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Snowden Queries Putin On Live TV Regarding Russian Internet Surveillance
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Edward Snowden appeared on a Russian television call-in show to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin about policies of mass surveillance. The exchange has a canned quality which will likely lead to questions regarding the integrity of Snowden's actions, in the query of his host in asylum."
These propaganda sessions for Putin are pre-staged so Snowden has allowed himself to be used as a "propaganda tool". Considering how freedoms are curtailed in Russia, it seriously deminishes Snowden's reputation.
It loses a bit in the translation but essentially it says "When you're living with wolves, you better learn fast how to howl, lest they might think you're a sheep".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Putin is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
Obama is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
Hillary is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect she would.
Kerry is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I wouldn't put it past the Russians to stage such an appearance by threatening Snowden. In fact, that's the most likely scenario; Putin could hand him over to the US at any time.
When did Slashdot become infested with NSA apologists?
Putin does this show annually. I am sure that the callers are vetted, but the questions tend to be wide-ranging, and don't really seem scripted to me. (I liked the one about buying Alaska back.) After all, it's a 4 hour show.
Now, as for Snowden, I see this as positive. State security is not talked about that much in Russia, and he brought it up. While Putin said pretty much what Obama might have said in 2010 (in other words, it's fair to doubt whether he was being truthful), it gets it out in the open, and all in all I think that is a good thing.
...know about surveillance?
Even the questions you can ask are provided by the state..
OF COURSE it was scripted and likely highly edited. This is 100% propaganda aimed squarely at the west by Putin. Snowden is just being used to attract attention and shape the message. He's just a pawn in a much larger game.
Reading between the lines though, I wonder what Putin is up to. Why bother with this?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I was really on the fence, teetering into anti-Snowden territory... but this gave me a really strong push. SO - is Snowden:
1. So blinded by his hatred for America that Russia actually seems better to him? Or
2. So stupid that he went to Russia not realizing that he'd be forced at gunpoint into becoming a tool of Putin?
Honestly, Ed - thanks for the disclosure, it was something that we really needed. But you did it for the wrong reasons, made some incredibly stupid choices, and I look forward to when you're spending the rest of your life in a tiny cell. Maybe you can share a room with Assange.
To anyone who ever says that Snowden told the terrorists about bugging. The 2010 film Four Lions has a scene with the terrorist plotters using a spoof on Disney's "Club Penguin", making it the only safe method to chat to each other (it's a black comedy). Interception was so widely known, it was a joke (see Bin Laden's lack of house-hold comms).
The people who didn't suspect that electronic comms were all thoroughly bugged were the other 99.999999% of the population. They thought the 'goodies' were targeting the 'baddies'.
I hate to say it (as I am American), but I respect Putin's position to be much more truthful than the West's.
Ukraine has always been on a teeter totter between Russia and Europe, and which way it leans depends on a lot of things. Unfortunately, one key issue is that Ukraine is critical to Russian security, as most of the food eaten by Russians is produced there, and the border between Russia and Ukraine is open, making it easy to trade with (so they're relatively friendly) and easy to invade by (so there's always some tension). Ukraine has always been a very divided country; those in the East favor Russian integration and have a heavy Russian demographic; those in the West favor European integration and are a different slavic ethnicity. Most of the production and resources is in the East.
In 2004, a Russian leaning government is protested against and overthrown by a questionably popular series of protets, what was called the Orange Revolution; many of these protest groups received backing from Western governments and was seen by Russia as a critical threat. By 2010, Ukraine is a mess, and the government is outvoted and in comes Victor Yanukovich, a Russian leaning Ukrainian. This was mainly seen as a Russian influenced overthrow of the Western leaning government, but to be fair Ukraine had suffered economically.
In 2013 in November, Yanukovich rejects an economic treaty with the European Union. This sparked off the protests. Many protest groups were allegedly supported by Western governments, while it's hard to pin down if it's true the key point is the Russians believe that they were, and this was again seen as an existential threat. Things escalate to violence, Yanukovich's family and person are threatened, and several large defections from the army and police to the protesters make Yanukovich not trust any of his personal security, so he flees to Russia. He apparently resigns, but then says he was coerced and never intended to do so.
Then, and this is key, a new government, unelected by the Ukrainian people, is formed by an agreement led by the amassadors from France, Germany, and the US. The President's powers are stripped from him by Parliament in contrast to the Ukrainian Constitution. The protesters are integrated into a new Ukrainian National Guard. Those three things are facts. From Russia and Putin's perspective, this is a foreign coup that overthrew a constitutionally elected government with a military created and sponsored by foreign money. Considering the ethnic Russians living in Crimea and eastern Ukraine are not being represented and are Russian leaning, they are arguably at risk, and the current governing body, being created via an unconstitutional process run by foreign powers is entirely illegitimate. Considering Ukraine's importance to Russian security, this is an existential threat to Russia itself.
While you can argue Russia's own involvement and lack of truthiness, the fact of how the protests evolved and how the current Ukrainian governing body was formed, their perspective is not without merit and the facts on the ground support that argument much more than the Western version of the story.
I don't understand the hatred towards Snowden for asking an important question regarding surveillance. From the linked article his question:
"So I'd like to ask you, does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals? And do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than subjects, under surveillance?"
It is a perfectly valid question which needs to be asked to all world leaders. While Putin's answer can certainly be seen as pure political spin, the question itself is a legitimate and forceful question to be posed. And by asking it, it forced Putin to provide an answer through which he can be measured against. He has basically said in nationwide tv that if they did have a mass surveillance system, the state would be breaking the law. This public statement can now be used to hold him accountable should evidence surface proving him as lying.
I would also argue that the question is a far more direct one regarding surveillance than any that has been posed to Obama. And unlike Putin, Obama insists such a surveillance program is legal and necessary. One cannot reform the system without admitting the problem first. Were Obama to give the same answer as Putin to that question, the repercussions would be enormous, as it places a moral and legal standard on the role of surveillance in our society from the chief executive of the nation itself.