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Answer: The top replies (*Edit - at the time*) aren't answering the question, so I would like to summarize the critic PoV based on my research.
-----
**Summary of where we are now, and why he is back in the news**
Edward Snowden was working for or near various intelligence agencies since 2006, including the CIA and the NSA. This was up until May of 2013, where he flew to Hong Kong with the story to his supervisors of needing treatment for epilepsy.
He flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong, and published the leaks you've heard about. These leaks were documents he shared to a few journalists about the United States' domestic spying and surveillance program(s). These are the leaks you typically hear about when people express their respect for Snowden, who identifies as a whistleblower (The US identifies him as a criminal, though these are not mutually exclusive). He then flew from Hong Kong to Russia, which was allegedly supposed to be a layover before flying to Ecuador. Here, he was detained by Russian authorities. He has remained in Russia, where he was granted permanent residency in 2020, and citizenship in September of 2022. Snowden has also been more active on social media recently, and was the subject of one of Elon's twitter Polls in the recent weeks, further stirring up conversation.
----
**But why do some really not like him? What is the point of view of a Snowden Critic?**
A long story short - the suspicious circumstances of the leaks, his past commentary prior to his leaks, and his recent commentary around and following the Russian invasion paints a different picture of Snowden. The general positions of a Snowden critic often include one or more of the following positions:
* Snowdown could possibly be a foreign spy or asset (Though if that was the initial plan, or something he adapted into to survive is debated within the circles)
* Some believe what he did was wrong in a way that outweighs the right
* Some just think he is a dick
* Some think he is self-serving and did this with personal interests in mind - or even as revenge due to internal conflicts or disappointment in the US government
----
Here are some key stories and nibbles of information that help tie these concepts together:
**Snowden took much more than you normally hear about**
* Snowden copied a massive quantity of files. Allegedly, mostly from or related to the DoD, which he had stolen through a security breach of some sort (In some versions of this story, he used other staff members logins, but this has not been proven up to this point). He only leaked a small number files from the NSA, through some journalists. Most of these are thought to have been downloaded while he was working for Dell around 2012. Overall, we as the public don't actually know the content of a vast majority of what he acquired.
* Related to the files themselves that he leaked - the numbers vary, but they range from about 200,000 to 1.7 million from various sources, depending on who you trust. Out of all the files he obtained, his alleged (by Snowden) emails proving he blew the whistle on the domestic spying internally have yet to be proven to actually exist. Snowden claimed he couldn't provide evidence that he blew the whistle because "he was in talks with the NSA." To this day, he still can't (or refuses) to provide this evidence that he blew the whistle internally before leaking, even though he has explicitly claimed has had this evidence. The US claims he never tried to blow the whistle. There is a lot more information here, in [this report from the house intelligence committee](https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pdf). You can specifically see information on document volume and disclosure on page 22 (Page 32 of the PDF). You can also read on parts I and II that Russian officials have publicly admitted that Snowden had shared intelligence with them. (*Thank you /u/BA_calls for the source!*)
* We also know that Australian and British intelligence agencies claim to have had 10's of thousands of files stolen, which would mean if true, he also impacted government's intelligence agencies as well. MI6 claims they had to withdrawn operatives from foreign nations because of the leak, adding to the theory that there was much more information he stole than he has shared publicly
**Snowden has a interesting trail of contacts and history before his arrest in Russia**
* One of Snowden's past jobs was involving protecting networks against Chinese intelligence, directly stationed in Asia at an NSA facility. [You can read more about Snowden's personal and work history in this article from Wired](https://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden/)
* Snowden allegedly met Russian assets, and members of the WikiLeaks staff in Hong Kong before his departure. On his flight, he flew with Sara Harrison of WikiLeaks. His lawyer from the ACLU, Ben Wizner, is also on the record defending Julian Assange, who also claims to have arranges asylum for Snowden in Ecaudor. You can find some more [information here, particularly on how he met with Russian intelligence in Hong Kong.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/report-snowden-stayed-at-russian-consulate-while-in-hong-kong/2013/08/26/8237cf9a-0e39-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html) (This source was provided by /u/neutrilreddit, thank you!)
* Snowden states he destroyed "access" to these files before leaving HK. This is also after the alluded meeting with Russian intelligence in Hong Kong in the timeline. The US claims he left 2 encrypted hard drives in Hong Kong when he flew to Moscow.
* Snowden and several of his partners assert that his passport was cancelled during his flight from Hong Kong to Moscow via Aeroflot. However, reportedly, the US government revoked his passport the day before his flight, and was allowed to fly anyway. [Good Source](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/nsa-leaker-leaves-hong-kong-local-officials-say.html) provided by /u/neutrilreddit
> While officials said Mr. Snowden’s passport was revoked on Saturday, it was not clear whether the Hong Kong authorities knew that by the time he boarded the plane, nor was it clear whether revoking it earlier would have made a difference, given the Ecuadorean travel document that Mr. Assange said he helped arrange. When Mr. Snowden landed in Moscow, he was informed of his passport revocation.
**Some of Snowden's views and history make people dislike him, in general**
* He has, indirectly, praised nations like Nicaragua and Russia for its stance on human rights. This information has been twisted through various re-interpretations in some articles, but you can read the source [in this letter he published related to his aslyum requests](https://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-asylum-statement-human-rights-groups-un-venezuela-russia-moscow-airport-2013-7). The excerpt can be seen below. While he was not broadly praising the countries in this article, the statement he made has not always been presented or interpreted as so
> Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless *(Cont. in source)*
* Snowden has made a lot of money on the trail of the fame from his leaks, allegedly collecting over $1.2m in speaking fees as of 2020. He has also made a large sum of money on a book he published, enough that the DoJ filled a lawsuit to seize the funds
* Snowden has some weird integrations over on twitter. He made some commentary relating to the recent invasion of Ukraine that many will find distasteful or odd. [There is one thread here](https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1493645079382302726?lang=en) that essentially parrots the "Russia would never invade" rhetoric of the time. This is from Feb 15th, about 1 week prior to the actual invasion. He also [shared a lot of content like this](https://twitter.com/LPCO/status/1532782852143652870?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw), between his serious topic stints (He also generally shows in his internet presence that he is not a fan of the Obama admin - out of characters here though). More recently, his feed has start to take a much more right-wing flavor in terms of its content as well, following his Russian Citizenship.
* Some people don't like Snowden because of his personal views. Snowden's alleged accounts on some sites (ArsTechinca, particularly) have posted about disliking/fearing Muslims. He stated before his own leak that he thought leakers of intelligence should be "shot in the balls". If this is true, and this is his account (TheTrueHOOHA), he has also made some choice statements on firearm bans, including "Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished." Interestingly, he also explicitly supports more historically progressive viewpoints such as UBI. There's a lot out there on his online footprint. [You can read a lot here on this ArsTechnica Article on their findings](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/nsa-leaker-ed-snowdens-life-on-ars-technica/)
----
This is a bit of a "tip of the iceberg" list of information, and to be honest, verifying the sources for any claim made by opponents and proponents of Snowden is a difficult task. The government agencies can't be lose lipped about what got stolen due to the information being classified, so we end up with a lot "he said, she said". I did my best to boil down the common reasoning for *recent* negative opinion of Snowden (and actually answer the question). Its hard to totally strip any "bias" out of a question that is emotionally driven like this one, but I did the best I could.
**EDIT -** Did some cleanup to move toward more neutral language
As a govee, I can’t tell you how many people working their entire life for Uncle Sam rail against social programs and financial support from any form of government. The irony is unfortunately lost on them.
Its possible they become libertarian because they work for the government. I assume that someone who works for CIA is gonna be seeing shit normal ppl won't even dream of ie MK Ultra.
This is an excellent example of how some things make sense if only you have more information. It's so easy as an outsider to criticize these things but the way you just laid that out is pretty informative. Thanks
It's the whole "The Russians just used a pencil" thing. Yes, they did, and the graphite dust floated into their electronics and caused problems. The one million dollar zero-gravity pen actually served a purpose, but that purpose required a certain perspective to understand.
I’ve also heard that everything is section off from each other to remove the chances of leaks. So you could be working on some really cool shit and not even know it. I really want to see this plane with the million dollar toilet seats, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one
Yup TS:SCI
Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information.
Everyone gets a small piece and very few get the whole picture.
Most likely you'll have designers go to engineers and be like "design toilet that can withstand x pressure and operate consistently with little to near zero water, can't leak"
Plus they'll get dimensions but that's about it. Also there's multiple design and iterations, but the "best" one is chosen.
Think of Hollywood movies, the production, design, support staff aren't told "hey you're working on Marvel 4 movie" they're just told hey you're working on project James Adam's and then they just do their specific role and that's it.
So they bring the fruit trays, adjust lights, and put on actors make up without really knowing their working on big block buster or small indie movie
The toilet is just a meme. Obviously if your building a super jet your gonna put a catheter or something like that. The point people are making is that having details of innocuous things can be used to develop a strategy that can counteract whatever developed technology which can put agents at risk and give them a tactical disadvantage. I’m talking out of my ass but that’s what I think
It was the time, Reagan had just cut a lot of government spending, so people were printed to look for government waste and seeing a hundred grand line item for a toilet seat is an easy way to rent, if you don't look too close
That's not the government's fault it is the politicians that are bribed by businesses to give them contracts to make 45 dollar toilet seats. Same reason we keep making tanks that we don't need so some people in Georgia don't have to find new jobs. The more I learn about how politics work the more left I get.
Is it really that much of a surprise that a guy who leaked tonnes of documents in order to demonize the massive overreach of the government and who repeatedly spoke about 'deep state operatives' in interviews would hold libertarian beliefs?
I don't think libertarians in government are as counterintuitive as it might seem. They're not against the government in and of itself, they're against governmental overreach and among the best ways they see to curtail that is to get into to a position that allows them to influence things from going in a direction where the government receives more power than they would want it to have.
So many government employees and military retirees and vets on VA pensions go on Facebook etc ranting about how the government needs to be slashed, services cut, blah blah.
But don't you DARE touch THEIR paycheck.
Assuming it would go to THEIR paycheck. Nothing our government loves more than shitting on the military in every aspect aside from weapons while also praising them and making them heros.
Those are just your standard boilerplate hypocrites. "I got mine, fuck you."
My uncle is educated at a state university, receives a military pension and holds a union job. Yet I do not know anyone more red-blooded Republican than that man, through and through Trump-loving socialist-hating mouth-frothing lunatic. Genuinely surprised I didn't see his fat ass running through the police line on J6.
Some people just fucking suck and a lot of them vote against the benefits that gave them the life they boast to have earned.
Isn't that in line with his desire for less/smaller government? He wants no S.S. and no government surveillance.
I'm not advocating either way; just finding consistency in his positions.
