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Russia's Mark Zuckerberg offers Snowden a job.

177 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

bur4k 13y ago
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Adversiting managent debug bug, açık
kshatrea 13y ago
> On the same day, Pavel Durov, CEO of the social network VKontakte, offered Snowden a job as a security software developer. In his career, hasn't Snowden been more of a sys admin type?[1]. Putting all the hoopla/outrage over his leaks aside, from a career perspective, would Snowden be qualified for a developer role? I guess my question is whether Durov's motivation is to get PR points or to get a suitable engineer for that role. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/job-title-key-to-inner-access-held-by-snowden.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/job-title-key-to-inner-...
- nicholassmith 13y ago
  I'd imagine both potentially, he could always work in a security system administrator role alongside the main development team. Definitely good PR though.
- iliaznk 13y ago
  That's what I'm saying, it's no more than just stupid PR aimed at laymen.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
Old news, it's been a week since.
- chalst 13y ago
  We had the story (via Gigaom) posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140948 but nobody picked up on it and that post is practically unresurrectable. Reposting is legitimate, I think.
nish1500 13y ago
How does a job offer help him, or anyone else, for that matter? I'm not sure job hunting is his first priority right now. There must be hundreds of businesses out there who would offer him a job for novelty's sake.
- TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
  I think computer guys hate boredom ;)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Andrenid 13y ago
If I were him, a full-time job at a reputable company would be the last thing I'd want. Then everyone knows where you are, when you're there, etc. A huge number of people would love to see him disappear (permanently)... I'd be laying low, maybe writing a book about the whole thing and releasing it via a third party, if it was a matter of making income while staying off-grid.
- simgidacav 13y ago
  You don't need to be working in a specific place if you run computer-related activities. Also TOR.
D9u 13y ago
"In such moments one feels pride with our country and regret over the course taken by United States -- a country betraying the principles it was once built on," Even Russians get it... Why don't more Americans get it?
- weland 13y ago
  This painfully reminds me of George Carlin, who referred to the original artisans of his country -- in jest -- as "a bunch of white slaveowners who wanted to be free".
  - dmix 13y ago
    I understand this was in jest, but this comes up on HN often. Slavery was introduced in America ~two centuries before the founding fathers had influence. They were focused on the threat of authoritarianism/british rule, and failed to properly address their own complicit authoritarianism. Very much like many people today who are all of a sudden concerned about the abuses of the "police state" aggressively targeting protesters and activists, when black communities have been harassed and targeted for decades (see the only domestic aerial bombing in US history targeting black activists in the 1980s [1] or recently "stop and frisk") with little public protest from white communities. ...or the difference in legal sentencing for crack cocaine vs powdered cocaine. Racial hypocrisy is hardly a thing of the past in public discourse. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE
- Gonzih 13y ago
  Believe me, Russian government is doing the same thing as NSA did. There are rumors about spying hardware installed in Russian ISPs. There are rumors about Russian organization that produces hardware for logging all internet traffic, decrypting on the fly encrypted data, filtering it and etc. Difference between this and NSA is than information about NSA is now public.
  - praptak 13y ago
    No contradiction to the point that GP made. Nobody said that Putin's Russia is more free than US. They just did the right thing in this particular case and made the "land of the free" look hypocritical as a result. This doesn't imply anything about how Russia citizens are treated by their own state.
beloch 13y ago
Realistically, I don't think Snowden needs a job. Not for income at any rate. There's no shortage of very wealthy people willing to support him for opposing the U.S. government.
- simgidacav 13y ago
  Yeah, but there's nothing worse than boredom for a computer guy. And besides, protecting the user privacy is probably something he cares about.
  - Semaphor 13y ago
    > Yeah, but there's nothing worse than boredom for a computer guy. If he has no problems getting money, the boredom is easily alleviated by having access to a computer and internet. He could just work for himself.
    - simgidacav 13y ago
      True that. I would do the same after all... there's plenty of interesting stuff to work on.
krrrh 13y ago
