6 ms·

Putin grants Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden

61 points by georgecmu 4y ago

maxharris 4y ago
- hsnewman 4y ago
  - taraharris 4y ago
    They each had a duty to pardon Snowden, as he showed the American public incontrovertible evidence that the US Government is violating the Constitution by spying on Americans.
    - hsnewman 4y ago
      - hitpointdrew 4y ago
        You might want to actually read the constitution before you spout off non-sense. >The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
        z3c0 4y ago
        This is still an area of controversy, and the text you've highlighted explains exactly why: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Most of our digital information is not gathered from places protected by the 4th Amendment - you sent that data to somebody else. Albeit unwittingly, but that's legally your fault, per the ToS. Scalia, despite being a polarizing figure, was a staunch defender of the 4th Amendment, and even he admitted that this was a grey area[1]. This is because he was an originalist, and this scenario never could have been imagined by the forefathers. So there's no real "original intent" to look towards, which is very important to the Supreme Court in their rulings. That said, I believe Snowden did the right thing, as this still highlights a gaping hole in our rights, and anyone who denotes him a traitor for it is bordering being one themselves. [1]: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/asked_about_nsa_stuff_scalia_says_conversations_arent_protected_by_fourth_a https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/asked_about_nsa_stuf... Edit: I'll add that the CIA leaks are more troubling, if you'd like to see some true violations of 4th amendment rights. IANASupremeCourtJustice, but I think bugging a smart TV would qualify here.
        hitpointdrew 4y ago
        There is really nothing gray here. "in thier persons" and "in their houses" My computer, or phone, or whatever is in my house or on my person therefore it applies. "papers" Files/emails/etc. these days are just digital "papers", there for it applies to all digital communications. The spirit of the amendment is abundantly clear (despite Scalia's ignorance on this), and there is zero ambiguity. Anyone arguing that technically it doesn't apply to <insert technology that the writers could not possibly have fathomed here>, is someone who simply wants to subvert the constitution. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise on any sort of solid ground, the spirit is so crystal clear the writers couldn't not have done a better job.
        z3c0 4y ago
        It seems that you've never realized that most of the stuff being gathered is not stored on any device that you have control over. Very weird to encounter on HN, but I guess you're part of today's 10,000... Maybe if you were running an SMTP server from your home would the 4th amendment apply in the way that you think it does. Most people have trusted another entity to house their "digital papers", so your beef should be with the organizations who hand it over to Feds without a fight. At least understand the nature of the problem before commenting so vehemently on it.
        anigbrowl 4y ago
        Don't defend yourself if you ever end up in a legal conflict.
      - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
        Depends how you interpret the Fourth Amendment. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
      - theandrewbailey 4y ago
        > Nothing in the constitution says anything about spying on citizens being illegal. Moreover, you have no right to privacy. Um, it does. The 4th amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Edit: and I don't think the Constitution or Amendments have anything to say about classified documents, nor national security. (After all, it was written at a time when there was fresh memories of a foreign army marching through America. There was no 'national security'.) I wouldn't be surprised if that whole bureaucracy gets ruled unconstitutional at some point.
      - worstestes 4y ago
        We seem to have a constitutional scholar in our midst!
      - malshe 4y ago
        Oh, we are talking about the US here. Not Russia or China.
      - 25amxn25 4y ago
      - fgt9398 4y ago
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      He could have done that without exposing so much of, say, the Special Collection Service.
      - z3c0 4y ago
        That's exactly who he should have been spotlighting. The Five Eyes is an egregious Orwellian contruct, and STATEROOM is integral to its continued existence.
  - hitpointdrew 4y ago
    Whistle blowers are "spy's" now? Don't we have laws in place that are supposedly there to protect whistle blowers?
    - hsnewman 4y ago
      A Whistle blower doesn't have to release top secret information to the public, rather they follow the rules and submit it to the proper authorities.
      - maxharris 4y ago
        Secrecy is required to maintain empire. Where there is secrecy, there is always corruption. Edit (in order to reply to David - I am somehow blocked from replying to him): I'm not the government. I don't have the legal right to start a war, or to sentence a person to death. If you don't like what I have to say, you can just ignore me. But you can't do that with a government that keeps secrets. Official secrecy robs you of the knowledge required to participate in democracy.
        _-david-_ 4y ago
        That is ridiculous. If secrecy means there is corruption then give me all your usernames and passwords. If you don't then you are corrupt.
      - helloworld11 4y ago
