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People became ambivalent. Snowden fled eventually to Russia. Some people viewed him less relevant over time as the archive merely trickled out. When he fled to

People became ambivalent. Snowden fled eventually to Russia. Some people viewed him less relevant over time as the archive merely trickled out. When he fled to Russia, he looked less like a martyr and more like a national security information leaker or spy like Robert A lot of what sounded extraordinary in 2013 is now baked into everyday discussion like metadata and mass surveillance. He is also available less for interviews because he is in Russia. Basically bigger fish to fry

anonym29 12d ago
He didn't flee to Russia. He had booked tickets to Ecuador going through Russia. The Obama administration revoked his passport, rendering him stateless and unable to leave Russia. Please do not regurgitate propaganda.
- firesteelrain 12d ago
  He actually fled the US before the leaks became public to Hong Kong but it was a calculated risk because Hong Kong has extradition treaty with the US. So he was fleeing already. He could have returned to the US however he would have most certainly faced arrest. So he asked and was granted temporary asylum in Russia. If my passport is voided for whatever reason then I am returning to the US. I am still a citizen and so was he. But naturally he didn’t want to be arrested so by definition became a fugitive.
  - BLKNSLVR 12d ago
    > I am still a citizen and so was he. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
    - firesteelrain 12d ago
      I get it I didn’t leak national security information but it doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t stateless. That’s the part I was referring to
      - BLKNSLVR 12d ago
        That just feels like a slightly different false equivalence - and having said that, I may be making yet another version of it by saying this: If a person has a 'state', but that state would immediately jail the person for treason upon their return, is that materially different to stateless? That feels like the reason that many countries allow 'political asylum'.
        firesteelrain 12d ago
        He wasn’t stateless. Stateless means no country recognizes you as a citizen. He just faced arrest if he returned. Same as any other fugitive. People seeking asylum still have a country and citizenship. Also he wasn’t facing treason charges. He was charged under the Espionage Act and with theft of government property. There were others in similar situations that faced up to 45 months in prison and Eric Holder was willing to make a deal in 2015. He basically is on self imposed exile in Russia.
        BLKNSLVR 12d ago
        > He just faced arrest if he returned You seem to continue to minimise the seriousness of the situation.
        firesteelrain 12d ago
        Oh it was very serious what he did. But it was odd he went to Hong Kong then to Russia on his was to Ecuador. It wasn’t well thought out
        pydry 12d ago
        It wasn't odd at all the list of places he could flee to was very limited because of his job. It's more odd that some people don't give him the same benefit of the doubt they would a whistleblower from Russia or China.
  - brightball 12d ago
    Wasn’t he departing from Hong Kong to Ecuador and was stuck in Russia because his passport was revoked in transit? I thought that’s what I remembered hearing. I think all of his meetings with reporters were in Hong Kong.
    - firesteelrain 12d ago
      Yes so his default option was to return to the US and face arrest so he applied for asylum (as a US citizen still)
      - sentientlaserbe 12d ago
        Her default option was to return to her abuser and face more abuse so she went to the only shelter she could access, having no means to access any other shelter. "Her" is Snowden. Let's not be so sneaky in how we word things ;)
  - crossroadsguy 12d ago
    > If my passport is voided for whatever reason then I am returning to the US. I am still a citizen and so was he. "firesteelrain = Edward Snowden" Hence established! ^