Aside: the CNN mobile site made it almost impossible to get the address bar to show in Safari or Chrome on iPhone. I've never seen this antipattern on a mobile site before.
nakedrobot2 13y ago
Is Putin Russia's Obama, as well?
- precisioncoder 13y ago
  Sure I guess, after all it's basically just who runs the largest social network in the country. I guess Putin is the Obama of Russia in that he's the man in charge there.
  - oleganza 13y ago
    Excuse me for anarchistic correction here. None of them is a man in charge. Both of them think of themselves as being "in charge". And maybe some "voters" even support that idea. But that does not change matters for those who didn't vote for or support them (including all foreign citizens). For them, Putin/Obama are just bullies from high school. Most of the time they don't have to do anything with your life, but sometimes their associates in form of judges/cops/army/etc are coming to you and forcing you to do things you don't approve. E.g. sponsoring a war, or "national project", or having your money diluted by inflation or something else.
    - precisioncoder 13y ago
      Sorry, I didn't mean to necessarily endorse either of them. I just mean if you check the fact sheets there's normally a field for "leader" which has their name listed after. Wiktionary gave me the following: "in charge (not comparable) Having the responsibility of leading or overseeing. He left his daughter in charge of watching her younger sisters. Having the power of command or control. This internet browser puts you in charge of your personal settings. " Both of these men have a great deal of the power of command and control in their respective countries. The recent leaks have made it also very clear that they are "overseeing" heh. As for leadership that's a sticky subject that is way too philosophical for me to touch right now.
huhtenberg 13y ago
It's the same douchebag that was making paper airplanes out of real money, throwing them from his office window and then going all ecstatic over people on the ground fighting each other for these planes. Yeah, it's once in a lifetime opportunity for Snowden. Woo. Hoo.
- oleganza 13y ago
  I worked with Durov in 2007 and 2008 (making everything for the VK video service; I moved to Paris after getting bored managing 200+ servers in 3 datacenters). He is a brilliant guy, however he's also eccentric. And his brother's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov) sysadmin/system programmers team is one of the best in the world as far as I can say. Unlike Facebook, VK guys are still capable to work in a very small team without hundreds of mediocre outsourced developers.
  - huhtenberg 13y ago
    I don't doubt he is not a usual person, but taking glee at people fighting over money that you throw out of the window is hardly "eccentric". But then 2008 was 5 years ago and people change fast.
    - oleganza 13y ago
      Opinion about someone throwing money out of the window works both ways: the more you dislike how one guy caused others to fight over paper, the more you should dislike fighters for what they do. Unlike ancient times when a king throwing money around would be the same person who robs his citizens, Durov did not steal from anyone. Everyone who was fighting for money are responsible for their free choice. Durov is responsible only for throwing paper bills out of the window. Anyone who was harmed during that voluntary gathering, was harmed by greedy dudes, not by pieces of paper. PS. Imagine if Durov set up a charity organization that gave away money to people based on some criteria. This would have some competition among people. Some of them will attempt to eliminate competition by defaming them, or blackmailing, or brutally fighting. Would Durov be responsible for all this fight around "free" money, or would actual fighters be responsible?
iliaznk 13y ago
Don't believe everything you read, first, that guy ('Russian zuckerberg') is a douche known for his freaky escapades like throwing money out of the office's window and watching people fight for them, second. What is he proud about? That Snowden became a pawn in Putin's game while our own Russian protesters get prosecuted in fake cases? He's just one dumb motherfucker who got rich by stealing the facebook idea.
- litemn 13y ago
  Or you don't know little more about VK and Durov, or you just envy.
Gonzih 13y ago
I know that VKontakte is giving information and even messaging history about people to authorities on the first request. That what was happening in Belarus after election and protests related to "fair" election. People where requested to go to the KGB/Police. In "nice" conversation with "pleasant" people they saw messaging logs from VKontakte, movements history based on mobile phone data and etc. Requests from different country and VKontakte was still giving that information for free. Good job, Pavel. Talk more about Privacy now.
- acqq 13y ago
  Wouldn't Pavel then rather not offer job to Snowden, knowing that every word from Snowden would be listened by the whole world, and that the whole world would then learn about such actions too?
  - Gonzih 13y ago
