Snowden Says He Took No Secret Files To Russia

mspohr writes "There's an interesting interview with Edward Snowden in the NY Times. He talks freely about his decision to start collecting documents. His experience in reporting problems and abuse convinced him he would be discredited. He also states he didn't take any of the documents to Russia and that the Chinese don't have them either. 'What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward? There's a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents,' he said. Snowden turned them all over to the journalists. He also corrects last week's NY Times story about the derogatory comment in his personnel file; it was due to him discovering and trying to report a vulnerability in the CIA's internal software."

Comments

Re:Only moose and squirrel have them

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't enjoy your delicious Potato Bar due to poor dental hygiene, I'm British, you insensitive clod!

(Actually, it's dentists we don't believe in, having never been able to find one -- whereas by comparison toothpaste is readily available)

Re:Trust

[phayes]

Ah, so now he's George Washington and cannot tell a lie?

Much like Assange, Obama, Bush, Kennedy, Churchill & everyone else, Snowden will and does lie & bend his tale to justify his acts. Pretending otherwise just exposes you as a zealot.

Re:Only moose and squirrel have them

[Fwipp]

But it probably doesn't matter much in the long term since much of the West is heading towards a demographic death spiral. The future belongs to those who show up.

Oh no, another doomsayer lamenting the imminent extinction of white folk via not having enough babies. What a terrible loss, that will be.

Of course, this is only if you believe that white folk are inherently more special than people of other colors.

Re:Zero Percent Chance?

[10101001 10101001]

So he's completely wrong and a "bootlicking shill" because he disagrees with you and has actual citations to support his position.

And Clinton was a horrible President because he had marital affairs and lied about it. But Reagan was a great President because he directly or indirectly negotiated with terrorists and sold weapons to the Iranians to fund the Contra all while lying about it^W^W^W forgetting about it.

You see what I did there? The two aspects are unrelated. Besides, the fact remains that (a) Snowden lying to get access to documents may be unethical but it may be moral and (b) every other citation was about the *Russians* lying (at a time before Russia necessarily was fully committed and didn't wish to tip their hand on their plans) with the implication that the Russians would only go to such great lengths in exchange for documents. But, could it be that the Russians presumed too much or Snowden lied/implied to them too much? Or maybe it was enough that Russia's leaders are still embedded in the Cold War mindset that states it is enough to give the US a black eye, by implying they're a champion of freedom, to give amnesty to an "enemy of the US [government]"?

Honestly, we don't have any concrete facts about what is or is not true. The best we have are statements made by people who were personally involved (Snowden) and innuendo and implication along with claims that certain people or entities are liars (people discrediting the one person who would know, Snowden). Well, even liars tell the truth some times--or do you accept an always liar that says "I am lying"?

So, the only thing left is either the GGP is some sort of bootlicking shill, a paid shill, a bigot, or some line of that. Because nothing he has stated provides anything remotely like concrete evidence that Snowden can't be taken at his word in this specific instance.