- BLKNSLVR 12d ago
  Eeesh, the propaganda must be strong in the US if you're getting downvoted for this. You're essentially summarising documented facts.
  - anonym29 12d ago
    It's partially propaganda, partially a result of a number of accounts on HN which are unwaveringly sympathetic to the US FedGov no matter what moral atrocities it commits. We know the US IC conducts social influence operations in forums far more obscure than HN, like cryptographic steering committees, it wouldn't surprise me if there's plenty of that going on here, too. That said, having known people who work in the US IC, I'm not entirely sure whether inorganic influence ops are even distinguishable from them "getting high on their own supply" of propaganda.
- walrus01 12d ago
  Thinking the US government wouldn't kidnap and rendition him from Ecuador is an extremely ignorant and uninformed position on how the US exercises power in the Americas. He made a least-bad choice of all possibly horrible choices and chose to stay in Russia.
  - BLKNSLVR 12d ago
    He couldn't take the trip to Ecuador because his passport was revoked. Ecuador's offer of asylum to Assange, and the fact that Snowden was traveling with a Wikileaks representative, is the likely reason for Ecuador being the originally chosen destination. It may be ironic (for the US) and lucky (for Snowden) that he was in Russia when the passport was revoked. Likely one of the few places the US may hesitate kidnapping him from. From a kidnap / rendition viewpoint, Ecuador is just one country on a long list of countries to which the US would probably not hesitate 'arranging a small excursion'.
    - walrus01 12d ago
      My point is that even if he did find himself physically in Ecuador he is not stupid enough to think that the US would not rendition him from Ecuador. Therefore making it an unacceptable risk to actually go to Ecuador. I believe it is highly likely that he never planned to go to Ecuador. At the time and date that he likely came to that regrettable conclusion, he found himself in one of the few places in the world where the US cannot arbitrarily rendition someone from without significant risk and possible consequences. The passport revocation means nothing, he had nowhere else he could possibly go without high likelihood of rendition even if he had a valid passport or wanted to leave Russia.
VCFundedGenYer 12d ago
He got stuck in Russia. He didn’t flee to Russia. Don’t twist facts.
- firesteelrain 12d ago
  He wasn’t stuck : his lawyers would contact the State Department and arrange a surrender. There is also the case of limited validity to return to the US. He chose to apply for asylum still and exiled himself. I am not making the case one way or the other because https everywhere was beneficial. But he signed up for a security clearance and knew what his obligations were (eg allegiance to the US)
  - BLKNSLVR 12d ago
    Between a Rock and a Hard Place is almost the literal definition of stuck. Yes, I'm using analogies, but I know which of the two I would choose. The US has only gotten worse in it's introversion since, so his choice seems to be increasingly correct - if personal liberty is the priority.
    - firesteelrain 12d ago
      He was faced with the possibility of arrest or hoping for full asylum in Russia. It was another calculated gamble. But I don’t agree he was stuck. It was all self created problem. No one forced him to take the circuitous route he took and no one forced him to leak as himself. Could have been private/anonymous. Could have stayed in the US.
      - unsungNovelty 12d ago
        You could literally watch the snowden movie alone and get half of facts right. Don't have to even read good journalist pieces. Just a movie. Come on.
  - usumgallu 12d ago
    I like to remind those with security clearances, which are really just hyper-NDAs, that the oath to the constitution supercedes any NDAs! Thats true allegiance to the US, which Snowden demonstrated, and very few people have the backbone to be/do.
commandersaki 12d ago
I would say Snowden's legacy is the push to get HTTPS everywhere.