    As far as I remember that kind of actions once was officially admitted by Vkontakte. They said something about helping in crimes investigation and etc.
- Expeck 13y ago
  I dont know about that, but I know that he didnt cooperate with Fedaral Security Service: >After mass anti-Kremlin protests broke out in the wake of the disputed December 2011 elections to the Russian parliament, the State Duma, Durov reportedly refused to comply with a request from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to block opposition groups from using the site. There appeared to be no immediate repercussions, but then in April of 2013, Durov was accused of hitting a traffic policeman with his car, with a video of the alleged incident appearing online. On April 16, VKontakte's main offices in central St. Petersburg were searched by police. Durov, who denies even owning a car, fled the country and has not been seen in public since. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov
kayoone 13y ago
Just a publicity stunt.
beshrkayali 13y ago
The title of this article is typical Americanism...
- kome 13y ago
  So true. Americans (from US) deserve a better and less provincial mainstream media. "Russia's Mark Zuckerberg" is a ridiculous title.
  - gyardley 13y ago
    'Owner of Russian social network offers Edward Snowden a job' is pretty clunky, and if you titled the article 'Pavel Durov offers Edward Snowden a job', it would be meaningless for 99.99% of its American readers. The title as it is does a decent job conveying the contents. Or are Americans to be blamed for not knowing the owner of a social service hardly anyone here uses?
    - beshrkayali 13y ago
      "Pavel Durov, founder of Russia's biggest social networking site, offers Snowden a job" could've worked. Of course "Americans" aren't to be blamed for this. I'm merely suggesting that they deserve better from media that is giving them a false culturally-superior image.
l33tbro 13y ago
dang ... i posted this article here 5 days ago. enjoy my karma teawithcarl xD
dylangs1030 13y ago
How about instead of stumbling about intellectually like a mob intent on hating the NSA, we set a few things straight: * This is not indicative of Russia as a collective endorsing or supporting Snowden. One man residing in Russia, a Russian national, offered Snowden a job relevant to his experience. This article says nothing about the public perception of Snowden in Russia. Anything else is supposition. All he has is asylum and a job. Both things can be granted by a huge minority of people in government, of which we do not yet understand their obscured motivations and agendas. * I don't think we should be praising Russia for this - let's remember Russia is the place where homosexuality is almost scathingly rejected, human rights violations are normal, and freedom of the press is in effect...except when it's not. Yes, they gave Snowden asylum. I wonder what they could gain from that aside from just being a bunch of good guys...come on. This says nothing about the Russian people understanding America's problems, and they are certainly not an ideal to strive towards (nothing against Russians as a people, but a lot of their laws are deplorable by modern standards). * I wouldn't trust the job, and I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't want any solid association with anyone, high-roller or not, who could be leveraged against me. This is paranoid, but whatever is uncertain about the NSA scandal, it's certain the government (or members thereof) is probably desperate to retrieve Snowden. * Again, as I have said repeatedly since this all came out - don't let your outrage at the (vastly exaggerated) NSA scandal prevent you from seeing the truth - as a government agency, the NSA is largely beneficial to our country, and we shouldn't seek to disband it. Rather, we should correct its abuses and continue forward. I clearly see the black and white "us and them" mentality being tosses around with the NSA, Russia, Snowden and the U.S. government in the comment threads here and it's misinformed.
- insuffi 13y ago
  Please note: 1) U.S. is 32nd in the world when it comes to freedom of the press. 2) U.S. is also pro-torture and quite clearly anti-human rights, with their judicial system being just as corrupt as Russia's, if not more(See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-judge-receives-28year-jail-term-for-his-role-in--kidsforcash-kickbacks-8598147.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-judge-re...). I can go on and on about Gitmo, overthrowing foreign governments(Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Gaza strip) et cetera et cetera. U.S. doesn't really have a clean record when it comes to human rights abuses. The only difference is that the U.S. hides behind "Justice!" propaganda and americans believe it, but everybody in eastern europe knows that Putin is quite clearly against democracy, and he doesn't try to hide it. I'm not saying that Russia is better, I'm just saying that it's naive to think that U.S. is much better, with its imperialist politics (Assange/Sweden case and forcing a president's plane to land).