The thing I hate about Wikileaks has been a) they claim that they don't know who posts data to their site but time and again they've proven that indeed they do know and often work with said leakers to publicize information, as in this example (another good example would be Hillary's emails where Assange asserted definitively that the source for them 'wasn't Russian' which is odd if wikileaks is supposed to be anonymous and they should have no idea about that). b) because of the way Wikileaks works, literally anything can get posted there....without vetting. This makes the whole platform a perfect mechanism for bad actors to get harmful information out.
Great commentary.
The only thing I would add is a bit of additional information from congressional report.
99% of the documents he stole had nothing to do with surveillance. He downloaded 2 entire top secret networks onto personal drives and took these drives to Hong Kong. He left these drives in his hotel room before departing for Moscow. DoD was gravely concerned about 13 documents in that trove and has said if Russia or China has those documents it would put American troops at a great disadvantage in the event of a direct conflict.
We don’t know if Russians got access to those drives before it was recovered by Hong Kong police.
Edit: the source is the Report released by the House select committee. It’s House Report 114-891, on page 22 is the DoD bit, explanation how Snowden collected the drives is in previous sections. Here’s the link: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pdf
I'm interested if there were 13 specific documents in that reference on page 22. It says "13 high-risk issues". I can't tell if "issues" means documents, but if so, that really makes me wonder what information could possibly be concentrated in such a small number of documents.
Locations of nuclear silos, ways of tracking nuclear subs, specific counters US has against Russian/Chinese systems and platforms, stuff like that I’m guessing. You’re right though it does say 13 issues.
No read the actual quote from the report:
> As of June 2016, the most recent DoD review identified 13 high-risk issues, which are identified in the following table. Eight of the 13 relate to [REDACTED] capabilities of DoD; if the Russian or Chinese govemments have access to this information, American troops will be at greater risk in any future conflict.
It doesn’t make sense to have Humint capabilities. It’s about nuclear.
Nope, I missed that part. Guess I didn't imagine him having that sort of access. Still, "American troops will be at greater risk in any future conflict", that's pretty broad, not necessarily nuclear.
He was entrusted with migrating 2 top secret networks (like the entire network, every server, computer and user) to a new system. During that process he secretly copied everything to his local hard drives. If he’d just stolen and leaked specific information about surveillance we’d be having a different conversation.
They were recovered by HK, and the issue is we don’t know how full of shit he is. The absolute worst case scenario is that he was either a willing agent or stupid enough to tell the Russians about the drives. If he did tell them, it’s game over. If Russians knew about it, they most definitely copied the drives and left the originals.
There’s a small chance he’s only like 95% full of shit about wanting to help Americans. It’s possible he took those drives, (either as an insurance policy or just unknowingly/stupidly), didn’t tell Russians about it and also wiped them clean before leaving his hotel.
I don’t at all buy that someone just thought they could literally steal millions of documents of the highest classification but also think they’re helping, somehow. But the first scenario is insanely bad to consider too.
It really isn't though. Because all of his personal failings aside, not even the "acronyms" have doubted the validity of the leaks. His personal failings don't matter, *he* doesn't really matter. Even if the worst accusations are true: if the US government violated your rights and you only hear about it because some guy was bribed by Putin to reveal it, does that matter? How? What's that line of reasoning, if some drug dealer snitches on another drug dealer for committing murder, the murderer should be let go because the snitch wasn't an upstanding hero type?
>not even the "acronyms" have doubted the validity of the leaks
As a matter of policy, they probably wouldn't. Even if they were demonstrably false. Denying false information is confirming the actual information by process of elimination.
>if the US government violated your rights and you only hear about it because some guy was bribed by Putin to reveal it, does that matter?
Yes, because the guy bribed by putin could put in misleading data that the alphabet boys couldn't debunk without revealing things that putin wants to know but wouldn't otherwise have access to.
The question is why do people dislike Snowden, not were the leaks good. Even if you think what was leaked benefited society, Snowden is a piece of shit. He was a low level employee who was mad that he wasn’t smart enough to get into an elite job he wanted. He stole everything he could get his hands on even though he didn’t know what it was or understand it.
I totally agree. As the top commenter said, this is very emotionally laden.
But in the end I see the following: the US intelligence did wrong and was misleading the public about that. I hope we can all agree on that point.
Snowden released (apparently credible) information about that to the public. He was immediately hounded by US law enforcement and received no help from the western world (as a citizen is said western world, I'm still bitter about that). So in the interest of remaining more or less free, he was forced to flee to russian. Whoever would have done differently, throw the first stone.
After that, it kinda ends. His person isn't as important anymore. We should focus on the revelations, which seem largely forgotten (though they lead to TLS everywhere).
The story of Chelsea Manning is very similar btw...
Two wrongs don’t make a right
Snowden leaking about mass surveillance programs is one thing. This is arguably public interest. It makes him a whistleblower.
Him leaking locations of secret based in the Middle East is another thing. This is national security, and it is the job of the intelligence agencies to spy on other countries. Leaking this makes him a traitor.
It turns out that the public interest stuff was only a small % of what he stole.
just wanted to say i think you did a terrific job of delivering the facts as you know them without bias or emotional slant. it’s not an easy skill, and i hope you have a wonderful evening/afternoon
(**edit** - OP updated his post with the corrections, thank you). ~~I already see an inaccurate assertion. You said:~~
~~*Snowden and several of his partners assert that his passport was cancelled during his flight from Hong Kong to Moscow via Aeroflot. However, reportedly, the US government revoked his passport the day before his flight, and was allowed to fly anyway.*~~
~~But on the contrary:~~
>While officials said Mr. Snowden’s passport was revoked on Saturday, it was not clear whether the Hong Kong authorities knew that by the time he boarded the plane, nor was it clear whether revoking it earlier would have made a difference, given the Ecuadorean travel document that Mr. Assange said he helped arrange. **When Mr. Snowden landed in Moscow, he was informed of his passport revocation.**
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/nsa-leaker-leaves-hong-kong-local-officials-say.html
As for his true motives, I suspect Snowden simply knows better than to bite the scary Putin hand that feeds him, even if it means being a mouthpiece under durress. It's apparent he never wanted to stay in Russia to begin with, since even inside the Moscow airport, Snowden applied for asylum in 27 other countries, which all denied him:
>Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains today.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/761918152/exiled-nsa-contractor-edward-snowden-i-haven-t-and-i-won-t-cooperate-with-russia
It's also clear he expected to stay in Hong Kong forever, otherwise he would have fled to Russia instead before leaking:
>Edward Snowden's choice of Hong Kong as a haven from where to leak intelligence documents and to unmask himself as a whistleblower rests on calculations on the territory's press freedom safeguards and its extradition treaty with the US. It is a high-stakes gamble.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-hong-kong-gamble
Also it's no secret he met with the Russians few days before fleeing Hong Kong, but he evidently did so as a last resort to evade US capture:
>he spent several days living at the Russian Consulate in Hong Kong
>The article in Kommersant, based on accounts from several unnamed sources, did not state clearly when Snowden decided to seek Russian help in leaving Hong Kong, where he was in hiding to evade arrest by U.S. authorities on charges that he leaked top-secret documents about U.S. surveillance programs.
>Snowden purchased a ticket June 21 to travel on Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, from Hong Kong to Havana, through Moscow. He planned to fly from Havana to Ecuador or some other Latin American country.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/report-snowden-stayed-at-russian-consulate-while-in-hong-kong/2013/08/26/8237cf9a-0e39-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html
All in all, Putin's motives for wanting Snowden is obvious, and had every reason to reach out to Snowden back then. But I still haven't seen any concrete evidence that Snowden had any intent to join Putin originally
Good sources, I'll include some of this in the main post, it is good reference material.
This was not an academic writeup, a persuasive essay, or a balanced news article; and shouldn't be considered any of them.
I am not trying to debate anything or prove anything. OP asked "What's going on with people hating Snowden", so I tried to answer that question and provide the opposing perspective.
Entirely possible. Just as it's possible Snowden has lied for his own benefit, that government official have provided false statements, or that the opinions being shared are genuine.
There are thousands of "What-ifs" we can ask. But - OP's question was "What's going on with people hating Snowden?", not "Were Snowden's actions justified" or "Are Snowden's opponents ethically correct." I answered OPs question, as outlined by the subreddit's rules, to the best of my ability, and am not terribly interested in going too far beyond that.
No I appreciate it, I was just curious if that possibility had been ruled out, as it wasn't included in your comment. I may have time to dig into this later, but he remains an interesting, albeit enigmatic, character. Thanks for your answer, very neutral and well researched.
The impression I get is that he was genuine when he initially leaked and, since living in Russia, he seems to be letting the propaganda make an impact. He's always prided himself on being a "free thinking" type, and of course he was primed to mistrust the US after what happened to him, so now unfortunately he's repeating Russia Today talking points and carrying water for Putin. Makes me sad.
Seems likely, given that he is totally reliant on the Russian government not kicking him out. It is probably prudent for him not to buck the government line.
Don't you find that emminently ironic? He whistle blows on his own gov't for doing a bad thing and runs to another country (actually two other countries) notoriously bad for being much, much worse on the same issues and other human rights issues too. But, now, he must be admired or forgiven for not fighting the good fight against those repressive gov'ts ... because they are worse? WTF?
Because he knows nothing to blow the whistle on them for. It appears he wasn't trying to run to Russia, he was just changing planes in Moscow when the passport thing caught up to him.
There is nothing to forgive. I don't have to forgive the thousands of other people who knew what Snowden knew and didn't blow the whistle. I greatly admire anyone who risks their life and freedom to do the right thing, but I don't expect it out of someone. If a man runs into a burning building to save someone, and is badly burned in the process, I don't condemn them for not running into another burning building.
He did the right thing once, and apparently thought he had a plan that would keep him safe and relatively free. He learned quickly that his plan was not as good as he thought it was. I won't condemn the man for not doing the same thing again with no chance of avoiding any severe consequences, and no real gain. Unlike with his NSA leaks, Snowden has no relevant information to share about Russia, no information that would cast things in a new light, people just want him to martyr himself as a virtue signal. Can't blame the man for not being interested in that.
A lot of people don’t realise just how *much* he took. And, more concerning, where is it? Who has it?
The NSA’s surveillance was bad, don’t get me wrong, but he took so much more than evidence of that and no one knows who he gave it to
Trying to work some links into the post now, as well as some provided by other redditors. Keep checking back in and I should have some better source linkage filled in over the next day or so
I intended this as a quick "alternative perspective" to try and answer OP's question; I did not expect it to expand like this and now I have to backfill the links and sources :)
If I recall correctly, he wasn't detained by Russia. He was in Hong Kong and was heading for Ecuador via a transfer in Russia. His passport was cancelled by the US before he could leave, so he was stuck in Russia, which granted him asylum.
If he ever travelled to a country with strong US influence, he would be Assanged. He might as well apply for citizenship rather than forever living in limbo.
I get mad at the sun when it wakes me up because I didn't shut my blinds all the way.