- firesteelrain 12d ago
  That’s true
- Lammy 12d ago
  Which ironically makes the Internet more surveillable, because now every single connection has to hit some TLS-terminating origin and can't be cached at the edge of our own networks. Don't confuse security with privacy.
  - judge2020 12d ago
    What??? The internet is only more concentrated because most people choose price and convenience over a foolproof level of security. The cost/effort required to surveil traffic in coordination with TLS-terminating CDNs is multiple orders of magnitude higher than the effort needed to throw some high-Tbps middlebox in an IX rack to siphon every packet passing through it.
    - Lammy 12d ago
      > in coordination with TLS-terminating CDNs Not what I'm saying. No coordination is necessary. I'm talking about metadata, not encrypted contents — just the fact that you made some number of connections, at a certain time, from a certain network, to a certain network, in a certain order, with requests and responses of a certain size. It really doesn't matter what's inside. - https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad... - https://youtu.be/kV2HDM86XgI?t=1072 https://youtu.be/kV2HDM86XgI?t=1072 “First of all, David's description of what you can do with metadata […] is absolutely correct. We kill people based on metadata.” ― Former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden (2014)
      - 12d ago
unsungNovelty 12d ago
He didn't "flee" to Russia. His passport was renounced/revoked/disabled while he was on his way to the original destination. He got stuck in the Russian airport for a freaking long time in a small room while the govt made sure he can't go anywhere else. Good Lord, fled to Russia it seems.
- firesteelrain 12d ago
  He could have returned to the US. He chose to exile in Russia. He was already fleeing. I posted a bunch about it below
  - unsungNovelty 12d ago
    Snowden has repeatedly talked about why he wouldn't return to US cos the trial won't be fair. He wanted to be able to talk. But due to his role, the trial would be a muppet one where he can't even talk. Or am I wrong? At the time, look at the situation of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and the many whistle blowers before Snowden? How can u blame him? Edit: Am unable to reply to comments. HN don't let you comment 2-3 levels in or is it moderation? - Fixed.
    - nl 12d ago
      The OP was right - avoiding a unfair trial is still fleeing. The word "flee" is not a pejorative in any way. For example flee North Korea all the time.
      - unsungNovelty 12d ago
        No. It is pejorative in the way it is used. Context is important.
    - firesteelrain 12d ago
      The problem is he can’t excuse the offense under the Espionage Act because it doesn’t have a public interest defense. One could argue that it should have that defense. But that doesn’t mean the resulting trial would have been a “muppet trial” He could have had counsel, challenged the government, and had a jury decide guilt. It would have been fair. It actually looks worse to flee like he did
TiredOfLife 12d ago
He didn't flee. Just went home.
crossroadsguy 12d ago
Passport revocations are all details. Where else he would have gone and stayed alive/un-arrested until now? He had the option of either not reporting what he saw wrong at all, or getting killed or arrested after doing that had he not chosen a place where USA (or lackies) either couldn't touch him with impunity, or rather wouldn't dare to touch him with impunity.
- deleted 11d ago
  [deleted]
- margalabargala 11d ago
  Ecuador was his original plan. He had been granted asylum there.
viktorcode 12d ago
Russians had a joke about him back then: "For the crimes against the US Snowden was sentenced to the life in Russia"
- atemerev 12d ago
  Absolutely not a joke.
fn-mote 11d ago
> Some people viewed him less relevant over time as the archive merely trickled out. The article addresses this argument, and quite thoroughly dismisses it as BS. Read the report about how rapidly the reporting stopped and how much material was left untouched.