177 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

bur4k 13y ago

Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Adversiting managent debug bug, açık

> On the same day, Pavel Durov, CEO of the social network VKontakte, offered Snowden a job as a security software developer. In his career, hasn't Snowden been more of a sys admin type?[1]. Putting all the hoopla/outrage over his leaks aside, from a career perspective, would Snowden be qualified for a developer role? I guess my question is whether Durov's motivation is to get PR points or to get a suitable engineer for that role. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/job-title-key-to-inner-access-held-by-snowden.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/us/job-title-key-to-inner-...

nicholassmith 13y ago
I'd imagine both potentially, he could always work in a security system administrator role alongside the main development team. Definitely good PR though.
iliaznk 13y ago
That's what I'm saying, it's no more than just stupid PR aimed at laymen.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Old news, it's been a week since.

chalst 13y ago
We had the story (via Gigaom) posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140948 but nobody picked up on it and that post is practically unresurrectable. Reposting is legitimate, I think.

nish1500 13y ago

How does a job offer help him, or anyone else, for that matter? I'm not sure job hunting is his first priority right now. There must be hundreds of businesses out there who would offer him a job for novelty's sake.

TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
I think computer guys hate boredom ;)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Andrenid 13y ago

If I were him, a full-time job at a reputable company would be the last thing I'd want. Then everyone knows where you are, when you're there, etc. A huge number of people would love to see him disappear (permanently)... I'd be laying low, maybe writing a book about the whole thing and releasing it via a third party, if it was a matter of making income while staying off-grid.

simgidacav 13y ago
You don't need to be working in a specific place if you run computer-related activities. Also TOR.

D9u 13y ago

"In such moments one feels pride with our country and regret over the course taken by United States -- a country betraying the principles it was once built on," Even Russians get it... Why don't more Americans get it?

weland 13y ago
This painfully reminds me of George Carlin, who referred to the original artisans of his country -- in jest -- as "a bunch of white slaveowners who wanted to be free".
- dmix 13y ago
  I understand this was in jest, but this comes up on HN often. Slavery was introduced in America ~two centuries before the founding fathers had influence. They were focused on the threat of authoritarianism/british rule, and failed to properly address their own complicit authoritarianism. Very much like many people today who are all of a sudden concerned about the abuses of the "police state" aggressively targeting protesters and activists, when black communities have been harassed and targeted for decades (see the only domestic aerial bombing in US history targeting black activists in the 1980s [1] or recently "stop and frisk") with little public protest from white communities. ...or the difference in legal sentencing for crack cocaine vs powdered cocaine. Racial hypocrisy is hardly a thing of the past in public discourse. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE
Gonzih 13y ago
Believe me, Russian government is doing the same thing as NSA did. There are rumors about spying hardware installed in Russian ISPs. There are rumors about Russian organization that produces hardware for logging all internet traffic, decrypting on the fly encrypted data, filtering it and etc. Difference between this and NSA is than information about NSA is now public.
- praptak 13y ago
  No contradiction to the point that GP made. Nobody said that Putin's Russia is more free than US. They just did the right thing in this particular case and made the "land of the free" look hypocritical as a result. This doesn't imply anything about how Russia citizens are treated by their own state.

beloch 13y ago

Realistically, I don't think Snowden needs a job. Not for income at any rate. There's no shortage of very wealthy people willing to support him for opposing the U.S. government.

simgidacav 13y ago
Yeah, but there's nothing worse than boredom for a computer guy. And besides, protecting the user privacy is probably something he cares about.
- Semaphor 13y ago
  > Yeah, but there's nothing worse than boredom for a computer guy. If he has no problems getting money, the boredom is easily alleviated by having access to a computer and internet. He could just work for himself.
  - simgidacav 13y ago
    True that. I would do the same after all... there's plenty of interesting stuff to work on.

krrrh 13y ago

Aside: the CNN mobile site made it almost impossible to get the address bar to show in Safari or Chrome on iPhone. I've never seen this antipattern on a mobile site before.

