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Well it sort of hints that Snowden was a Russian agent from the start. And maybe that's why the Snowden documents are not being fully released, because they've

Well it sort of hints that Snowden was a Russian agent from the start. And maybe that's why the Snowden documents are not being fully released, because they've gone from responsible disclosure to irresponsible disclosure. I'm 100% convinced the US is evil imperialists, but in this particular case the "Snowden being a Russian agent"-angle isn't finding much resistance.

atemerev 13d ago
If he was an agent from the start, I doubt we would have learned this much publicly. The materials would have been much more valuable to Russia as pressure points, compared to the public release (yes, of course they spinned it properly, US is watching you and they are hypocrites etc etc, but this was damage control and closure from their part). As a Russian, I am not 100% convinced that US are evil imperialists [at least before 2025]. Have some humility, there are many more evil imperialists. You are probably not even in top 5.
- INTPenis 13d ago
  I'm actually Swedish lol. But I'm still convinced US are evil imperialists, and the only difference between the US and RU is that US have a stronger cultural influence, which is a huge advantage when they want to anchor their fleet all across the world.
dijit 13d ago
its just too convenient. If your goal is to discredit Snowden if you cant catch him, revoking his passport is a total win, he can’t flee to any neutral country (if there even is one that wouldn’t bend to the US) and wherever he lands is an enemy of the US. Russia or China make no material difference, but it’s a bit too “smart” of Snowden for his passport to be revoked while he was laying over en-route to Ecuador... It’s 3D chess when he doesn’t have the ability to move pieces. I mean: We know his flight details, we know when his passport was revoked, and we know he can’t revoke his own passport, so that leaves very few plausible avenues.
- firesteelrain 13d ago
  He could have returned to the US. His citizenship wasn’t revoked.
  - fsflover 13d ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476
  - dijit 13d ago
    “Hand yourself in” is not the compelling argument you seem to think it is. He put egg on the face of the US government, proving that neither democrats or republicans have done anything to preserve peoples right to privacy, even US citizens. So, what does anyone gain from his capture? Except for people claiming him to be a Russian asset, which they would still do because there is literally no bar that can be cleared for people to believe he did something he believed to be right for the public benefit. You just want him punished for daring to speak out, because it marginally weakened the US hegemony on digital goods and services.
    - firesteelrain 13d ago
      He leaked WAY more than necessary and didn’t seek out official whistleblower channels. Stuff that didn’t even have to do with US privacy. Say what you want about spying on foreign adversaries but every government does it to another one and that didn’t need to be leaked.
      - dijit 13d ago
        Can you point to anything that he leaked that wasn't necessary to leak? He didn't release it to the public, he chose journalists specifically who had a lot of integrity and would go through the data with lawyers and release only what pertained to the public interest, with the rest being destroyed or kept encrypted. It was also recorded and those recordings are the basis for the "citizenfour" documentary, so you can see for yourself. You can contrast this cleanly with Wikileaks which usually dumped only barely redacted information - this was a deliberate systemic filtering conducted by neutral journalists; Snowden published literally nothing himself and the vast majority of documents never made it to the public. In fact when he travelled out of Hong Kong he had literally no documents anymore. I'm not sure what you'd expect him to do honestly. The abuse of these systems was so systemic and widespread that the nature of them needed to be understood so that the scale of abuse could be comprehended. If you didn't know what xkeyscore was, then "civil servants spy on people they find attractive, routinely" doesn't have the same sting.. .... if Google engineers didn't know that there was an internal wiretap on the unencrypted part of there network ("data unencrypted and renecrypted here, LOL!" - actual quoted slide) then the push from big tech companies to encrypt internal traffic never happens, then mass surveillance of literally everyones email continues... heck, it probably still did... I'd bet money that they've planted staff who planted backdoors... So, what didn't he need to leak, point me to.. say, two things. NSA spying in China? Maybe, but USA spying on Angela Merkel was necessary, because spying on allied politicians is against several agreements. GCHQ leaks were important because it detailed the mechanism in which Five Eyes governments were circumventing their own laws that protect civilian rights to privacy. In fact, it was seeing James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence, lie in front of the Senate that triggered Snowden to leak things, because it was clear that the laws were not being applied- and everything released reinforces that point.