        This and your previous comment suggest that you're either a troll or truly some unique level of narrow-minded fool. Do you simply defend and applauds any sort of self-serving government rules or characterizations of others because they have vague, nebulous state power justifications on their side? Whistleblowers often get fired or worse for "submitting to the proper authorities". History is loaded with cases of them doing just that only to be brushed off and the information they revealed to be buried even further in obscurity. Surely you can't be so dense as to not have read about just how easily and frequently this happens before labeling someone a traitor for going outside official channels to disclose conduct that even the responsible government admitted was BLATANTLY illegal in many ways?
  - pGuitar 4y ago
    Snowden exposed disgusting stuff that the US government is probably still doing today (and probably doing even worst things now since this was exposed about 10 years ago)
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      He also exposed a bunch of programs that were doing their jobs: collecting foreign intelligence. He could have accomplished his goal without doing that.
      - croes 4y ago
        Oh, so wrong doing is okay as long it affects only foreign states, including allies? These people have rights too.
        jonnybgood 4y ago
        This is a naive take on geopolitics. It’s par for the course of diplomacy and alliances.
        croes 4y ago
        Just because it's customary doesn't make it right.
        aerostable_slug 4y ago
        So an American aid worker gets taken hostage and we're not going to collect cell calls in Africa because that would violate the right to privacy of uninvolved Nigeriens? Really? And in foreign relations, it's best to remember the words of PM Henry Palmerstone in the British Parliament, 1848: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
        croes 4y ago
        Wrong example. If someone is taken hostage you collect the data of the suspects and in that area, you don't collect every data of everyone everytime Does your house get searched daily because a child is missing somewhere? I bet that approach would save more lives than collecting internet data. And the british aren't the best advisor for foreign relationships
  - croes 4y ago
    The spying was done by the NSA
- purple_ferret 4y ago
  - yesco 4y ago
    Julian Assange
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >"Had Snowden not run like a coward, he'd be a free man in the US right now." We can't know this for sure. We have no idea what the behind-the-scenes factors were that led to Obama granting clemency to Chelsea Manning.
    - jonnybgood 4y ago
      I think it’s very likely. If he’s a hero as some claim, it would be in the court record and there would be public pressure for clemency. He would have received media attention for his trial like Chelsea Manning, perhaps even more since he’s so outspoken.
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    The running like a coward part is always the pretense. It came down to being given a trial, 6th amendment. Let me tell you it's no easy feat getting your day in court, I've been waiting since February 6, 2009, and been suffering the punishment every day since. Any day now.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Are you sure? There are lot of theories it is due to Manning being trans. Can't look pro LGBT when you are jailing one of the most prominent ones.
pGuitar 4y ago
We are due for a new leak... wonder what they have been doing for the last ~10 years.
- mtmail 4y ago
  They? Are you confusing Edward Snowden with Wikileaks?
  - pGuitar 4y ago
    "They" as in the countless spy agencies... I bet you don't even know how many of them are in the USA alone (They all share data anyways, so what's the point?).
    - jonnybgood 4y ago
      17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...
      - coding123 4y ago
        That's a lot of "spy agencies", the word "countless" still applies as it's a figure of speech. Only on HN. This is why an engineer should never be president as much as many of you wish it to be so. You can't have a normal conversation without your ocd ticking off.
        jonnybgood 4y ago
        I’m not an engineer. And it’s actually not a lot when you break it down. They each specialize in different areas of intelligence. NSA does SIGINT, NGA does GEOINT, military branches do intelligence for military intelligence in their respective branch, law enforcement intelligence for law enforcement, and so on.
        pGuitar 4y ago
nonrandomstring 4y ago
The Russians are getting desperate. Next they'll hand him a rifle and it's off to Ukraine.
- OMGWTF 4y ago
  > Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Interfax that “since Edward didn’t serve in the Russian army and has no military service experience, he’s not liable for conscription.” src: https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/09/26/putin-grants-citizenship-to-edward-snowden https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/09/26/putin-grants-citizenshi...
  - ptnxlo 4y ago
    That might apply to Peskov's son, I don't see how it's valid for Snowden. The only use of Snowden I can imagine so far is the same they gave to Medvechuk during last week.
  - tomohawk 4y ago
    The mobilization order may say one thing on paper, but in practice they're just grabbing anyone they can. If you show up to protest against the mobilization and you're a man, they'll grab you and put you on a bus to the front.
  - ineedasername 4y ago