nakedrobot2 13y ago

Is Putin Russia's Obama, as well?

precisioncoder 13y ago
Sure I guess, after all it's basically just who runs the largest social network in the country. I guess Putin is the Obama of Russia in that he's the man in charge there.
- oleganza 13y ago
  Excuse me for anarchistic correction here. None of them is a man in charge. Both of them think of themselves as being "in charge". And maybe some "voters" even support that idea. But that does not change matters for those who didn't vote for or support them (including all foreign citizens). For them, Putin/Obama are just bullies from high school. Most of the time they don't have to do anything with your life, but sometimes their associates in form of judges/cops/army/etc are coming to you and forcing you to do things you don't approve. E.g. sponsoring a war, or "national project", or having your money diluted by inflation or something else.
  - precisioncoder 13y ago
    Sorry, I didn't mean to necessarily endorse either of them. I just mean if you check the fact sheets there's normally a field for "leader" which has their name listed after. Wiktionary gave me the following: "in charge (not comparable) Having the responsibility of leading or overseeing. He left his daughter in charge of watching her younger sisters. Having the power of command or control. This internet browser puts you in charge of your personal settings. " Both of these men have a great deal of the power of command and control in their respective countries. The recent leaks have made it also very clear that they are "overseeing" heh. As for leadership that's a sticky subject that is way too philosophical for me to touch right now.

huhtenberg 13y ago

It's the same douchebag that was making paper airplanes out of real money, throwing them from his office window and then going all ecstatic over people on the ground fighting each other for these planes. Yeah, it's once in a lifetime opportunity for Snowden. Woo. Hoo.

oleganza 13y ago
I worked with Durov in 2007 and 2008 (making everything for the VK video service; I moved to Paris after getting bored managing 200+ servers in 3 datacenters). He is a brilliant guy, however he's also eccentric. And his brother's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov) sysadmin/system programmers team is one of the best in the world as far as I can say. Unlike Facebook, VK guys are still capable to work in a very small team without hundreds of mediocre outsourced developers.
- huhtenberg 13y ago
  I don't doubt he is not a usual person, but taking glee at people fighting over money that you throw out of the window is hardly "eccentric". But then 2008 was 5 years ago and people change fast.
  - oleganza 13y ago
    Opinion about someone throwing money out of the window works both ways: the more you dislike how one guy caused others to fight over paper, the more you should dislike fighters for what they do. Unlike ancient times when a king throwing money around would be the same person who robs his citizens, Durov did not steal from anyone. Everyone who was fighting for money are responsible for their free choice. Durov is responsible only for throwing paper bills out of the window. Anyone who was harmed during that voluntary gathering, was harmed by greedy dudes, not by pieces of paper. PS. Imagine if Durov set up a charity organization that gave away money to people based on some criteria. This would have some competition among people. Some of them will attempt to eliminate competition by defaming them, or blackmailing, or brutally fighting. Would Durov be responsible for all this fight around "free" money, or would actual fighters be responsible?

iliaznk 13y ago

Don't believe everything you read, first, that guy ('Russian zuckerberg') is a douche known for his freaky escapades like throwing money out of the office's window and watching people fight for them, second. What is he proud about? That Snowden became a pawn in Putin's game while our own Russian protesters get prosecuted in fake cases? He's just one dumb motherfucker who got rich by stealing the facebook idea.

litemn 13y ago
Or you don't know little more about VK and Durov, or you just envy.

Gonzih 13y ago

I know that VKontakte is giving information and even messaging history about people to authorities on the first request. That what was happening in Belarus after election and protests related to "fair" election. People where requested to go to the KGB/Police. In "nice" conversation with "pleasant" people they saw messaging logs from VKontakte, movements history based on mobile phone data and etc. Requests from different country and VKontakte was still giving that information for free. Good job, Pavel. Talk more about Privacy now.