In my opinion, emotion doesn't always care much for the who or why. It just expresses itself sometimes. Not my place to say when its right or wrong, you can decide that yourself, I just answered OPs question by providing a set of relevant outside perspectives
Answer: He did a brave thing but ran away to an enemy nation afterwards. Now he seems to be all in on their totalitarian regime and is being used as a propaganda puppet by Russia. It strikes people as hypocritical that he would be against our own government spying on it's citizens covertly, yet take shelter in and become a citizen of a nation that openly does the same thing and has for many decades.
Is original plan was to use Moscow as a connecting flight to another country, but the US government revoked his passport mid flight leaving him stranded in Russia for the better part of 3 years and now he has just got his citizenship allowing him to leave the country if he wanted to.
>*[H]is original plan was to use Moscow as a connecting flight*
His original plan actually seemed to be an attempt to win asylum in China by ingratiating himself to the Chinese w/ leaks about surveillance programs targeting their country. He even managed to briefly annoy Greenwald (I'm guessing mostly because it was undermining the patriotic martyr narrative he preferred):
https://www.thedailybeast.com/greenwald-snowdens-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him
>In addition to providing documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post, Snowden has also given interviews to the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, which reported that Snowden has disclosed the Internet Protocol addresses for computers in China and Hong Kong that the NSA monitored. That paper also printed a story claiming the NSA collected the text-message data for Hong Kong residents based on a June 12 interview Snowden gave the paper.
>
>**Greenwald said he would not have published some of the stories that ran in the South China Morning Post. “Whether I would have disclosed the specific IP addresses in China and Hong Kong the NSA is hacking, I don’t think I would have,” Greenwald said. “What motivated that leak though was a need to ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China.”**
~~Completely false.~~ Look at RFE/RL coverage or really any geopolitical coverage from the time. Russian oligarchy, petrostates, and Gazprom we're all over that news.
Edit: I was thinking you meant Americans as in the ones who set foreign policy, but you probably meant Americans' public opinion in general, and you're right there. Sorry
I was talking about American citizens, but the American government was a lot friendlier with Russia. Especially after 9/11 when they were seen as strategic partners in the war on terror. US/Russia relations were strained with the 2008 invasion of Georgia but Obama made the Russian reset and New START treaty key pieces of his foreign policy. After the 2014 invasion of crimea things never recovered. Read these two articles from the Bush and Obama admits it rations and imagine anyone talking about Russia like this today.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/u-s-russia-relations-in-the-second-obama-administration/amp/
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/joint-declaration-president-george-w-bush-and-president-vladimir-v-putin-the-new-strategic
Snowden (and his partners/legal team) are the only source of this information (At least, that I am aware of - unless you have a source I missed)
The US government claims to have revoked his passport a day before he flew out of Hong Kong
Dumn question but what country could he possibly hide in? Certainly not one if the allies. And I’d imagine the US would bully the shit out of some poor country to get to him.
Not a dumb question, but there are definitely other options than Russia. I used to work in anti-money laundering, and I were ever to flee to a non-extradition country, I’d go to Vanuatu. Safe even if you’re on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Lol, tbh I had never heard of it before. Looks like a sweet place to vacation, though. They offer scuba diving near or in a few sunk WW2 ships, apparently.
look, ive been arrested for a failure to appear for a expired vehicle inspection sticker. I know i broke the "rules" but i was essentially arrested because my horn didnt work and i couldn't afford a repair or the subsequent fines.
The BS reason to pull me over aside, when she ran my license she saw a warrent that i had no idea about. i waited in my car for 10 minutes while 4 more cars show up and then the lady cop pulls me out of my car and manhandles me infront of 5 other guys because i was an athletic bearded afghan/brown guy. Ive never even gotten a speeding ticket.
That was the scariest moment in my life knowing how little it takes to be arrested and much worse it could have been all for an inspection sticker, i still feel violated....imagine every government agency is looking for your ass.
This is misinformation. Not only did he not intend to move to Russia (he got stuck there because the US govt revoked his passport), he also applied for asylum to several other countries, all of which were too terrified of the US to grant it.
Didn't the US takeaway his citizenship whilst he was in Russia while he was looking somewhere else to go? Hence he was stateless with very few options on what he could do?
He doesn’t have much of a choice. As soon as he steps foot off Russian soil, the CIA will put a bag over his head. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
You are wrong about a couple things, but ultimately you do provide the answer inadvertently: Some AMericans don't value anything Snowden leaked, and are not bothered that the US Government spies on their own citizens... and, so, are anti-Snowden.
Nothing he has said has been invalidated or shown to be false. He acted in good faith, even if you don't like what he exposed to us.
if you're interested to learn about Edward Snowden and what happened, there are now 9 years of journalism about it. Jim Comey only gives 1 side of the story.
> ran away to an enemy nation afterwards.
If Russia were an "enemy nation" in 2013, then there would have been recommendations against travelling there from the US Govt, but that was not the case.
He was "running away" [from Hong Kong, to South America](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/24/edward-snowden-booked-on-plane-from-moscow-to-havana-live-coverage). HK to Moscow, his passport let him travel. From Moscow to Latin America, he [could not leave Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/edward-snowden-leaves-moscow-airport-live) because his passport was now invalid.
Some believe he may have been going to [Bolivia](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/sep/13/edward-snowden-interview-whistleblowing-russia-ai-permanent-record)
> Now he seems to be all in on their totalitarian regime and is being used as a propaganda puppet by Russia.
He was granted asylum, and had no passport.. He had no options. If you were educated about this topic, you'd know this. In order to get a passport, he needed to (a) convince the government he was worth adopting, regardless of their motive, and (b) then earn citizenship.
He did so and now he has a Russian passport. He's been on twitter, consults electronically and has jobs, etc.
> It strikes people as hypocritical that he would be against our own government spying on it's citizens covertly, yet take shelter in and become a citizen of a nation that openly does the same thing and has for many decades.
I think he played the hand he was dealt. He dealt himself some of the cards, yes.
When he [tweets things like this](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/zrgw5h/when_will_we_take_our_govt_back_from_the_2_parties/) , yesterday, I think, he is demonstrating some consistent values.
Anyone who would like to educate themselves about Snowden, PRISM, and how it came about, can check these out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufTEtGQZZ9g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6qN167wKo
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-interview-rusbridger-macaskill
Idk how unilaterally dredging and leaking an entire sensitive filesystem without even knowing what all was in there is “acting in good faith”. I prefer whistleblowers who know what they intend to blow the whistle on.
>He was very quiet starting around the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Worth noting that he wasn't [particularly quiet](https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1493646431743356931?lang=en) immediately prior to the invasion. Tweets from the week before the invasion:
>So... if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3AM, I'm not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility.
>If there's an invasion tomorrow, dunk on me because I have been spectacularly wrong.
But remember, too that the source of my skepticism is that the US IC has (again) been making truly spectacular claims without presenting any evidence -- because you did not require it of them.
His [tweet](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1498049577131208705) immediately after the invasion started, after which he went quiet for the next few months:
> I'm not suspended from the ceiling above a barrel of acid by a rope that burns a little faster every time I tweet, you concern-trolling ghouls. I've just lost any confidence I had that sharing my thinking on this particular topic continues to be useful, because I called it wrong.
He wasn't just wrong, he was wrong in a really stupid, easily avoidable way. A number of social media people/pundits etc. took a similar stance. It's one thing to say "Western intelligence has been wrong/lied before, maybe they're wrong or lying here." It's another thing to say "I'm confident that Western intelligence is wrong or lying here." You would have to be a fucking idiot to be confident that Western intelligence was lying for no gain whatsoever. After all, if Russia wasn't going to invade all they had to do to make Western intelligence look bad was... not invade. The only possible winner from intelligence services lying (or being wrong) was Russia.
It's such an easy situation for pundits to hedge on. If Russia was going to invade, but cancelled it in the face of being exposed, pundits could claim a win with either stance I listed - "see, Russia didn't invade therefore the west was lying." They went all in with no upside on a bad bet. It's an unbelievably stupid stance to take. Just stay off Twitter if it's fucking your brain so hard. It would actually make more sense if he was being pressured by Russia. At least he would have an excuse, unlike most of the pundits saying the same thing.
> He was very quiet starting around the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but more recently finished swearing allegiance to Russia in return for citizenship.
The sad part is, you'd almost have to further clarify the 'when' of this statement, as Russia has invaded Ukraine twice since he moved there.
The thing is, he doesn't seem to have great prospects:
- go back to the US and end up in prison
- go to a country that cares about being in good terms with the US, likely being extradited and end up in prison too
- stay in Russia and be free, but be required to provide good PR for Russia
*edit. Goodbye Reddit. Your API pricing will hurt all 3rd party apps and you suck for doing that. I hope the mass amount of people editing their comments and making their content useless will hurt you.
I mean isn't that just a natural process for any person to become a Russian citizen? You have to swear alliegange to America if you want to become an American citizen.
I'm a Canadian/American dual citizen, and one of the main reasons I pledged US citizenship was getting out of the immigration loop. If I'd stuck with a Green Card, I would've had to renew it every 10 years, and I still wouldn't have had the same rights as a citizen.
Exactly. It's not like he's prayed for Putin's eternal life or something. He's done what he's needed to to continue living in a place that has not imprisoned him or extradited him to a place that would.
And yet the person these replies are all in response to added "comments saying he had no choice will be ignored."
Ignoring the truth in favor of a more easily digestible narrative (Snowden in Russia = Snowden bad) is naive at best and dishonest at worst. I'd also say it's pretty stupid, but I can't be too mean, or Reddit will suspend/ban my account.
For real like what a stupid ass edit from the top commenter. “Anyone with any valid argument will just be ignored while I continue to go about living my life in blissful ignorance”
I guess people will only accept him if he becomes a martyr. He's been through enough by anyone's standards, I wouldn't blame him for trying to take the safest compromise to a relatively peaceful life. This is just another way that Putin can exert his toxic influence to distract from the bigger picture.
From my perspective, Snowden did a good deed by exposing illegal government programs.
If our government was reasonable, we wouldn't be trying to arrest him. We would, however, make sure to plug the security holes that he exploited to give him access to material without any need to know. We need to ensure that whistleblowers are safe.
By not living up to our ideals, it is the US government that betrayed Snowden, not the other way around. When you're betrayed by your government, your options become very limited.
He's done more than enough good for one lifetime. At least let him do what he needs to do to survive.
If my options were to die in prison or die not in prison in Russia, I'd pick the latter even though I am ideologically opposed to the Russian government and its behaviors.
Self-preservation is a large motivating factor for most people.
I haven't seen it myself, but it tracks. Everything he's done is against United States imperalism/hegemony, and thats all you need to do to win over tankies.
You should listen to long form interview with him. People always say “why is he hiding in Russia then? He must be a Putin asset” he tried staying in multiple countries under political asylum but every time the us government would threaten the country with sanctions or various political threats and the country would say “sorry bro you can’t stay here” until Russia was the only option.
>Replies along the lines of “he had no choice” will be ignored.
