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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

by dijit 11d 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 I mean: We know his flight details, we know when his passport was revoked, and we know he can’t revoke his own passport, so that leaves very few plausible avenues.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 11d ago
He could have returned to the US. His citizenship wasn’t revoked.
- fsflover 11d ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476
- dijit 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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.
    - hylaride 11d ago
      Wikileaks leaked more than necessary. The diplomatic cable dumps included content that put the lives of diplomats at risk (eg honest, undiplomatic assessments of leadership/individuals, etc). Spying on foreigners wasn't the scandal, but that they were knowingly spying on Americans. As for Snowden? I dunno. The NSA was pretty much breaking the law and everybody knew it. I really want to like and believe in the romantic notion of his actions. But something just doesn't add up with him...
- IAmBroom 11d ago
  At the cost of immediate and longterm imprisonment. Decisions made at gunpoint are not usually preplanned choices.
  - firesteelrain 11d ago
    It was his choice to leak as himself. He could have used whistleblower routes (which was investigated and he only sent 1 email but never reported it) Really have to question his motives

by dijit 11d ago

firesteelrain 11d ago

He could have returned to the US. His citizenship wasn’t revoked.

fsflover 11d ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49782476
dijit 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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.
  - hylaride 11d ago
    Wikileaks leaked more than necessary. The diplomatic cable dumps included content that put the lives of diplomats at risk (eg honest, undiplomatic assessments of leadership/individuals, etc). Spying on foreigners wasn't the scandal, but that they were knowingly spying on Americans. As for Snowden? I dunno. The NSA was pretty much breaking the law and everybody knew it. I really want to like and believe in the romantic notion of his actions. But something just doesn't add up with him...
IAmBroom 11d ago
At the cost of immediate and longterm imprisonment. Decisions made at gunpoint are not usually preplanned choices.
- firesteelrain 11d ago
  It was his choice to leak as himself. He could have used whistleblower routes (which was investigated and he only sent 1 email but never reported it) Really have to question his motives