    Snowden's lawyer is either not aware of the specifics of the conscription order or is choosing to represent things in accordance with Putin's statements even though his statements don't align with the actual order, which is much broader. Here's a link to the full text, [1] which does not exclude individuals without military service. There have also been reports of people without military experience being taken [2] That said, I very much doubt they'd draft Snowden, I don't see what purpose that would serve. Also I'm not sure I'd consider him "outspoken" on the issue, but he has expressed criticism of the Russian government over the years, including their invasion of the Ukraine. In his own words, "It was not my choice to be here, and this is what people forget. ... It was not my choice to live in Russia." I very much doubt he considers Russia any better than the US with respect to their military & espionage programs, especially because I'd bet there's a firm (and low) upper limit on how much outspokenness the government there would tolerate from him. His value to Russia is his continuous presence on the world stage serving as a reminder about how the U.S. operates with respect to intelligence gathering. Otherwise, he's probably only 2-3 furious anti-Putin diatribes away from being the next underwear nerve-toxin assassination target. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/text-vladimir-putin-mobilization-decree-war-ukraine-russia/ https://www.politico.eu/article/text-vladimir-putin-mobiliza... [2] https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760121373/edward-snowden-tells-npr-i-have-been-criticizing-the-russian-government https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760121373/edward-snowden-tell...
Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
- 0x_rs 4y ago
  "This dude thought he was God"? I'd like to know how you developed this idea of him. Because such an overly inane and unsubstantiated description can only be in bad faith.
  - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    If you think your actions can change the perception of 400M people and their 90% approval rating of the military...then what else should be added. The approval rating didn't bulge when the aforementioned organization sent thousands to die for essentially nothing (if you believe the US military miscalculated the war on terror) or oil (if you believe the war on terror was a subtle ploy to get in there and be in control of oil) Didn't evne bulge after Abu Graib...so?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- theandrewbailey 4y ago
  Destroying the military's credibility or liking was not the point of why he did what he did. He wanted to expose the likely unconstitutionality of what the US government is/was doing.
  - Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
alecco 4y ago
dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985097
superchroma 4y ago
Damn, he'll be drafted next, Putin is meticulously petty, if nothing else.
purple_ferret 4y ago
Can't he fly to Ecuador now? He's got a brand new Russian passport.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  This is actually an interesting question. Just being granted citizenship doesn't mean you are automatically issued a passport. That requires a separate application process, where the government can probably refuse your request for any reason, or for none at all. I don't know how it works in Russia specifically, but I think in most countries the issuing of passports is subject to executive discretion, and even if Snowden technically has the possibility of challenging such a refusal in court, I don't imagine a court ruling against the Kremlin. Assuming he did have a passport, though, the question becomes "How could he escape Russia?". Russia probably has a system for recording the passport numbers of people who should be detained if they try to leave the country, but maybe that system isn't 100% effective when it comes to Russia's vast remote borders and enforcement officers who might be willing to take a bribe. (If you were going to disobey your orders like that, though, you'd probably also want to seek political asylum in whichever country you were supposed to be guarding the border with, since Putin probably won't respond well to the news that his political pawn has slipped out of his grasp). Then the problem becomes "How does Snowden remain a free man while the US are after him?". I don't know if he's on a secret Interpol wanted list, and they probably don't have his (hypothetical) new Russian passport number, so he might be safe for a while. But suppose he manages to get as far as Finland or Norway. Could he really then catch a flight to Ecuador without his plane being forced to land so he can be arrested on America's behalf? I think his best bet would be to travel (visa free) to Georgia, in a bus or something. Then fly from Tbilisi to Doha, and from there to Caracas, with a final leg to Quito. Alternatively, if he wanted to live in a G20 nation without a formal extradition treaty with the US, he could travel east to Indonesia. One final consideration is that Biden might actually want to pardon him (or at least pre-emptively reduce his sentence to some token amount, like one year, if that's even constitutionally possible). In such a scenario, it might be dangerous to announce this pardon while Snowden is still in Russia, since it makes him look like more of a flight risk, so the CIA would presumably have to contact him securely (I see the irony with that) and tell him that if he can get to a neutral third country, Biden will publicly announce the pardon. That would then make Snowden's travel out of Georgia (for example) a lot easier.
tonfreed 4y ago
Inb4 he's drafted and sent to Ukraine