Genuinely wondering why that's not worth responding to? He can't leave Russia, can he? So doesn't it make sense he basically has to do what they tell him to do otherwise they turn him over to the US to be imprisoned for the rest of his life? Am I missing something?
leftists who romanticize the authoritarian expression of marxist/leninist politics such as seen in the soviet union. name comes from the events surrounding the quelling of the Hungarian revolution with soviet military/tanks. usually accompanied by a general disdain for western political structures and the influence of the west over alternative economic/political orgs hence why they like him for this (leaving our ‘team’ for theirs in a sense)
I've assumed from day one that he might have hoped for a Pardon. His actions don't seem to align with being Russian asset the whole time.
I'm assuming post Trump, with the US back in the hands of the establishment (in so far as pardons and military connections go) his hopes of ever seeing America again are gone. So why not make nice with the people who will take you in?
Personally I think that more and more people are considering the prospect that he was *always* working for Russia, something that would have gotten you laughed out of the room when he first acted, but less so these days.
Why would they though when all of his actions still align with the same information we had before. No one even denies the US government was spying on it's citizens in illegal ways. He exposed it and then ran for fear of his life. Now he is in Russia and is forced to do whatever they tell him. It seems pretty straight forward to me and even if it isn't there doesn't seem to be good evidence for it.
What is Snowden even meant to do according to people? Run his mouth and invite Russia to send him out on a plane direct to Florence ADX?
It's easy to call people Russian stooges on reddit when you don't have the anger of an unfathomably powerful American establishment hanging over your head.
It’s pretty funny that you say this in the same comment thread that you act like other people are crazy for thinking the US would throw him in jail for the rest of his life or kill him.
>but more recently finished swearing allegiance to Russia in return for citizenship
Almost as if he has no other choice (other than surrendering to the US). He can't travel anywhere else in the world because he would immediately be shipped back to the US.
>the longer he stays in Russia *and acts as their PR asset.*
That last bit is the key part. If he had gone to Russia and said absolutely nothing he’d still be a hero. It would be the least bad option for him and people would understand. The problems begin for him specifically when he starts vocally siding with Russia.
I’m not actually aware of anything specific he has said or advocated for that is traitorous, but that kind of thing would be the exact opposite of why he was considered a hero. He risked himself in order to do what was right when no one else would. Making moral concessions in order to save yourself is a total inversion of his original mission.
—
I also find his offer to run twitter in exchange for a Bitcoin salary odd since Bitcoin is notoriously transparent. He’s been seeming a little off lately.
> That last bit is the key part. If he had gone to Russia and said absolutely nothing he’d still be a hero.
You really think Russia is just letting him chill out and not threatening him with the Gulag every other day?
Also he was stuck in Russia due to the US revoking his passport mid flight leaving him stuck in russia. His only course of action is to get citizenship and maybe fly out to his country of choice and remain free.
Answer: Some people have always felt that he's a traitor for leaking government information in a time of war. Likely those same people would point to the provisions of the Patriot Act that allow wiretapping without providing probable cause, but they would be ignoring the federal court ruling from 2006 that struck that down.
What Snowden did was publicize that wiretapping was still happening illegally.
Whistleblowing protections for government employees is spotty. So Snowden fled rather than face charges. But if anyone ever deserved a day in court to bring these issues into debate, it's that guy.
He didn’t have any *guaranteed* protection. The whistleblower act says that ‘employees’ are covered but it doesn’t ever define what an ‘employee’ is. It was written intentionally vague so that the government could use it against people in situations like Snowden’s.
I’m pretty sure contractors do have protection. I’m a defense contractor and there are posters all over the place that say DOD employees, contractors and subs all have whistleblower protections…
There are also some security things we have to do where they go over that, export controlled info etc. and they say the same thing.
Yeah that’s possible. I’ve never really looked into it. A quick search and it shows that they are protected as of June 2013. I think the whole Snowden thing happened just before that so maybe that is why.
>You are covered if you are an employee of a federal contractor, subcontractor, grantee, or subgrantee, or hold a personal services contract with a federal agency. Persons receiving federal assistance, such as a student loan or social security, are not covered.
Also he didn't just show the USA does "wiretapping", he showed the world the *Five Eyes* group where different countries spy on their friend countries, for them. Eg. England Spies (legalt I guess lol) on US citizens, and gives the information to USA, *and* the other way around (USA spying on the other countries on their behalf and shares the information with them).
It's not just a government spying on their own citizens, it's a global completely illegal spy network.
That is why Snowden is both a hero and also getting attacked by every spy organization (CIA, FBI, MI6, ...) there is, tries to discredit him.
Bloody hero he is IMO.
> But if anyone ever deserved a day in court to bring these issues into debate, it's that guy.
he would be smoked from the start... wonder where they would pull the jury from? Wouldn't he tried in Virginia? where the entire intelligence community sleeps at night?
And, does it _still_ happen illegally today, even after Snowden’s revelations?
Did they even claim, truthfully or not, that they were going to shut it down?
I don't recall ever hearing that it would be shut down. And I think it's gotten to the extent of foreigners having their info being used by the US government
> So Snowden fled rather than face charges. But if anyone ever deserved a day in court to bring these issues into debate, it's that guy.
Snowden has been very open about his willingness to stand trial, but there are some conditions for his safety and to guarantee a fair trial. Specifically, he asks for a guarantee that he will be allowed to use a specific defense. He wants to argue some greater good being done by his breaking the law, that outweighs the law breaking and thus he should not be punished even if he did. The US government does not agree to this because it forces them to argue the truth of the leaks in court. This would expose law breaking by the US government again
Answer: This is definitely a touchy subject because he is very polarized. Working in cybersecurity, his antics changed how the government and even private companies do things to limit the damage someone like him can do. Recently, Putin granted Snowden citizenship allowing him to have a “home” again rather then being a political refugee.
My two cents, I’m surprised he hasn’t been found accidentally dead but I’m sure powers at be don’t want to make a “whistleblower” a martyr. I’ve been a recipient of a number of classified conversations and know factually he definitely isn’t the white knight that some make him out to be. He was well compensated by certain foreign governments in his travels to eventually Russia. Not saying the government is blameless and was on the up and up but it’s naive to think everything he took was for American public consumption. He took far more data then anyone without knowledge realizes and that data is only useful to our “not allies.” He was an IT admin searching through classified files for fun on a daily basis. He wasn’t assigned to any of the programs he released. I firmly believe his motive was money and used his whistleblowing to try and justify it long enough to get away. He didn’t get to his final destination because his passport was revoked (that’s why above is a big deal) which denied any travel out of Russia. Now as a Russian citizen he can get a new passport and try and leave Russia but he still needs to be careful.
Not to mention that the VP at the time(current President) was the one that convinced the Ecuadorian government to not grant Snowden asylum and left him stranded in Russia.
Imagine the outrage if foreign jets intercepted Airforce 1 and made it land somewhere so they could inspect it.
Americans sometimes have no clue how fucking ridiculous the things the US does and gets away with because we have the worlds biggest military and we'll put it to use when we want to.
The only thing I’d say is it’s absolutely false that this is simply liberals shouting the nonsense about Snowden, conservatives cry out in LARGE numbers that he’s a traitor as well. So more than Party, I think it’s anyone who “drinks the Kool-aid” that’s provided to them by their respective governments and parties. The moral, don’t pick a team, even if they agree with a lot of your ideals (it’s mostly condescension and pandering, earnestness being very rare) choose wisely, and decide everyday to think for yourself.
Answer: Snowden shot to fame when he exposed government spying on it's own citizens without their knowledge or permission, which was verified by multiple media outlets. After attempting to raise his concerns through legitimate channels, he was ultimately forced to expose this information to the public by breaking several secrecy laws. Many people at the time (and many still today) consider this a patriotic move.
As a result he was forced to seek shelter in non-extradition countries. In this case, being Russia. His recent naturalization to Russia has tainted his image, nonetheless the evidence of the crimes he exposed speaks for itself.
Not a single government agency has been held responsible for the spying to this day. No arrests have been made (save for the constant calls to have Snowden put on trial) and the spying from the US government on it's own citizens has not stopped in any meaningful way. It has also just recently been proven to be worse than originally reported by Snowden now that proof of collusion with social media giants exists.