anonym29 12d ago

He didn't flee to Russia. He had booked tickets to Ecuador going through Russia. The Obama administration revoked his passport, rendering him stateless and unable to leave Russia. Please do not regurgitate propaganda.

firesteelrain 12d ago
He actually fled the US before the leaks became public to Hong Kong but it was a calculated risk because Hong Kong has extradition treaty with the US. So he was fleeing already. He could have returned to the US however he would have most certainly faced arrest. So he asked and was granted temporary asylum in Russia. If my passport is voided for whatever reason then I am returning to the US. I am still a citizen and so was he. But naturally he didn’t want to be arrested so by definition became a fugitive.
- BLKNSLVR 12d ago
  > I am still a citizen and so was he. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
  - firesteelrain 12d ago
    I get it I didn’t leak national security information but it doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t stateless. That’s the part I was referring to
    - BLKNSLVR 12d ago
      That just feels like a slightly different false equivalence - and having said that, I may be making yet another version of it by saying this: If a person has a 'state', but that state would immediately jail the person for treason upon their return, is that materially different to stateless? That feels like the reason that many countries allow 'political asylum'.
      - firesteelrain 12d ago
        He wasn’t stateless. Stateless means no country recognizes you as a citizen. He just faced arrest if he returned. Same as any other fugitive. People seeking asylum still have a country and citizenship. Also he wasn’t facing treason charges. He was charged under the Espionage Act and with theft of government property. There were others in similar situations that faced up to 45 months in prison and Eric Holder was willing to make a deal in 2015. He basically is on self imposed exile in Russia.
        BLKNSLVR 12d ago
        > He just faced arrest if he returned You seem to continue to minimise the seriousness of the situation.
        firesteelrain 12d ago
        Oh it was very serious what he did. But it was odd he went to Hong Kong then to Russia on his was to Ecuador. It wasn’t well thought out
        pydry 12d ago
        It wasn't odd at all the list of places he could flee to was very limited because of his job. It's more odd that some people don't give him the same benefit of the doubt they would a whistleblower from Russia or China.
- brightball 12d ago
  Wasn’t he departing from Hong Kong to Ecuador and was stuck in Russia because his passport was revoked in transit? I thought that’s what I remembered hearing. I think all of his meetings with reporters were in Hong Kong.
  - firesteelrain 12d ago
    Yes so his default option was to return to the US and face arrest so he applied for asylum (as a US citizen still)
    - sentientlaserbe 12d ago
      Her default option was to return to her abuser and face more abuse so she went to the only shelter she could access, having no means to access any other shelter. "Her" is Snowden. Let's not be so sneaky in how we word things ;)
- crossroadsguy 12d ago
  > If my passport is voided for whatever reason then I am returning to the US. I am still a citizen and so was he. "firesteelrain = Edward Snowden" Hence established! ^
BLKNSLVR 12d ago
Eeesh, the propaganda must be strong in the US if you're getting downvoted for this. You're essentially summarising documented facts.
- anonym29 12d ago
  It's partially propaganda, partially a result of a number of accounts on HN which are unwaveringly sympathetic to the US FedGov no matter what moral atrocities it commits. We know the US IC conducts social influence operations in forums far more obscure than HN, like cryptographic steering committees, it wouldn't surprise me if there's plenty of that going on here, too. That said, having known people who work in the US IC, I'm not entirely sure whether inorganic influence ops are even distinguishable from them "getting high on their own supply" of propaganda.
walrus01 12d ago
Thinking the US government wouldn't kidnap and rendition him from Ecuador is an extremely ignorant and uninformed position on how the US exercises power in the Americas. He made a least-bad choice of all possibly horrible choices and chose to stay in Russia.
- BLKNSLVR 12d ago
  He couldn't take the trip to Ecuador because his passport was revoked. Ecuador's offer of asylum to Assange, and the fact that Snowden was traveling with a Wikileaks representative, is the likely reason for Ecuador being the originally chosen destination. It may be ironic (for the US) and lucky (for Snowden) that he was in Russia when the passport was revoked. Likely one of the few places the US may hesitate kidnapping him from. From a kidnap / rendition viewpoint, Ecuador is just one country on a long list of countries to which the US would probably not hesitate 'arranging a small excursion'.
  - walrus01 12d ago
    My point is that even if he did find himself physically in Ecuador he is not stupid enough to think that the US would not rendition him from Ecuador. Therefore making it an unacceptable risk to actually go to Ecuador. I believe it is highly likely that he never planned to go to Ecuador. At the time and date that he likely came to that regrettable conclusion, he found himself in one of the few places in the world where the US cannot arbitrarily rendition someone from without significant risk and possible consequences. The passport revocation means nothing, he had nowhere else he could possibly go without high likelihood of rendition even if he had a valid passport or wanted to leave Russia.

VCFundedGenYer 12d ago

He got stuck in Russia. He didn’t flee to Russia. Don’t twist facts.

firesteelrain 12d ago
He wasn’t stuck : his lawyers would contact the State Department and arrange a surrender. There is also the case of limited validity to return to the US. He chose to apply for asylum still and exiled himself. I am not making the case one way or the other because https everywhere was beneficial. But he signed up for a security clearance and knew what his obligations were (eg allegiance to the US)
- BLKNSLVR 12d ago
  Between a Rock and a Hard Place is almost the literal definition of stuck. Yes, I'm using analogies, but I know which of the two I would choose. The US has only gotten worse in it's introversion since, so his choice seems to be increasingly correct - if personal liberty is the priority.
  - firesteelrain 12d ago
    He was faced with the possibility of arrest or hoping for full asylum in Russia. It was another calculated gamble. But I don’t agree he was stuck. It was all self created problem. No one forced him to take the circuitous route he took and no one forced him to leak as himself. Could have been private/anonymous. Could have stayed in the US.
    - unsungNovelty 12d ago
      You could literally watch the snowden movie alone and get half of facts right. Don't have to even read good journalist pieces. Just a movie. Come on.
- usumgallu 12d ago
  I like to remind those with security clearances, which are really just hyper-NDAs, that the oath to the constitution supercedes any NDAs! Thats true allegiance to the US, which Snowden demonstrated, and very few people have the backbone to be/do.

