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He's fleeing to countries which won't fall over themselves to gain the favor of the U.S. and thus extradite Snowden. It might not be a coincidence that countri
by peeters 13y ago
He's fleeing to countries which won't fall over themselves to gain the favor of the U.S. and thus extradite Snowden. It might not be a coincidence that countries that would want to shame the U.S. would also not have a great civil liberties record.
Just because he's not publicly admonishing these countries doesn't mean that he condones their behavior. Perhaps he's a pragmatist who knows better than to bite the hand the feeds. Or perhaps he is much more impassioned about freedom in the U.S., his native land, sold to him as a bastion of civil liberty, than about freedom in countries that he cares less about.
- mpyne 13y agoPerhaps. I do wish that he'd make his reasons clear, however. I something like that is what he thinks, then saying as much would be yet another good PR move; as it stands his actions are getting closer to being indistinguishable from that of any random spy.
- rdouble 13y agoIt's weirder than being a spy because presumably a spy wouldn't have made the whole affair public. It looks more like he got himself in over his head and now is being manipulated by others.
- joezydeco 13y ago"Snowden, the computer contractor who exposed details of secret U.S. surveillance programs, told Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa that it is "unlikely that I will have a fair trial or humane treatment" if handed over to U.S. officials to stand trial, according to a letter from Snowden read by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino."[1] That seems pretty clear to me. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/24/politics/nsa-leak/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/24/politics/nsa-leak/index.html
- danielweber 13y agoI don't like the hero-worship of Snowden, but I can definitely understand why, when asking a big favor of a country, he would not say anything bad about them.
- bradleysmith 13y agoThe motivations of 'any random spy' are quite varied. From a personality profiling point of view, Manning & Snowden stand apart from espionage cases where people sold or released classified information. They are much more similar to 'Deepthroat' then they are Robert Hannsen or Aldrich Ames, in my mind. I believe both 'leakers' and 'spies' are disillusioned in the intelligence apparatus they are working in, but 'leakers' seem to be motivated by a belief that exposing particular cleared information will make a difference in that system, or benefit the public good. They leak as a way to make right with their conscience (or for the attention with that as a rationalization). People like Hannsen or Ames sold or traded secrets with enemy nations more as points of pride; they wanted to prove to themselves they could do it, and their ego's were stroked each time they did. I studied global security & intelligence in college, and had a personality profiling class focusing on cases of american espionage. My two cents is coming pretty heavily from that.