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Answer: The top replies (*Edit - at the time*) aren't answering the question, so I would like to summarize the critic PoV based on my research. ----- **Summary of where we are now, and why he is back in the news** Edward Snowden was working for or near various intelligence agencies since 2006, including the CIA and the NSA. This was up until May of 2013, where he flew to Hong Kong with the story to his supervisors of needing treatment for epilepsy. He flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong, and published the leaks you've heard about. These leaks were documents he shared to a few journalists about the United States' domestic spying and surveillance program(s). These are the leaks you typically hear about when people express their respect for Snowden, who identifies as a whistleblower (The US identifies him as a criminal, though these are not mutually exclusive). He then flew from Hong Kong to Russia, which was allegedly supposed to be a layover before flying to Ecuador. Here, he was detained by Russian authorities. He has remained in Russia, where he was granted permanent residency in 2020, and citizenship in September of 2022. Snowden has also been more active on social media recently, and was the subject of one of Elon's twitter Polls in the recent weeks, further stirring up conversation. ---- **But why do some really not like him? What is the point of view of a Snowden Critic?** A long story short - the suspicious circumstances of the leaks, his past commentary prior to his leaks, and his recent commentary around and following the Russian invasion paints a different picture of Snowden. The general positions of a Snowden critic often include one or more of the following positions: * Snowdown could possibly be a foreign spy or asset (Though if that was the initial plan, or something he adapted into to survive is debated within the circles) * Some believe what he did was wrong in a way that outweighs the right * Some just think he is a dick * Some think he is self-serving and did this with personal interests in mind - or even as revenge due to internal conflicts or disappointment in the US government ---- Here are some key stories and nibbles of information that help tie these concepts together: **Snowden took much more than you normally hear about** * Snowden copied a massive quantity of files. Allegedly, mostly from or related to the DoD, which he had stolen through a security breach of some sort (In some versions of this story, he used other staff members logins, but this has not been proven up to this point). He only leaked a small number files from the NSA, through some journalists. Most of these are thought to have been downloaded while he was working for Dell around 2012. Overall, we as the public don't actually know the content of a vast majority of what he acquired. * Related to the files themselves that he leaked - the numbers vary, but they range from about 200,000 to 1.7 million from various sources, depending on who you trust. Out of all the files he obtained, his alleged (by Snowden) emails proving he blew the whistle on the domestic spying internally have yet to be proven to actually exist. Snowden claimed he couldn't provide evidence that he blew the whistle because "he was in talks with the NSA." To this day, he still can't (or refuses) to provide this evidence that he blew the whistle internally before leaking, even though he has explicitly claimed has had this evidence. The US claims he never tried to blow the whistle. There is a lot more information here, in [this report from the house intelligence committee](https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pdf). You can specifically see information on document volume and disclosure on page 22 (Page 32 of the PDF). You can also read on parts I and II that Russian officials have publicly admitted that Snowden had shared intelligence with them. (*Thank you /u/BA_calls for the source!*) * We also know that Australian and British intelligence agencies claim to have had 10's of thousands of files stolen, which would mean if true, he also impacted government's intelligence agencies as well. MI6 claims they had to withdrawn operatives from foreign nations because of the leak, adding to the theory that there was much more information he stole than he has shared publicly **Snowden has a interesting trail of contacts and history before his arrest in Russia** * One of Snowden's past jobs was involving protecting networks against Chinese intelligence, directly stationed in Asia at an NSA facility. [You can read more about Snowden's personal and work history in this article from Wired](https://www.wired.com/2014/08/edward-snowden/) * Snowden allegedly met Russian assets, and members of the WikiLeaks staff in Hong Kong before his departure. On his flight, he flew with Sara Harrison of WikiLeaks. His lawyer from the ACLU, Ben Wizner, is also on the record defending Julian Assange, who also claims to have arranges asylum for Snowden in Ecaudor. You can find some more [information here, particularly on how he met with Russian intelligence in Hong Kong.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/report-snowden-stayed-at-russian-consulate-while-in-hong-kong/2013/08/26/8237cf9a-0e39-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html) (This source was provided by /u/neutrilreddit, thank you!) * Snowden states he destroyed "access" to these files before leaving HK. This is also after the alluded meeting with Russian intelligence in Hong Kong in the timeline. The US claims he left 2 encrypted hard drives in Hong Kong when he flew to Moscow. * Snowden and several of his partners assert that his passport was cancelled during his flight from Hong Kong to Moscow via Aeroflot. However, reportedly, the US government revoked his passport the day before his flight, and was allowed to fly anyway. [Good Source](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/nsa-leaker-leaves-hong-kong-local-officials-say.html) provided by /u/neutrilreddit > While officials said Mr. Snowden’s passport was revoked on Saturday, it was not clear whether the Hong Kong authorities knew that by the time he boarded the plane, nor was it clear whether revoking it earlier would have made a difference, given the Ecuadorean travel document that Mr. Assange said he helped arrange. When Mr. Snowden landed in Moscow, he was informed of his passport revocation. **Some of Snowden's views and history make people dislike him, in general** * He has, indirectly, praised nations like Nicaragua and Russia for its stance on human rights. This information has been twisted through various re-interpretations in some articles, but you can read the source [in this letter he published related to his aslyum requests](https://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-asylum-statement-human-rights-groups-un-venezuela-russia-moscow-airport-2013-7). The excerpt can be seen below. While he was not broadly praising the countries in this article, the statement he made has not always been presented or interpreted as so > Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless *(Cont. in source)* * Snowden has made a lot of money on the trail of the fame from his leaks, allegedly collecting over $1.2m in speaking fees as of 2020. He has also made a large sum of money on a book he published, enough that the DoJ filled a lawsuit to seize the funds * Snowden has some weird integrations over on twitter. He made some commentary relating to the recent invasion of Ukraine that many will find distasteful or odd. [There is one thread here](https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1493645079382302726?lang=en) that essentially parrots the "Russia would never invade" rhetoric of the time. This is from Feb 15th, about 1 week prior to the actual invasion. He also [shared a lot of content like this](https://twitter.com/LPCO/status/1532782852143652870?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw), between his serious topic stints (He also generally shows in his internet presence that he is not a fan of the Obama admin - out of characters here though). More recently, his feed has start to take a much more right-wing flavor in terms of its content as well, following his Russian Citizenship. * Some people don't like Snowden because of his personal views. Snowden's alleged accounts on some sites (ArsTechinca, particularly) have posted about disliking/fearing Muslims. He stated before his own leak that he thought leakers of intelligence should be "shot in the balls". If this is true, and this is his account (TheTrueHOOHA), he has also made some choice statements on firearm bans, including "Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished." Interestingly, he also explicitly supports more historically progressive viewpoints such as UBI. There's a lot out there on his online footprint. [You can read a lot here on this ArsTechnica Article on their findings](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/nsa-leaker-ed-snowdens-life-on-ars-technica/) ---- This is a bit of a "tip of the iceberg" list of information, and to be honest, verifying the sources for any claim made by opponents and proponents of Snowden is a difficult task. The government agencies can't be lose lipped about what got stolen due to the information being classified, so we end up with a lot "he said, she said". I did my best to boil down the common reasoning for *recent* negative opinion of Snowden (and actually answer the question). Its hard to totally strip any "bias" out of a question that is emotionally driven like this one, but I did the best I could. **EDIT -** Did some cleanup to move toward more neutral language
He also railed against social security and called for its abolition. Always struck me as a more peculiar individual than he quite let on.
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As a govee, I can’t tell you how many people working their entire life for Uncle Sam rail against social programs and financial support from any form of government. The irony is unfortunately lost on them.
I call it Ron Swansoning.
Its possible they become libertarian because they work for the government. I assume that someone who works for CIA is gonna be seeing shit normal ppl won't even dream of ie MK Ultra.
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This is an excellent example of how some things make sense if only you have more information. It's so easy as an outsider to criticize these things but the way you just laid that out is pretty informative. Thanks
It's also an example of how costs can get out of hand real fast as long as you have any rational that seems likely, but may be entirely unnecessary.
It's the whole "The Russians just used a pencil" thing. Yes, they did, and the graphite dust floated into their electronics and caused problems. The one million dollar zero-gravity pen actually served a purpose, but that purpose required a certain perspective to understand.
I’ve also heard that everything is section off from each other to remove the chances of leaks. So you could be working on some really cool shit and not even know it. I really want to see this plane with the million dollar toilet seats, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one
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or could be a [Cube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boDgkH7Yw-0).
Dude I love that movie.
I mean honestly it probably is a nondescript/normal plane. Especially considering the whole last paragraph of their comment
Yup TS:SCI Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information. Everyone gets a small piece and very few get the whole picture. Most likely you'll have designers go to engineers and be like "design toilet that can withstand x pressure and operate consistently with little to near zero water, can't leak" Plus they'll get dimensions but that's about it. Also there's multiple design and iterations, but the "best" one is chosen. Think of Hollywood movies, the production, design, support staff aren't told "hey you're working on Marvel 4 movie" they're just told hey you're working on project James Adam's and then they just do their specific role and that's it. So they bring the fruit trays, adjust lights, and put on actors make up without really knowing their working on big block buster or small indie movie
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The toilet is just a meme. Obviously if your building a super jet your gonna put a catheter or something like that. The point people are making is that having details of innocuous things can be used to develop a strategy that can counteract whatever developed technology which can put agents at risk and give them a tactical disadvantage. I’m talking out of my ass but that’s what I think
This gives me Severance vibes - the TV show.
Haha check with the original classification authority before you release our bathroom plans Jack! You signed an NDA! /s
God, I just think about that scene in Batman Begins with Alfred. >At least we'll have a lot of spares.
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It was the time, Reagan had just cut a lot of government spending, so people were printed to look for government waste and seeing a hundred grand line item for a toilet seat is an easy way to rent, if you don't look too close
Finally, useful analysis.
That's not the government's fault it is the politicians that are bribed by businesses to give them contracts to make 45 dollar toilet seats. Same reason we keep making tanks that we don't need so some people in Georgia don't have to find new jobs. The more I learn about how politics work the more left I get.
Weird how you rarely find libertarians working in say, the national park service. It's always law enforcement.
Is it really that much of a surprise that a guy who leaked tonnes of documents in order to demonize the massive overreach of the government and who repeatedly spoke about 'deep state operatives' in interviews would hold libertarian beliefs?
The clearance levels get more and more compartmentalized… Most folks working on “top secret” level stuff don’t even know what it’s really about.
I don't think libertarians in government are as counterintuitive as it might seem. They're not against the government in and of itself, they're against governmental overreach and among the best ways they see to curtail that is to get into to a position that allows them to influence things from going in a direction where the government receives more power than they would want it to have.
So many government employees and military retirees and vets on VA pensions go on Facebook etc ranting about how the government needs to be slashed, services cut, blah blah. But don't you DARE touch THEIR paycheck.
In a weird way, that makes perfect sense. Of other government programs are slashed, there are more funds available for THEIR paycheck.
Assuming it would go to THEIR paycheck. Nothing our government loves more than shitting on the military in every aspect aside from weapons while also praising them and making them heros.
Ron Swanson checking in.
high level sure, I'm talking like, faceless drone 05 who's just looking to put in 20 for the pension
Those are just your standard boilerplate hypocrites. "I got mine, fuck you." My uncle is educated at a state university, receives a military pension and holds a union job. Yet I do not know anyone more red-blooded Republican than that man, through and through Trump-loving socialist-hating mouth-frothing lunatic. Genuinely surprised I didn't see his fat ass running through the police line on J6. Some people just fucking suck and a lot of them vote against the benefits that gave them the life they boast to have earned.
His people apparently are here on Reddit
Probably because he can’t earn any SS ;)
Isn't that in line with his desire for less/smaller government? He wants no S.S. and no government surveillance. I'm not advocating either way; just finding consistency in his positions.
He wants no government surveillance under Democratic presidents. He was fine with it all under George W Bush.
The thing I hate about Wikileaks has been a) they claim that they don't know who posts data to their site but time and again they've proven that indeed they do know and often work with said leakers to publicize information, as in this example (another good example would be Hillary's emails where Assange asserted definitively that the source for them 'wasn't Russian' which is odd if wikileaks is supposed to be anonymous and they should have no idea about that). b) because of the way Wikileaks works, literally anything can get posted there....without vetting. This makes the whole platform a perfect mechanism for bad actors to get harmful information out.
Great commentary. The only thing I would add is a bit of additional information from congressional report. 99% of the documents he stole had nothing to do with surveillance. He downloaded 2 entire top secret networks onto personal drives and took these drives to Hong Kong. He left these drives in his hotel room before departing for Moscow. DoD was gravely concerned about 13 documents in that trove and has said if Russia or China has those documents it would put American troops at a great disadvantage in the event of a direct conflict. We don’t know if Russians got access to those drives before it was recovered by Hong Kong police. Edit: the source is the Report released by the House select committee. It’s House Report 114-891, on page 22 is the DoD bit, explanation how Snowden collected the drives is in previous sections. Here’s the link: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pdf
Can I get a source for that? This is all new to me
Yes. House Report 114-891, page 22: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pdf
The Congressional report the above user provided is not *evidence* in your eyes?
There was an edit, hence them saying "edit" right before the link.
Source?
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/zryj5t/whats_going_on_with_people_hating_snowden/j16yegw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
I'm interested if there were 13 specific documents in that reference on page 22. It says "13 high-risk issues". I can't tell if "issues" means documents, but if so, that really makes me wonder what information could possibly be concentrated in such a small number of documents.
