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Snowdon is a traitor and a coward. Where is he living these days?

booleandilemma 2y ago
Somewhere our beloved leaders can't arrest him and send him to a CIA black site for the rest of his life.
wyldfire 2y ago
I don't think he's a traitor, especially if you consider the intent of his disclosures and the care he took to make sure that only the info that needed to be disclosed was. I suppose we can agree to disagree on that topic. But "cowardice" - that claim is just mind-boggling. What he did, even if you disagree with his motivations, required self sacrifice and bravery. Fleeing (what he believes to be) unjust laws that would punish him for his work is not at all cowardly.
- hollerith 2y ago
  I agree. Snowden's most traitorous act IMHO seems to have been mistakenly assuming that Beijing and the government of Hong Kong could afford to antagonize the national-security establishment in Washington to the extent of letting him reside in Hong Kong.
Yiin 2y ago
Where can he live anyways? Every other country will extradite his ass back to US, be real.
anonym29 2y ago
In the country he was transiting through en-route to his final destination in South America, before POTUS deliberately and specifically revoked his passport after ensuring Snowden had landed at his layover airport, in order to construct and disseminate the false narrative you're currently regurgitating.
- oyashirochama 2y ago
  He did break the law and all, means to an end isn't a good path unfortnately when you have no power. There were options to take to whistle blow the surveillance of citizens and it's illegal under NSA's own policy that they ignored illegally, and there's a technically independent section/organization for leaking these issues to OCA. Though I'm not sure if it was around in Snowden's time, it could literally have been made due to his concerns ironically.
  - simoncion 2y ago
    > There were options to take to whistle blow the surveillance of citizens... You should read Snowden's statements on the official channels he attempted to use, and those he disregarded. You should also go read up on what Daniel Ellsberg thought of Snowden's chances for getting a fair trial after publicly blowing the whistle on the long-running violation of federal domestic spying law. [0] [0] In the mid-1970's, FedGov treated whistleblowers who released classified information very, very poorly. These days (and back in the mid 2000's), FedGov fucking crucifies such people behind closed doors.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
      He never attempted to use official channels. > “As a legal matter, during his time with NSA, Edward Snowden did not use whistleblower procedures under either law or regulation to raise his objections to U.S. intelligence activities, and thus, is not considered a whistleblower under current law.” (p. 18) https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=743 https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docu... You should give these docs a skim, I'd be curious what your thoughts are. I used to sympathize with Snowden (and Assange) until I read into what actually went down.
      - simoncion 2y ago
        > He never attempted to use official channels. From [0], which links to a now-paywalled Vanity Fair article: > The N.S.A. at this point not only knows I raised complaints, but that there is evidence that I made my concerns known to the N.S.A.’s lawyers, because I did some of it through e-mail. I directly challenge the N.S.A. to deny that I contacted N.S.A. oversight and compliance bodies directly via e-mail and that I specifically expressed concerns about their suspect interpretation of the law, and I welcome members of Congress to request a written answer to this question [from the N.S.A.]. IIRC, Federal government contractors received approximately zero real protections under whistleblower law back in 2014. When Daniel Ellsberg is publicly saying that Snowden did things the right way, and that had Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 2014, he would have done it in much the same way Snowden did, you should strongly consider the possibility that the official channels that went disused were ignored for very good reasons. > I used to sympathize with ...Assange... If you're talking about Wikileaks, then the objective of Wikileaks was to spread secrets that were verified to be reasonably genuine (and generally harmless to human life if revealed) as far and wide as possible. Wikileaks' mission meant that it just wouldn't be using Federal whistleblower channels for its reporting. [0] <https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/08/snowden-says-nsa-is-lying-when-it-claims-he-didnt-raise-concerns-through-proper-channels/ https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/08/snowden-says-nsa-is-lyin...>

Somewhere our beloved leaders can't arrest him and send him to a CIA black site for the rest of his life.

I don't think he's a traitor, especially if you consider the intent of his disclosures and the care he took to make sure that only the info that needed to be disclosed was. I suppose we can agree to disagree on that topic. But "cowardice" - that claim is just mind-boggling. What he did, even if you disagree with his motivations, required self sacrifice and bravery. Fleeing (what he believes to be) unjust laws that would punish him for his work is not at all cowardly.

hollerith 2y ago
I agree. Snowden's most traitorous act IMHO seems to have been mistakenly assuming that Beijing and the government of Hong Kong could afford to antagonize the national-security establishment in Washington to the extent of letting him reside in Hong Kong.

Yiin 2y ago

Where can he live anyways? Every other country will extradite his ass back to US, be real.

anonym29 2y ago

In the country he was transiting through en-route to his final destination in South America, before POTUS deliberately and specifically revoked his passport after ensuring Snowden had landed at his layover airport, in order to construct and disseminate the false narrative you're currently regurgitating.

oyashirochama 2y ago
He did break the law and all, means to an end isn't a good path unfortnately when you have no power. There were options to take to whistle blow the surveillance of citizens and it's illegal under NSA's own policy that they ignored illegally, and there's a technically independent section/organization for leaking these issues to OCA. Though I'm not sure if it was around in Snowden's time, it could literally have been made due to his concerns ironically.
- simoncion 2y ago
  > There were options to take to whistle blow the surveillance of citizens... You should read Snowden's statements on the official channels he attempted to use, and those he disregarded. You should also go read up on what Daniel Ellsberg thought of Snowden's chances for getting a fair trial after publicly blowing the whistle on the long-running violation of federal domestic spying law. [0] [0] In the mid-1970's, FedGov treated whistleblowers who released classified information very, very poorly. These days (and back in the mid 2000's), FedGov fucking crucifies such people behind closed doors.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    He never attempted to use official channels. > “As a legal matter, during his time with NSA, Edward Snowden did not use whistleblower procedures under either law or regulation to raise his objections to U.S. intelligence activities, and thus, is not considered a whistleblower under current law.” (p. 18) https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=743 https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Docu... You should give these docs a skim, I'd be curious what your thoughts are. I used to sympathize with Snowden (and Assange) until I read into what actually went down.
    - simoncion 2y ago
      > He never attempted to use official channels. From [0], which links to a now-paywalled Vanity Fair article: > The N.S.A. at this point not only knows I raised complaints, but that there is evidence that I made my concerns known to the N.S.A.’s lawyers, because I did some of it through e-mail. I directly challenge the N.S.A. to deny that I contacted N.S.A. oversight and compliance bodies directly via e-mail and that I specifically expressed concerns about their suspect interpretation of the law, and I welcome members of Congress to request a written answer to this question [from the N.S.A.]. IIRC, Federal government contractors received approximately zero real protections under whistleblower law back in 2014. When Daniel Ellsberg is publicly saying that Snowden did things the right way, and that had Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 2014, he would have done it in much the same way Snowden did, you should strongly consider the possibility that the official channels that went disused were ignored for very good reasons. > I used to sympathize with ...Assange... If you're talking about Wikileaks, then the objective of Wikileaks was to spread secrets that were verified to be reasonably genuine (and generally harmless to human life if revealed) as far and wide as possible. Wikileaks' mission meant that it just wouldn't be using Federal whistleblower channels for its reporting. [0] <https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/08/snowden-says-nsa-is-lying-when-it-claims-he-didnt-raise-concerns-through-proper-channels/ https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/08/snowden-says-nsa-is-lyin...>