61 points by georgecmu 4y ago

maxharris 4y ago

hsnewman 4y ago
- taraharris 4y ago
  They each had a duty to pardon Snowden, as he showed the American public incontrovertible evidence that the US Government is violating the Constitution by spying on Americans.
  - hsnewman 4y ago
    - hitpointdrew 4y ago
      You might want to actually read the constitution before you spout off non-sense. >The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
      - z3c0 4y ago
        This is still an area of controversy, and the text you've highlighted explains exactly why: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Most of our digital information is not gathered from places protected by the 4th Amendment - you sent that data to somebody else. Albeit unwittingly, but that's legally your fault, per the ToS. Scalia, despite being a polarizing figure, was a staunch defender of the 4th Amendment, and even he admitted that this was a grey area[1]. This is because he was an originalist, and this scenario never could have been imagined by the forefathers. So there's no real "original intent" to look towards, which is very important to the Supreme Court in their rulings. That said, I believe Snowden did the right thing, as this still highlights a gaping hole in our rights, and anyone who denotes him a traitor for it is bordering being one themselves. [1]: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/asked_about_nsa_stuff_scalia_says_conversations_arent_protected_by_fourth_a https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/asked_about_nsa_stuf... Edit: I'll add that the CIA leaks are more troubling, if you'd like to see some true violations of 4th amendment rights. IANASupremeCourtJustice, but I think bugging a smart TV would qualify here.
        hitpointdrew 4y ago
        There is really nothing gray here. "in thier persons" and "in their houses" My computer, or phone, or whatever is in my house or on my person therefore it applies. "papers" Files/emails/etc. these days are just digital "papers", there for it applies to all digital communications. The spirit of the amendment is abundantly clear (despite Scalia's ignorance on this), and there is zero ambiguity. Anyone arguing that technically it doesn't apply to <insert technology that the writers could not possibly have fathomed here>, is someone who simply wants to subvert the constitution. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise on any sort of solid ground, the spirit is so crystal clear the writers couldn't not have done a better job.
        z3c0 4y ago
        It seems that you've never realized that most of the stuff being gathered is not stored on any device that you have control over. Very weird to encounter on HN, but I guess you're part of today's 10,000... Maybe if you were running an SMTP server from your home would the 4th amendment apply in the way that you think it does. Most people have trusted another entity to house their "digital papers", so your beef should be with the organizations who hand it over to Feds without a fight. At least understand the nature of the problem before commenting so vehemently on it.
        anigbrowl 4y ago
        Don't defend yourself if you ever end up in a legal conflict.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      Depends how you interpret the Fourth Amendment. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
    - theandrewbailey 4y ago
      > Nothing in the constitution says anything about spying on citizens being illegal. Moreover, you have no right to privacy. Um, it does. The 4th amendment: > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Edit: and I don't think the Constitution or Amendments have anything to say about classified documents, nor national security. (After all, it was written at a time when there was fresh memories of a foreign army marching through America. There was no 'national security'.) I wouldn't be surprised if that whole bureaucracy gets ruled unconstitutional at some point.
    - worstestes 4y ago
      We seem to have a constitutional scholar in our midst!
    - malshe 4y ago
      Oh, we are talking about the US here. Not Russia or China.
    - 25amxn25 4y ago
    - fgt9398 4y ago
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    He could have done that without exposing so much of, say, the Special Collection Service.
    - z3c0 4y ago
      That's exactly who he should have been spotlighting. The Five Eyes is an egregious Orwellian contruct, and STATEROOM is integral to its continued existence.