commandersaki 12d ago

I would say Snowden's legacy is the push to get HTTPS everywhere.

firesteelrain 12d ago
That’s true
Lammy 12d ago
Which ironically makes the Internet more surveillable, because now every single connection has to hit some TLS-terminating origin and can't be cached at the edge of our own networks. Don't confuse security with privacy.
- judge2020 12d ago
  What??? The internet is only more concentrated because most people choose price and convenience over a foolproof level of security. The cost/effort required to surveil traffic in coordination with TLS-terminating CDNs is multiple orders of magnitude higher than the effort needed to throw some high-Tbps middlebox in an IX rack to siphon every packet passing through it.
  - Lammy 12d ago
    > in coordination with TLS-terminating CDNs Not what I'm saying. No coordination is necessary. I'm talking about metadata, not encrypted contents — just the fact that you made some number of connections, at a certain time, from a certain network, to a certain network, in a certain order, with requests and responses of a certain size. It really doesn't matter what's inside. - https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad... - https://youtu.be/kV2HDM86XgI?t=1072 https://youtu.be/kV2HDM86XgI?t=1072 “First of all, David's description of what you can do with metadata […] is absolutely correct. We kill people based on metadata.” ― Former NSA and CIA director General Michael Hayden (2014)
    - 12d ago

unsungNovelty 12d ago

He didn't "flee" to Russia. His passport was renounced/revoked/disabled while he was on his way to the original destination. He got stuck in the Russian airport for a freaking long time in a small room while the govt made sure he can't go anywhere else. Good Lord, fled to Russia it seems.

firesteelrain 12d ago
He could have returned to the US. He chose to exile in Russia. He was already fleeing. I posted a bunch about it below
- unsungNovelty 12d ago
  Snowden has repeatedly talked about why he wouldn't return to US cos the trial won't be fair. He wanted to be able to talk. But due to his role, the trial would be a muppet one where he can't even talk. Or am I wrong? At the time, look at the situation of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and the many whistle blowers before Snowden? How can u blame him? Edit: Am unable to reply to comments. HN don't let you comment 2-3 levels in or is it moderation? - Fixed.
  - nl 12d ago
    The OP was right - avoiding a unfair trial is still fleeing. The word "flee" is not a pejorative in any way. For example flee North Korea all the time.
    - unsungNovelty 12d ago
      No. It is pejorative in the way it is used. Context is important.
  - firesteelrain 12d ago
    The problem is he can’t excuse the offense under the Espionage Act because it doesn’t have a public interest defense. One could argue that it should have that defense. But that doesn’t mean the resulting trial would have been a “muppet trial” He could have had counsel, challenged the government, and had a jury decide guilt. It would have been fair. It actually looks worse to flee like he did

TiredOfLife 12d ago

He didn't flee. Just went home.

crossroadsguy 12d ago

Passport revocations are all details. Where else he would have gone and stayed alive/un-arrested until now? He had the option of either not reporting what he saw wrong at all, or getting killed or arrested after doing that had he not chosen a place where USA (or lackies) either couldn't touch him with impunity, or rather wouldn't dare to touch him with impunity.

deleted 11d ago
[deleted]
margalabargala 11d ago
Ecuador was his original plan. He had been granted asylum there.

viktorcode 12d ago

Russians had a joke about him back then: "For the crimes against the US Snowden was sentenced to the life in Russia"

atemerev 12d ago
Absolutely not a joke.

fn-mote 11d ago

> Some people viewed him less relevant over time as the archive merely trickled out. The article addresses this argument, and quite thoroughly dismisses it as BS. Read the report about how rapidly the reporting stopped and how much material was left untouched.