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So where's Snowden in all this? The article talks at great length about everybody he gave copies to and how they've all gone silent, but obviously he holds copi

So where's Snowden in all this? The article talks at great length about everybody he gave copies to and how they've all gone silent, but obviously he holds copies as well and is not beholden to the US on what he does with them. (Although he is surely on a short leash with his Russian masters as well.)

BLKNSLVR 13d ago
> In January 2014, he told a German TV interviewer that he gave all of his information to American journalists reporting on American issues.[56] During his first American TV interview, in May 2014, Snowden said he had protected himself from Russian leverage by destroying the material he had been holding before landing in Moscow [0] Also, please refer to a reply to a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781990 [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Hong_Kong
- 0110101001 13d ago
  Because I know that's what we'd all do when fleeing our home country with a couple million highly desirable classified documents, attempting to avoid prosecution. We'd all make sure to "protect" ourselves from "leverage" by the people who might (and ultimately did) help us achieve our goals by destroying our one and only bargaining chip.
  - whatshisface 13d ago
    People with ordinary levels of moral weakness would never become whistleblowers in the first place. They'd keep their excellent, comfortable and stimulating government careers.
  - BLKNSLVR 13d ago
    His autobiography is worth reading. Yes, he wrote it, so it can be skewed all kinds of whichways to suit his agenda, but the picture it paints is of someone born into the US establishment (government / military / intelligence) and essentially a strong belief in the outward impression the US presents to the world. Freedom and Liberty! I may be all kinds of naive in saying this, but I think he did it for relatively purely "the US must be better than this" motivations. I can't see his motivation being of the same ilk as The Cambridge Five.
walrus01 13d ago
I'm pretty sure he's staying quiet as fuck because he doesn't want to come to any public attention and get deported from Russia. Which would mean he would end up on a one way trip for life to ADX Florence. I haven't seen anything out of him since 2022 on the topic of the russia/ukraine war for instance. Edit: If I would have to guess, he has some form of Russian intelligence minders who are responsible for oversight of him and his lifestyle and public profile (the russians aren't stupid, of course they have such people), and he has specifically told them he's going to remain completely quiet on everything political and make no further public statements of any sort
- Drupon 13d ago
  [flagged]
  - walrus01 13d ago
    I can't even tell if this is posted in earnest, or satire, or some sort of highly advanced shitpost I am failing to grasp the nature of.
    - Drupon 13d ago
      I'm an American citizen who read news about Ukraine back when it was a niche thing to care about and I have Ukrainian friends who tell me how it's going. You can't imagine how stressful it is to live there and get drafted into their drone target lottery.
      - mitxela 12d ago
        And your proposed solution to that is, uh, surrender to Stalin in the hopes he stops hurting your guys when you surrender?
  - Calavar 13d ago
    This is a classic Russian perspective on the war - that Ukraine is a gang of neo-Nazis that are dead set on eliminating Russian speakers from Ukraine by force. Russians will further claim that this gang of Russophobic neo-Nazis is led by Zelenskyy, a Jewish man who speaks Russian as his mother tongue and Ukrainian as a second language. The absurdity of this claim should be self evident.

BLKNSLVR 13d ago

> In January 2014, he told a German TV interviewer that he gave all of his information to American journalists reporting on American issues.[56] During his first American TV interview, in May 2014, Snowden said he had protected himself from Russian leverage by destroying the material he had been holding before landing in Moscow [0] Also, please refer to a reply to a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781990 [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Hong_Kong

0110101001 13d ago
Because I know that's what we'd all do when fleeing our home country with a couple million highly desirable classified documents, attempting to avoid prosecution. We'd all make sure to "protect" ourselves from "leverage" by the people who might (and ultimately did) help us achieve our goals by destroying our one and only bargaining chip.
- whatshisface 13d ago
  People with ordinary levels of moral weakness would never become whistleblowers in the first place. They'd keep their excellent, comfortable and stimulating government careers.
- BLKNSLVR 13d ago
  His autobiography is worth reading. Yes, he wrote it, so it can be skewed all kinds of whichways to suit his agenda, but the picture it paints is of someone born into the US establishment (government / military / intelligence) and essentially a strong belief in the outward impression the US presents to the world. Freedom and Liberty! I may be all kinds of naive in saying this, but I think he did it for relatively purely "the US must be better than this" motivations. I can't see his motivation being of the same ilk as The Cambridge Five.

walrus01 13d ago

I'm pretty sure he's staying quiet as fuck because he doesn't want to come to any public attention and get deported from Russia. Which would mean he would end up on a one way trip for life to ADX Florence. I haven't seen anything out of him since 2022 on the topic of the russia/ukraine war for instance. Edit: If I would have to guess, he has some form of Russian intelligence minders who are responsible for oversight of him and his lifestyle and public profile (the russians aren't stupid, of course they have such people), and he has specifically told them he's going to remain completely quiet on everything political and make no further public statements of any sort

Drupon 13d ago
[flagged]
- walrus01 13d ago
  I can't even tell if this is posted in earnest, or satire, or some sort of highly advanced shitpost I am failing to grasp the nature of.
  - Drupon 13d ago
    I'm an American citizen who read news about Ukraine back when it was a niche thing to care about and I have Ukrainian friends who tell me how it's going. You can't imagine how stressful it is to live there and get drafted into their drone target lottery.
    - mitxela 12d ago
      And your proposed solution to that is, uh, surrender to Stalin in the hopes he stops hurting your guys when you surrender?
- Calavar 13d ago
  This is a classic Russian perspective on the war - that Ukraine is a gang of neo-Nazis that are dead set on eliminating Russian speakers from Ukraine by force. Russians will further claim that this gang of Russophobic neo-Nazis is led by Zelenskyy, a Jewish man who speaks Russian as his mother tongue and Ukrainian as a second language. The absurdity of this claim should be self evident.