- hitpointdrew 4y ago
  Whistle blowers are "spy's" now? Don't we have laws in place that are supposedly there to protect whistle blowers?
  - hsnewman 4y ago
    A Whistle blower doesn't have to release top secret information to the public, rather they follow the rules and submit it to the proper authorities.
    - maxharris 4y ago
      Secrecy is required to maintain empire. Where there is secrecy, there is always corruption. Edit (in order to reply to David - I am somehow blocked from replying to him): I'm not the government. I don't have the legal right to start a war, or to sentence a person to death. If you don't like what I have to say, you can just ignore me. But you can't do that with a government that keeps secrets. Official secrecy robs you of the knowledge required to participate in democracy.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        That is ridiculous. If secrecy means there is corruption then give me all your usernames and passwords. If you don't then you are corrupt.
    - helloworld11 4y ago
      This and your previous comment suggest that you're either a troll or truly some unique level of narrow-minded fool. Do you simply defend and applauds any sort of self-serving government rules or characterizations of others because they have vague, nebulous state power justifications on their side? Whistleblowers often get fired or worse for "submitting to the proper authorities". History is loaded with cases of them doing just that only to be brushed off and the information they revealed to be buried even further in obscurity. Surely you can't be so dense as to not have read about just how easily and frequently this happens before labeling someone a traitor for going outside official channels to disclose conduct that even the responsible government admitted was BLATANTLY illegal in many ways?
- pGuitar 4y ago
  Snowden exposed disgusting stuff that the US government is probably still doing today (and probably doing even worst things now since this was exposed about 10 years ago)
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    He also exposed a bunch of programs that were doing their jobs: collecting foreign intelligence. He could have accomplished his goal without doing that.
    - croes 4y ago
      Oh, so wrong doing is okay as long it affects only foreign states, including allies? These people have rights too.
      - jonnybgood 4y ago
        This is a naive take on geopolitics. It’s par for the course of diplomacy and alliances.
        croes 4y ago
        Just because it's customary doesn't make it right.
      - aerostable_slug 4y ago
        So an American aid worker gets taken hostage and we're not going to collect cell calls in Africa because that would violate the right to privacy of uninvolved Nigeriens? Really? And in foreign relations, it's best to remember the words of PM Henry Palmerstone in the British Parliament, 1848: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
        croes 4y ago
        Wrong example. If someone is taken hostage you collect the data of the suspects and in that area, you don't collect every data of everyone everytime Does your house get searched daily because a child is missing somewhere? I bet that approach would save more lives than collecting internet data. And the british aren't the best advisor for foreign relationships
- croes 4y ago
  The spying was done by the NSA
purple_ferret 4y ago
- yesco 4y ago
  Julian Assange
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >"Had Snowden not run like a coward, he'd be a free man in the US right now." We can't know this for sure. We have no idea what the behind-the-scenes factors were that led to Obama granting clemency to Chelsea Manning.
  - jonnybgood 4y ago
    I think it’s very likely. If he’s a hero as some claim, it would be in the court record and there would be public pressure for clemency. He would have received media attention for his trial like Chelsea Manning, perhaps even more since he’s so outspoken.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  The running like a coward part is always the pretense. It came down to being given a trial, 6th amendment. Let me tell you it's no easy feat getting your day in court, I've been waiting since February 6, 2009, and been suffering the punishment every day since. Any day now.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Are you sure? There are lot of theories it is due to Manning being trans. Can't look pro LGBT when you are jailing one of the most prominent ones.