Locations of nuclear silos, ways of tracking nuclear subs, specific counters US has against Russian/Chinese systems and platforms, stuff like that I’m guessing. You’re right though it does say 13 issues.
Simpler explanation: Names and locations of HUMINT assets.
No read the actual quote from the report: > As of June 2016, the most recent DoD review identified 13 high-risk issues, which are identified in the following table. Eight of the 13 relate to [REDACTED] capabilities of DoD; if the Russian or Chinese govemments have access to this information, American troops will be at greater risk in any future conflict. It doesn’t make sense to have Humint capabilities. It’s about nuclear.
Could be also cyberwarfare, electronics, encryption, telecom, missile defense...
Nope, I missed that part. Guess I didn't imagine him having that sort of access. Still, "American troops will be at greater risk in any future conflict", that's pretty broad, not necessarily nuclear.
He was entrusted with migrating 2 top secret networks (like the entire network, every server, computer and user) to a new system. During that process he secretly copied everything to his local hard drives. If he’d just stolen and leaked specific information about surveillance we’d be having a different conversation.
If those drives were recovered by Hong Kong police I imagine they were copied.
They were recovered by HK, and the issue is we don’t know how full of shit he is. The absolute worst case scenario is that he was either a willing agent or stupid enough to tell the Russians about the drives. If he did tell them, it’s game over. If Russians knew about it, they most definitely copied the drives and left the originals. There’s a small chance he’s only like 95% full of shit about wanting to help Americans. It’s possible he took those drives, (either as an insurance policy or just unknowingly/stupidly), didn’t tell Russians about it and also wiped them clean before leaving his hotel. I don’t at all buy that someone just thought they could literally steal millions of documents of the highest classification but also think they’re helping, somehow. But the first scenario is insanely bad to consider too.
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It really isn't though. Because all of his personal failings aside, not even the "acronyms" have doubted the validity of the leaks. His personal failings don't matter, *he* doesn't really matter. Even if the worst accusations are true: if the US government violated your rights and you only hear about it because some guy was bribed by Putin to reveal it, does that matter? How? What's that line of reasoning, if some drug dealer snitches on another drug dealer for committing murder, the murderer should be let go because the snitch wasn't an upstanding hero type?
>not even the "acronyms" have doubted the validity of the leaks As a matter of policy, they probably wouldn't. Even if they were demonstrably false. Denying false information is confirming the actual information by process of elimination. >if the US government violated your rights and you only hear about it because some guy was bribed by Putin to reveal it, does that matter? Yes, because the guy bribed by putin could put in misleading data that the alphabet boys couldn't debunk without revealing things that putin wants to know but wouldn't otherwise have access to.
The question is why do people dislike Snowden, not were the leaks good. Even if you think what was leaked benefited society, Snowden is a piece of shit. He was a low level employee who was mad that he wasn’t smart enough to get into an elite job he wanted. He stole everything he could get his hands on even though he didn’t know what it was or understand it.
I totally agree. As the top commenter said, this is very emotionally laden. But in the end I see the following: the US intelligence did wrong and was misleading the public about that. I hope we can all agree on that point. Snowden released (apparently credible) information about that to the public. He was immediately hounded by US law enforcement and received no help from the western world (as a citizen is said western world, I'm still bitter about that). So in the interest of remaining more or less free, he was forced to flee to russian. Whoever would have done differently, throw the first stone. After that, it kinda ends. His person isn't as important anymore. We should focus on the revelations, which seem largely forgotten (though they lead to TLS everywhere). The story of Chelsea Manning is very similar btw...
Not that similar - Chelsea Manning lives in the U.S. and isn't a foreign asset.
Two wrongs don’t make a right Snowden leaking about mass surveillance programs is one thing. This is arguably public interest. It makes him a whistleblower. Him leaking locations of secret based in the Middle East is another thing. This is national security, and it is the job of the intelligence agencies to spy on other countries. Leaking this makes him a traitor. It turns out that the public interest stuff was only a small % of what he stole.
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Do you know where I can find that debate?
here ya go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bdFU_aISM4
just wanted to say i think you did a terrific job of delivering the facts as you know them without bias or emotional slant. it’s not an easy skill, and i hope you have a wonderful evening/afternoon
(**edit** - OP updated his post with the corrections, thank you). ~~I already see an inaccurate assertion. You said:~~ ~~*Snowden and several of his partners assert that his passport was cancelled during his flight from Hong Kong to Moscow via Aeroflot. However, reportedly, the US government revoked his passport the day before his flight, and was allowed to fly anyway.*~~ ~~But on the contrary:~~ >While officials said Mr. Snowden’s passport was revoked on Saturday, it was not clear whether the Hong Kong authorities knew that by the time he boarded the plane, nor was it clear whether revoking it earlier would have made a difference, given the Ecuadorean travel document that Mr. Assange said he helped arrange. **When Mr. Snowden landed in Moscow, he was informed of his passport revocation.** https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/nsa-leaker-leaves-hong-kong-local-officials-say.html As for his true motives, I suspect Snowden simply knows better than to bite the scary Putin hand that feeds him, even if it means being a mouthpiece under durress. It's apparent he never wanted to stay in Russia to begin with, since even inside the Moscow airport, Snowden applied for asylum in 27 other countries, which all denied him: >Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains today. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/761918152/exiled-nsa-contractor-edward-snowden-i-haven-t-and-i-won-t-cooperate-with-russia It's also clear he expected to stay in Hong Kong forever, otherwise he would have fled to Russia instead before leaking: >Edward Snowden's choice of Hong Kong as a haven from where to leak intelligence documents and to unmask himself as a whistleblower rests on calculations on the territory's press freedom safeguards and its extradition treaty with the US. It is a high-stakes gamble. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-hong-kong-gamble Also it's no secret he met with the Russians few days before fleeing Hong Kong, but he evidently did so as a last resort to evade US capture: >he spent several days living at the Russian Consulate in Hong Kong >The article in Kommersant, based on accounts from several unnamed sources, did not state clearly when Snowden decided to seek Russian help in leaving Hong Kong, where he was in hiding to evade arrest by U.S. authorities on charges that he leaked top-secret documents about U.S. surveillance programs. >Snowden purchased a ticket June 21 to travel on Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, from Hong Kong to Havana, through Moscow. He planned to fly from Havana to Ecuador or some other Latin American country. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/report-snowden-stayed-at-russian-consulate-while-in-hong-kong/2013/08/26/8237cf9a-0e39-11e3-a2b3-5e107edf9897_story.html All in all, Putin's motives for wanting Snowden is obvious, and had every reason to reach out to Snowden back then. But I still haven't seen any concrete evidence that Snowden had any intent to join Putin originally
Good sources, I'll include some of this in the main post, it is good reference material. This was not an academic writeup, a persuasive essay, or a balanced news article; and shouldn't be considered any of them. I am not trying to debate anything or prove anything. OP asked "What's going on with people hating Snowden", so I tried to answer that question and provide the opposing perspective.
I wonder if his stance on Ukraine is coerced or otherwise influenced because he's in Russia?
Entirely possible. Just as it's possible Snowden has lied for his own benefit, that government official have provided false statements, or that the opinions being shared are genuine. There are thousands of "What-ifs" we can ask. But - OP's question was "What's going on with people hating Snowden?", not "Were Snowden's actions justified" or "Are Snowden's opponents ethically correct." I answered OPs question, as outlined by the subreddit's rules, to the best of my ability, and am not terribly interested in going too far beyond that.
No I appreciate it, I was just curious if that possibility had been ruled out, as it wasn't included in your comment. I may have time to dig into this later, but he remains an interesting, albeit enigmatic, character. Thanks for your answer, very neutral and well researched.
The impression I get is that he was genuine when he initially leaked and, since living in Russia, he seems to be letting the propaganda make an impact. He's always prided himself on being a "free thinking" type, and of course he was primed to mistrust the US after what happened to him, so now unfortunately he's repeating Russia Today talking points and carrying water for Putin. Makes me sad.
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Seems likely, given that he is totally reliant on the Russian government not kicking him out. It is probably prudent for him not to buck the government line.
Don't you find that emminently ironic? He whistle blows on his own gov't for doing a bad thing and runs to another country (actually two other countries) notoriously bad for being much, much worse on the same issues and other human rights issues too. But, now, he must be admired or forgiven for not fighting the good fight against those repressive gov'ts ... because they are worse? WTF?
Because he knows nothing to blow the whistle on them for. It appears he wasn't trying to run to Russia, he was just changing planes in Moscow when the passport thing caught up to him. There is nothing to forgive. I don't have to forgive the thousands of other people who knew what Snowden knew and didn't blow the whistle. I greatly admire anyone who risks their life and freedom to do the right thing, but I don't expect it out of someone. If a man runs into a burning building to save someone, and is badly burned in the process, I don't condemn them for not running into another burning building. He did the right thing once, and apparently thought he had a plan that would keep him safe and relatively free. He learned quickly that his plan was not as good as he thought it was. I won't condemn the man for not doing the same thing again with no chance of avoiding any severe consequences, and no real gain. Unlike with his NSA leaks, Snowden has no relevant information to share about Russia, no information that would cast things in a new light, people just want him to martyr himself as a virtue signal. Can't blame the man for not being interested in that.
Thanks for the info I'm still very much in favor of whistle blowers and transparency But individuals are people too, and not going to be perfect.
yes yes and yes. Thank you for providing actual context and not just "Murica do bad things!"
I had to stop and double check if this was a /u/poppinKREAM comment. Which is about the highest praise I can give.
A lot of people don’t realise just how *much* he took. And, more concerning, where is it? Who has it? The NSA’s surveillance was bad, don’t get me wrong, but he took so much more than evidence of that and no one knows who he gave it to
Woah this is all news to me. Are there any sources that go over the anti Snowden points you just listed?
Trying to work some links into the post now, as well as some provided by other redditors. Keep checking back in and I should have some better source linkage filled in over the next day or so I intended this as a quick "alternative perspective" to try and answer OP's question; I did not expect it to expand like this and now I have to backfill the links and sources :)
If I recall correctly, he wasn't detained by Russia. He was in Hong Kong and was heading for Ecuador via a transfer in Russia. His passport was cancelled by the US before he could leave, so he was stuck in Russia, which granted him asylum. If he ever travelled to a country with strong US influence, he would be Assanged. He might as well apply for citizenship rather than forever living in limbo.
Thank you for that run down.
You did fantastic job!
People are mad at him for singing the praises of Russia while under Putin's thumb?
I get mad at the sun when it wakes me up because I didn't shut my blinds all the way. In my opinion, emotion doesn't always care much for the who or why. It just expresses itself sometimes. Not my place to say when its right or wrong, you can decide that yourself, I just answered OPs question by providing a set of relevant outside perspectives
Not to mention he blocks anyone who disagrees with him in the responses.
Answer: He did a brave thing but ran away to an enemy nation afterwards. Now he seems to be all in on their totalitarian regime and is being used as a propaganda puppet by Russia. It strikes people as hypocritical that he would be against our own government spying on it's citizens covertly, yet take shelter in and become a citizen of a nation that openly does the same thing and has for many decades.
