians did 9/11"-style hysteria sweeping low-information political communities due to the election interference. Let's not inflate the Russians into Illuminati masterminds on HN. No Snowden document has ever been reported as fake, and much to the contrary, the Snowden reporting actually won the Pulitzer prize. The entire reason it's famous is because the documents were verifiably authentic. There have been a lot of allegations against Snowden by his critics, but even the Congressional intelligence committees didn't make the claim that he is a Russian agent. In fact the former NSA guy who was in charge of the Snowden investigation said on camera there's no evidence of that, and that if Snowden were a spy, they would know by now.
• ellius 9y ago
  The primary person at NSA who investigated him has stated publicly that it's unlikely to be true, due to the actions taken on his behalf by various individuals who appeared to be making sincere efforts to get him to South America (rather than Russia). He was stuck in Russia due to his passport being revoked by the Obama admin. That official did state that it's possible that Russian or Chinese handlers could have faked those efforts, but he still believes there would be some telltale signs and that the most likely conclusion is that he was not in fact a foreign intelligence agent. Somehow I doubt this random internet guy has a more informed assessment.