acqq 13y ago
Wouldn't Pavel then rather not offer job to Snowden, knowing that every word from Snowden would be listened by the whole world, and that the whole world would then learn about such actions too?
- Gonzih 13y ago
  As far as I remember that kind of actions once was officially admitted by Vkontakte. They said something about helping in crimes investigation and etc.
Expeck 13y ago
I dont know about that, but I know that he didnt cooperate with Fedaral Security Service: >After mass anti-Kremlin protests broke out in the wake of the disputed December 2011 elections to the Russian parliament, the State Duma, Durov reportedly refused to comply with a request from the Federal Security Service (FSB) to block opposition groups from using the site. There appeared to be no immediate repercussions, but then in April of 2013, Durov was accused of hitting a traffic policeman with his car, with a video of the alleged incident appearing online. On April 16, VKontakte's main offices in central St. Petersburg were searched by police. Durov, who denies even owning a car, fled the country and has not been seen in public since. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov

kayoone 13y ago

Just a publicity stunt.

beshrkayali 13y ago

The title of this article is typical Americanism...

kome 13y ago
So true. Americans (from US) deserve a better and less provincial mainstream media. "Russia's Mark Zuckerberg" is a ridiculous title.
- gyardley 13y ago
  'Owner of Russian social network offers Edward Snowden a job' is pretty clunky, and if you titled the article 'Pavel Durov offers Edward Snowden a job', it would be meaningless for 99.99% of its American readers. The title as it is does a decent job conveying the contents. Or are Americans to be blamed for not knowing the owner of a social service hardly anyone here uses?
  - beshrkayali 13y ago
    "Pavel Durov, founder of Russia's biggest social networking site, offers Snowden a job" could've worked. Of course "Americans" aren't to be blamed for this. I'm merely suggesting that they deserve better from media that is giving them a false culturally-superior image.

l33tbro 13y ago

dang ... i posted this article here 5 days ago. enjoy my karma teawithcarl xD

dylangs1030 13y ago

How about instead of stumbling about intellectually like a mob intent on hating the NSA, we set a few things straight: * This is not indicative of Russia as a collective endorsing or supporting Snowden. One man residing in Russia, a Russian national, offered Snowden a job relevant to his experience. This article says nothing about the public perception of Snowden in Russia. Anything else is supposition. All he has is asylum and a job. Both things can be granted by a huge minority of people in government, of which we do not yet understand their obscured motivations and agendas. * I don't think we should be praising Russia for this - let's remember Russia is the place where homosexuality is almost scathingly rejected, human rights violations are normal, and freedom of the press is in effect...except when it's not. Yes, they gave Snowden asylum. I wonder what they could gain from that aside from just being a bunch of good guys...come on. This says nothing about the Russian people understanding America's problems, and they are certainly not an ideal to strive towards (nothing against Russians as a people, but a lot of their laws are deplorable by modern standards). * I wouldn't trust the job, and I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't want any solid association with anyone, high-roller or not, who could be leveraged against me. This is paranoid, but whatever is uncertain about the NSA scandal, it's certain the government (or members thereof) is probably desperate to retrieve Snowden. * Again, as I have said repeatedly since this all came out - don't let your outrage at the (vastly exaggerated) NSA scandal prevent you from seeing the truth - as a government agency, the NSA is largely beneficial to our country, and we shouldn't seek to disband it. Rather, we should correct its abuses and continue forward. I clearly see the black and white "us and them" mentality being tosses around with the NSA, Russia, Snowden and the U.S. government in the comment threads here and it's misinformed.

insuffi 13y ago
Please note: 1) U.S. is 32nd in the world when it comes to freedom of the press. 2) U.S. is also pro-torture and quite clearly anti-human rights, with their judicial system being just as corrupt as Russia's, if not more(See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-judge-receives-28year-jail-term-for-his-role-in--kidsforcash-kickbacks-8598147.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-judge-re...). I can go on and on about Gitmo, overthrowing foreign governments(Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Gaza strip) et cetera et cetera. U.S. doesn't really have a clean record when it comes to human rights abuses. The only difference is that the U.S. hides behind "Justice!" propaganda and americans believe it, but everybody in eastern europe knows that Putin is quite clearly against democracy, and he doesn't try to hide it. I'm not saying that Russia is better, I'm just saying that it's naive to think that U.S. is much better, with its imperialist politics (Assange/Sweden case and forcing a president's plane to land).