Is original plan was to use Moscow as a connecting flight to another country, but the US government revoked his passport mid flight leaving him stranded in Russia for the better part of 3 years and now he has just got his citizenship allowing him to leave the country if he wanted to.
>*[H]is original plan was to use Moscow as a connecting flight* His original plan actually seemed to be an attempt to win asylum in China by ingratiating himself to the Chinese w/ leaks about surveillance programs targeting their country. He even managed to briefly annoy Greenwald (I'm guessing mostly because it was undermining the patriotic martyr narrative he preferred): https://www.thedailybeast.com/greenwald-snowdens-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him >In addition to providing documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post, Snowden has also given interviews to the South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, which reported that Snowden has disclosed the Internet Protocol addresses for computers in China and Hong Kong that the NSA monitored. That paper also printed a story claiming the NSA collected the text-message data for Hong Kong residents based on a June 12 interview Snowden gave the paper. > >**Greenwald said he would not have published some of the stories that ran in the South China Morning Post. “Whether I would have disclosed the specific IP addresses in China and Hong Kong the NSA is hacking, I don’t think I would have,” Greenwald said. “What motivated that leak though was a need to ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China.”**
Stranded for 1 year. He was granted the ability to move freely in Russia as well as travel for 3 months out of the year after
There is no country he could possibly go to that would be LESS of an enemy state than Russia. At least definitely at that time.
Ya people forget that Russia wasn’t really on Americans radar pre 2014. Watch the 2012 presidential debate.
~~Completely false.~~ Look at RFE/RL coverage or really any geopolitical coverage from the time. Russian oligarchy, petrostates, and Gazprom we're all over that news. Edit: I was thinking you meant Americans as in the ones who set foreign policy, but you probably meant Americans' public opinion in general, and you're right there. Sorry
I was talking about American citizens, but the American government was a lot friendlier with Russia. Especially after 9/11 when they were seen as strategic partners in the war on terror. US/Russia relations were strained with the 2008 invasion of Georgia but Obama made the Russian reset and New START treaty key pieces of his foreign policy. After the 2014 invasion of crimea things never recovered. Read these two articles from the Bush and Obama admits it rations and imagine anyone talking about Russia like this today. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/u-s-russia-relations-in-the-second-obama-administration/amp/ https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/joint-declaration-president-george-w-bush-and-president-vladimir-v-putin-the-new-strategic
Snowden (and his partners/legal team) are the only source of this information (At least, that I am aware of - unless you have a source I missed) The US government claims to have revoked his passport a day before he flew out of Hong Kong
Dumn question but what country could he possibly hide in? Certainly not one if the allies. And I’d imagine the US would bully the shit out of some poor country to get to him.
At the time ecuador's leader was known to stand up to the American government.
Not a dumb question, but there are definitely other options than Russia. I used to work in anti-money laundering, and I were ever to flee to a non-extradition country, I’d go to Vanuatu. Safe even if you’re on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Why is it so safe?
When’s the last time you thought about Vanuatu before this comment chain? jk probably no extradition treaty or something boring like that
Lol, tbh I had never heard of it before. Looks like a sweet place to vacation, though. They offer scuba diving near or in a few sunk WW2 ships, apparently.
If you really think the only reason he couldn’t leave for the past 10 years was Russian bureaucracy I have a bridge to sell you.
look, ive been arrested for a failure to appear for a expired vehicle inspection sticker. I know i broke the "rules" but i was essentially arrested because my horn didnt work and i couldn't afford a repair or the subsequent fines. The BS reason to pull me over aside, when she ran my license she saw a warrent that i had no idea about. i waited in my car for 10 minutes while 4 more cars show up and then the lady cop pulls me out of my car and manhandles me infront of 5 other guys because i was an athletic bearded afghan/brown guy. Ive never even gotten a speeding ticket. That was the scariest moment in my life knowing how little it takes to be arrested and much worse it could have been all for an inspection sticker, i still feel violated....imagine every government agency is looking for your ass.
Shit, I gotta get my inspection renewed...
This is misinformation. Not only did he not intend to move to Russia (he got stuck there because the US govt revoked his passport), he also applied for asylum to several other countries, all of which were too terrified of the US to grant it.
He ran because he was chased
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Didn't the US takeaway his citizenship whilst he was in Russia while he was looking somewhere else to go? Hence he was stateless with very few options on what he could do?
It was his passport and left him grounded in Russia.
He doesn’t have much of a choice. As soon as he steps foot off Russian soil, the CIA will put a bag over his head. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
and they might still do while he is on Russian Soil
You are wrong about a couple things, but ultimately you do provide the answer inadvertently: Some AMericans don't value anything Snowden leaked, and are not bothered that the US Government spies on their own citizens... and, so, are anti-Snowden. Nothing he has said has been invalidated or shown to be false. He acted in good faith, even if you don't like what he exposed to us. if you're interested to learn about Edward Snowden and what happened, there are now 9 years of journalism about it. Jim Comey only gives 1 side of the story. > ran away to an enemy nation afterwards. If Russia were an "enemy nation" in 2013, then there would have been recommendations against travelling there from the US Govt, but that was not the case. He was "running away" [from Hong Kong, to South America](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/24/edward-snowden-booked-on-plane-from-moscow-to-havana-live-coverage). HK to Moscow, his passport let him travel. From Moscow to Latin America, he [could not leave Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/edward-snowden-leaves-moscow-airport-live) because his passport was now invalid. Some believe he may have been going to [Bolivia](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/sep/13/edward-snowden-interview-whistleblowing-russia-ai-permanent-record) > Now he seems to be all in on their totalitarian regime and is being used as a propaganda puppet by Russia. He was granted asylum, and had no passport.. He had no options. If you were educated about this topic, you'd know this. In order to get a passport, he needed to (a) convince the government he was worth adopting, regardless of their motive, and (b) then earn citizenship. He did so and now he has a Russian passport. He's been on twitter, consults electronically and has jobs, etc. > It strikes people as hypocritical that he would be against our own government spying on it's citizens covertly, yet take shelter in and become a citizen of a nation that openly does the same thing and has for many decades. I think he played the hand he was dealt. He dealt himself some of the cards, yes. When he [tweets things like this](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/zrgw5h/when_will_we_take_our_govt_back_from_the_2_parties/) , yesterday, I think, he is demonstrating some consistent values. Anyone who would like to educate themselves about Snowden, PRISM, and how it came about, can check these out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufTEtGQZZ9g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6qN167wKo https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-interview-rusbridger-macaskill
Idk how unilaterally dredging and leaking an entire sensitive filesystem without even knowing what all was in there is “acting in good faith”. I prefer whistleblowers who know what they intend to blow the whistle on.
Did you do a shred of research before writing this? Serious question
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>He was very quiet starting around the Russian invasion of Ukraine Worth noting that he wasn't [particularly quiet](https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1493646431743356931?lang=en) immediately prior to the invasion. Tweets from the week before the invasion: >So... if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3AM, I'm not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility. >If there's an invasion tomorrow, dunk on me because I have been spectacularly wrong. But remember, too that the source of my skepticism is that the US IC has (again) been making truly spectacular claims without presenting any evidence -- because you did not require it of them. His [tweet](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1498049577131208705) immediately after the invasion started, after which he went quiet for the next few months: > I'm not suspended from the ceiling above a barrel of acid by a rope that burns a little faster every time I tweet, you concern-trolling ghouls. I've just lost any confidence I had that sharing my thinking on this particular topic continues to be useful, because I called it wrong.
Well, props to a guy who can admit when they are wrong at least.
He wasn't just wrong, he was wrong in a really stupid, easily avoidable way. A number of social media people/pundits etc. took a similar stance. It's one thing to say "Western intelligence has been wrong/lied before, maybe they're wrong or lying here." It's another thing to say "I'm confident that Western intelligence is wrong or lying here." You would have to be a fucking idiot to be confident that Western intelligence was lying for no gain whatsoever. After all, if Russia wasn't going to invade all they had to do to make Western intelligence look bad was... not invade. The only possible winner from intelligence services lying (or being wrong) was Russia. It's such an easy situation for pundits to hedge on. If Russia was going to invade, but cancelled it in the face of being exposed, pundits could claim a win with either stance I listed - "see, Russia didn't invade therefore the west was lying." They went all in with no upside on a bad bet. It's an unbelievably stupid stance to take. Just stay off Twitter if it's fucking your brain so hard. It would actually make more sense if he was being pressured by Russia. At least he would have an excuse, unlike most of the pundits saying the same thing.
Yea he looked like a fucking fool
Wasn't Snowden granted Russian citizenship soon after the invasion started?
> He was very quiet starting around the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but more recently finished swearing allegiance to Russia in return for citizenship. The sad part is, you'd almost have to further clarify the 'when' of this statement, as Russia has invaded Ukraine twice since he moved there.
The thing is, he doesn't seem to have great prospects: - go back to the US and end up in prison - go to a country that cares about being in good terms with the US, likely being extradited and end up in prison too - stay in Russia and be free, but be required to provide good PR for Russia
*edit. Goodbye Reddit. Your API pricing will hurt all 3rd party apps and you suck for doing that. I hope the mass amount of people editing their comments and making their content useless will hurt you.
I mean isn't that just a natural process for any person to become a Russian citizen? You have to swear alliegange to America if you want to become an American citizen.
I'm a Canadian/American dual citizen, and one of the main reasons I pledged US citizenship was getting out of the immigration loop. If I'd stuck with a Green Card, I would've had to renew it every 10 years, and I still wouldn't have had the same rights as a citizen.
Exactly. It's not like he's prayed for Putin's eternal life or something. He's done what he's needed to to continue living in a place that has not imprisoned him or extradited him to a place that would.
And yet the person these replies are all in response to added "comments saying he had no choice will be ignored." Ignoring the truth in favor of a more easily digestible narrative (Snowden in Russia = Snowden bad) is naive at best and dishonest at worst. I'd also say it's pretty stupid, but I can't be too mean, or Reddit will suspend/ban my account.
For real like what a stupid ass edit from the top commenter. “Anyone with any valid argument will just be ignored while I continue to go about living my life in blissful ignorance”
I guess people will only accept him if he becomes a martyr. He's been through enough by anyone's standards, I wouldn't blame him for trying to take the safest compromise to a relatively peaceful life. This is just another way that Putin can exert his toxic influence to distract from the bigger picture.
From my perspective, Snowden did a good deed by exposing illegal government programs. If our government was reasonable, we wouldn't be trying to arrest him. We would, however, make sure to plug the security holes that he exploited to give him access to material without any need to know. We need to ensure that whistleblowers are safe. By not living up to our ideals, it is the US government that betrayed Snowden, not the other way around. When you're betrayed by your government, your options become very limited. He's done more than enough good for one lifetime. At least let him do what he needs to do to survive.