atemerev 13d ago

If he was an agent from the start, I doubt we would have learned this much publicly. The materials would have been much more valuable to Russia as pressure points, compared to the public release (yes, of course they spinned it properly, US is watching you and they are hypocrites etc etc, but this was damage control and closure from their part). As a Russian, I am not 100% convinced that US are evil imperialists [at least before 2025]. Have some humility, there are many more evil imperialists. You are probably not even in top 5.

INTPenis 13d ago
I'm actually Swedish lol. But I'm still convinced US are evil imperialists, and the only difference between the US and RU is that US have a stronger cultural influence, which is a huge advantage when they want to anchor their fleet all across the world.

dijit 13d ago

its just too convenient. If your goal is to discredit Snowden if you cant catch him, revoking his passport is a total win, he can’t flee to any neutral country (if there even is one that wouldn’t bend to the US) and wherever he lands is an enemy of the US. Russia or China make no material difference, but it’s a bit too “smart” of Snowden for his passport to be revoked while he was laying over en-route to Ecuador... It’s 3D chess when he doesn’t have the ability to move pieces. I mean: We know his flight details, we know when his passport was revoked, and we know he can’t revoke his own passport, so that leaves very few plausible avenues.

firesteelrain 13d ago
He could have returned to the US. His citizenship wasn’t revoked.
- fsflover 13d ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476
- dijit 13d ago
  “Hand yourself in” is not the compelling argument you seem to think it is. He put egg on the face of the US government, proving that neither democrats or republicans have done anything to preserve peoples right to privacy, even US citizens. So, what does anyone gain from his capture? Except for people claiming him to be a Russian asset, which they would still do because there is literally no bar that can be cleared for people to believe he did something he believed to be right for the public benefit. You just want him punished for daring to speak out, because it marginally weakened the US hegemony on digital goods and services.
  - firesteelrain 13d ago
    He leaked WAY more than necessary and didn’t seek out official whistleblower channels. Stuff that didn’t even have to do with US privacy. Say what you want about spying on foreign adversaries but every government does it to another one and that didn’t need to be leaked.
    - dijit 13d ago
      Can you point to anything that he leaked that wasn't necessary to leak? He didn't release it to the public, he chose journalists specifically who had a lot of integrity and would go through the data with lawyers and release only what pertained to the public interest, with the rest being destroyed or kept encrypted. It was also recorded and those recordings are the basis for the "citizenfour" documentary, so you can see for yourself. You can contrast this cleanly with Wikileaks which usually dumped only barely redacted information - this was a deliberate systemic filtering conducted by neutral journalists; Snowden published literally nothing himself and the vast majority of documents never made it to the public. In fact when he travelled out of Hong Kong he had literally no documents anymore. I'm not sure what you'd expect him to do honestly. The abuse of these systems was so systemic and widespread that the nature of them needed to be understood so that the scale of abuse could be comprehended. If you didn't know what xkeyscore was, then "civil servants spy on people they find attractive, routinely" doesn't have the same sting.. .... if Google engineers didn't know that there was an internal wiretap on the unencrypted part of there network ("data unencrypted and renecrypted here, LOL!" - actual quoted slide) then the push from big tech companies to encrypt internal traffic never happens, then mass surveillance of literally everyones email continues... heck, it probably still did... I'd bet money that they've planted staff who planted backdoors... So, what didn't he need to leak, point me to.. say, two things. NSA spying in China? Maybe, but USA spying on Angela Merkel was necessary, because spying on allied politicians is against several agreements. GCHQ leaks were important because it detailed the mechanism in which Five Eyes governments were circumventing their own laws that protect civilian rights to privacy. In fact, it was seeing James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence, lie in front of the Senate that triggered Snowden to leak things, because it was clear that the laws were not being applied- and everything released reinforces that point.