pGuitar 4y ago

We are due for a new leak... wonder what they have been doing for the last ~10 years.

mtmail 4y ago
They? Are you confusing Edward Snowden with Wikileaks?
- pGuitar 4y ago
  "They" as in the countless spy agencies... I bet you don't even know how many of them are in the USA alone (They all share data anyways, so what's the point?).
  - jonnybgood 4y ago
    17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...
    - coding123 4y ago
      That's a lot of "spy agencies", the word "countless" still applies as it's a figure of speech. Only on HN. This is why an engineer should never be president as much as many of you wish it to be so. You can't have a normal conversation without your ocd ticking off.
      - jonnybgood 4y ago
        I’m not an engineer. And it’s actually not a lot when you break it down. They each specialize in different areas of intelligence. NSA does SIGINT, NGA does GEOINT, military branches do intelligence for military intelligence in their respective branch, law enforcement intelligence for law enforcement, and so on.
        pGuitar 4y ago

nonrandomstring 4y ago

The Russians are getting desperate. Next they'll hand him a rifle and it's off to Ukraine.

OMGWTF 4y ago
> Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Interfax that “since Edward didn’t serve in the Russian army and has no military service experience, he’s not liable for conscription.” src: https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/09/26/putin-grants-citizenship-to-edward-snowden https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/09/26/putin-grants-citizenshi...
- ptnxlo 4y ago
  That might apply to Peskov's son, I don't see how it's valid for Snowden. The only use of Snowden I can imagine so far is the same they gave to Medvechuk during last week.
- tomohawk 4y ago
  The mobilization order may say one thing on paper, but in practice they're just grabbing anyone they can. If you show up to protest against the mobilization and you're a man, they'll grab you and put you on a bus to the front.
- ineedasername 4y ago
  Snowden's lawyer is either not aware of the specifics of the conscription order or is choosing to represent things in accordance with Putin's statements even though his statements don't align with the actual order, which is much broader. Here's a link to the full text, [1] which does not exclude individuals without military service. There have also been reports of people without military experience being taken [2] That said, I very much doubt they'd draft Snowden, I don't see what purpose that would serve. Also I'm not sure I'd consider him "outspoken" on the issue, but he has expressed criticism of the Russian government over the years, including their invasion of the Ukraine. In his own words, "It was not my choice to be here, and this is what people forget. ... It was not my choice to live in Russia." I very much doubt he considers Russia any better than the US with respect to their military & espionage programs, especially because I'd bet there's a firm (and low) upper limit on how much outspokenness the government there would tolerate from him. His value to Russia is his continuous presence on the world stage serving as a reminder about how the U.S. operates with respect to intelligence gathering. Otherwise, he's probably only 2-3 furious anti-Putin diatribes away from being the next underwear nerve-toxin assassination target. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/text-vladimir-putin-mobilization-decree-war-ukraine-russia/ https://www.politico.eu/article/text-vladimir-putin-mobiliza... [2] https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760121373/edward-snowden-tells-npr-i-have-been-criticizing-the-russian-government https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760121373/edward-snowden-tell...

Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago

0x_rs 4y ago
"This dude thought he was God"? I'd like to know how you developed this idea of him. Because such an overly inane and unsubstantiated description can only be in bad faith.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
  If you think your actions can change the perception of 400M people and their 90% approval rating of the military...then what else should be added. The approval rating didn't bulge when the aforementioned organization sent thousands to die for essentially nothing (if you believe the US military miscalculated the war on terror) or oil (if you believe the war on terror was a subtle ploy to get in there and be in control of oil) Didn't evne bulge after Abu Graib...so?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
theandrewbailey 4y ago
Destroying the military's credibility or liking was not the point of why he did what he did. He wanted to expose the likely unconstitutionality of what the US government is/was doing.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
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alecco 4y ago

dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985097

superchroma 4y ago

Damn, he'll be drafted next, Putin is meticulously petty, if nothing else.

purple_ferret 4y ago

Can't he fly to Ecuador now? He's got a brand new Russian passport.

dane-pgp 4y ago
This is actually an interesting question. Just being granted citizenship doesn't mean you are automatically issued a passport. That requires a separate application process, where the government can probably refuse your request for any reason, or for none at all. I don't know how it works in Russia specifically, but I think in most countries the issuing of passports is subject to executive discretion, and even if Snowden technically has the possibility of challenging such a refusal in court, I don't imagine a court ruling against the Kremlin. Assuming he did have a passport, though, the question becomes "How could he escape Russia?". Russia probably has a system for recording the passport numbers of people who should be detained if they try to leave the country, but maybe that system isn't 100% effective when it comes to Russia's vast remote borders and enforcement officers who might be willing to take a bribe. (If you were going to disobey your orders like that, though, you'd probably also want to seek political asylum in whichever country you were supposed to be guarding the border with, since Putin probably won't respond well to the news that his political pawn has slipped out of his grasp). Then the problem becomes "How does Snowden remain a free man while the US are after him?". I don't know if he's on a secret Interpol wanted list, and they probably don't have his (hypothetical) new Russian passport number, so he might be safe for a while. But suppose he manages to get as far as Finland or Norway. Could he really then catch a flight to Ecuador without his plane being forced to land so he can be arrested on America's behalf? I think his best bet would be to travel (visa free) to Georgia, in a bus or something. Then fly from Tbilisi to Doha, and from there to Caracas, with a final leg to Quito. Alternatively, if he wanted to live in a G20 nation without a formal extradition treaty with the US, he could travel east to Indonesia. One final consideration is that Biden might actually want to pardon him (or at least pre-emptively reduce his sentence to some token amount, like one year, if that's even constitutionally possible). In such a scenario, it might be dangerous to announce this pardon while Snowden is still in Russia, since it makes him look like more of a flight risk, so the CIA would presumably have to contact him securely (I see the irony with that) and tell him that if he can get to a neutral third country, Biden will publicly announce the pardon. That would then make Snowden's travel out of Georgia (for example) a lot easier.

tonfreed 4y ago

Inb4 he's drafted and sent to Ukraine