Him swearing allegiance to Russia is no different to many other countries like the U.S. doing it for new citizens as well.
It's what the US does for all Cuban dissidents. But it's ok when the US does it.
It’s what happens to everyone who naturalizes. I’m Canadian and when I became a US citizen I swore allegiance to the US…
"...stay in Russia and be free..." What a crazy world.
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If my options were to die in prison or die not in prison in Russia, I'd pick the latter even though I am ideologically opposed to the Russian government and its behaviors. Self-preservation is a large motivating factor for most people.
Not wanting to be Epstein’d is pretty reasonable
> be free, but be required to provide good PR for Russia We have VERY different definitions of being free
What a dumb edit.
> tankies love him I hate tankies but I've never seen this
I haven't seen it myself, but it tracks. Everything he's done is against United States imperalism/hegemony, and thats all you need to do to win over tankies.
You should listen to long form interview with him. People always say “why is he hiding in Russia then? He must be a Putin asset” he tried staying in multiple countries under political asylum but every time the us government would threaten the country with sanctions or various political threats and the country would say “sorry bro you can’t stay here” until Russia was the only option.
That last part shows how willingly naive you're being.
>Replies along the lines of “he had no choice” will be ignored. Genuinely wondering why that's not worth responding to? He can't leave Russia, can he? So doesn't it make sense he basically has to do what they tell him to do otherwise they turn him over to the US to be imprisoned for the rest of his life? Am I missing something?
Because it defeats that guy's argument, so he's ignoring it.
OP doesn't want to respond to that because his whole argument falls apart if he acknowledges it.
>Edit: Replies along the lines of “he had no choice” will be ignored Nah nah nah nah boo boo I can't hear you 👉👂👂👈
What are tankies? Edit: Thanks everyone!
leftists who romanticize the authoritarian expression of marxist/leninist politics such as seen in the soviet union. name comes from the events surrounding the quelling of the Hungarian revolution with soviet military/tanks. usually accompanied by a general disdain for western political structures and the influence of the west over alternative economic/political orgs hence why they like him for this (leaving our ‘team’ for theirs in a sense)
Hey bro I just came here to say he had no choice. Go to freedumb jail or move to Russia.
I've assumed from day one that he might have hoped for a Pardon. His actions don't seem to align with being Russian asset the whole time. I'm assuming post Trump, with the US back in the hands of the establishment (in so far as pardons and military connections go) his hopes of ever seeing America again are gone. So why not make nice with the people who will take you in?
Of course you'll ignore the truth.
Personally I think that more and more people are considering the prospect that he was *always* working for Russia, something that would have gotten you laughed out of the room when he first acted, but less so these days.
Why would they though when all of his actions still align with the same information we had before. No one even denies the US government was spying on it's citizens in illegal ways. He exposed it and then ran for fear of his life. Now he is in Russia and is forced to do whatever they tell him. It seems pretty straight forward to me and even if it isn't there doesn't seem to be good evidence for it.
What is Snowden even meant to do according to people? Run his mouth and invite Russia to send him out on a plane direct to Florence ADX? It's easy to call people Russian stooges on reddit when you don't have the anger of an unfathomably powerful American establishment hanging over your head.
It’s pretty funny that you say this in the same comment thread that you act like other people are crazy for thinking the US would throw him in jail for the rest of his life or kill him.
And make fun of people regarding conspiracy theories while pushing their own for which there is no actual clue.
>but more recently finished swearing allegiance to Russia in return for citizenship Almost as if he has no other choice (other than surrendering to the US). He can't travel anywhere else in the world because he would immediately be shipped back to the US.
>the longer he stays in Russia *and acts as their PR asset.* That last bit is the key part. If he had gone to Russia and said absolutely nothing he’d still be a hero. It would be the least bad option for him and people would understand. The problems begin for him specifically when he starts vocally siding with Russia. I’m not actually aware of anything specific he has said or advocated for that is traitorous, but that kind of thing would be the exact opposite of why he was considered a hero. He risked himself in order to do what was right when no one else would. Making moral concessions in order to save yourself is a total inversion of his original mission. — I also find his offer to run twitter in exchange for a Bitcoin salary odd since Bitcoin is notoriously transparent. He’s been seeming a little off lately.
> That last bit is the key part. If he had gone to Russia and said absolutely nothing he’d still be a hero. You really think Russia is just letting him chill out and not threatening him with the Gulag every other day?
Also he was stuck in Russia due to the US revoking his passport mid flight leaving him stuck in russia. His only course of action is to get citizenship and maybe fly out to his country of choice and remain free.
TL:DR people, including you, think you must be willing to literally suicide for the cause else you aren't "akshually" good.
It's a common curse of the reddit armchair patriot.
Well, does he actually have a choice at this point? The people turned their backs on him.
Answer: Some people have always felt that he's a traitor for leaking government information in a time of war. Likely those same people would point to the provisions of the Patriot Act that allow wiretapping without providing probable cause, but they would be ignoring the federal court ruling from 2006 that struck that down. What Snowden did was publicize that wiretapping was still happening illegally. Whistleblowing protections for government employees is spotty. So Snowden fled rather than face charges. But if anyone ever deserved a day in court to bring these issues into debate, it's that guy.
He didn't have whistleblower protection because he was a contractor. He would've been prosecuted to the fullest extent.
He didn’t have any *guaranteed* protection. The whistleblower act says that ‘employees’ are covered but it doesn’t ever define what an ‘employee’ is. It was written intentionally vague so that the government could use it against people in situations like Snowden’s.
That’s why a lot of people are considered “contractors” so there not legally employees, they don’t get benefits and such.
I’m pretty sure contractors do have protection. I’m a defense contractor and there are posters all over the place that say DOD employees, contractors and subs all have whistleblower protections… There are also some security things we have to do where they go over that, export controlled info etc. and they say the same thing.
Could be that protections for contractors and so on were added in part as a result of this
Yeah that’s possible. I’ve never really looked into it. A quick search and it shows that they are protected as of June 2013. I think the whole Snowden thing happened just before that so maybe that is why. >You are covered if you are an employee of a federal contractor, subcontractor, grantee, or subgrantee, or hold a personal services contract with a federal agency. Persons receiving federal assistance, such as a student loan or social security, are not covered.
Also he didn't just show the USA does "wiretapping", he showed the world the *Five Eyes* group where different countries spy on their friend countries, for them. Eg. England Spies (legalt I guess lol) on US citizens, and gives the information to USA, *and* the other way around (USA spying on the other countries on their behalf and shares the information with them). It's not just a government spying on their own citizens, it's a global completely illegal spy network. That is why Snowden is both a hero and also getting attacked by every spy organization (CIA, FBI, MI6, ...) there is, tries to discredit him. Bloody hero he is IMO.
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Which war?
At the time of Snowden's leaks? Afghanistan and Iraq.
That is why he fled, the government refuses you to announce why you did something in court against the flawed espionage act.
> But if anyone ever deserved a day in court to bring these issues into debate, it's that guy. he would be smoked from the start... wonder where they would pull the jury from? Wouldn't he tried in Virginia? where the entire intelligence community sleeps at night?
And, does it _still_ happen illegally today, even after Snowden’s revelations? Did they even claim, truthfully or not, that they were going to shut it down?
I don't recall ever hearing that it would be shut down. And I think it's gotten to the extent of foreigners having their info being used by the US government
> So Snowden fled rather than face charges. But if anyone ever deserved a day in court to bring these issues into debate, it's that guy. Snowden has been very open about his willingness to stand trial, but there are some conditions for his safety and to guarantee a fair trial. Specifically, he asks for a guarantee that he will be allowed to use a specific defense. He wants to argue some greater good being done by his breaking the law, that outweighs the law breaking and thus he should not be punished even if he did. The US government does not agree to this because it forces them to argue the truth of the leaks in court. This would expose law breaking by the US government again
Didn't he also request a public trial or something like that? That would probably break Depp/Heard numbers.
>in a time of war The US has been at war for 90 something percent of the time since birth.
Answer: This is definitely a touchy subject because he is very polarized. Working in cybersecurity, his antics changed how the government and even private companies do things to limit the damage someone like him can do. Recently, Putin granted Snowden citizenship allowing him to have a “home” again rather then being a political refugee. My two cents, I’m surprised he hasn’t been found accidentally dead but I’m sure powers at be don’t want to make a “whistleblower” a martyr. I’ve been a recipient of a number of classified conversations and know factually he definitely isn’t the white knight that some make him out to be. He was well compensated by certain foreign governments in his travels to eventually Russia. Not saying the government is blameless and was on the up and up but it’s naive to think everything he took was for American public consumption. He took far more data then anyone without knowledge realizes and that data is only useful to our “not allies.” He was an IT admin searching through classified files for fun on a daily basis. He wasn’t assigned to any of the programs he released. I firmly believe his motive was money and used his whistleblowing to try and justify it long enough to get away. He didn’t get to his final destination because his passport was revoked (that’s why above is a big deal) which denied any travel out of Russia. Now as a Russian citizen he can get a new passport and try and leave Russia but he still needs to be careful.
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Not to mention that the VP at the time(current President) was the one that convinced the Ecuadorian government to not grant Snowden asylum and left him stranded in Russia.
The US military forced the president of Bolivia’s plane to land in Europe because they thought Snowden was on it
Imagine the outrage if foreign jets intercepted Airforce 1 and made it land somewhere so they could inspect it. Americans sometimes have no clue how fucking ridiculous the things the US does and gets away with because we have the worlds biggest military and we'll put it to use when we want to.
I supported his actions at the time, but at this point he is a puppet for Putin. Don't expect a pardon for Snowden any time soon. Probably never.
This isn’t a partisan issue lol. Always amazed at the ability of people to twist issues into red v blue
The only thing I’d say is it’s absolutely false that this is simply liberals shouting the nonsense about Snowden, conservatives cry out in LARGE numbers that he’s a traitor as well. So more than Party, I think it’s anyone who “drinks the Kool-aid” that’s provided to them by their respective governments and parties. The moral, don’t pick a team, even if they agree with a lot of your ideals (it’s mostly condescension and pandering, earnestness being very rare) choose wisely, and decide everyday to think for yourself.
I think the OP was criticizing liberals from the left.
Answer: Snowden shot to fame when he exposed government spying on it's own citizens without their knowledge or permission, which was verified by multiple media outlets. After attempting to raise his concerns through legitimate channels, he was ultimately forced to expose this information to the public by breaking several secrecy laws. Many people at the time (and many still today) consider this a patriotic move. As a result he was forced to seek shelter in non-extradition countries. In this case, being Russia. His recent naturalization to Russia has tainted his image, nonetheless the evidence of the crimes he exposed speaks for itself. Not a single government agency has been held responsible for the spying to this day. No arrests have been made (save for the constant calls to have Snowden put on trial) and the spying from the US government on it's own citizens has not stopped in any meaningful way. It has also just recently been proven to be worse than originally reported by Snowden now that proof of collusion with social media giants exists.