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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."
He's a traitor and a corrupt piece of crap. He's caused more harm to world peace than even Putin. The two certainly belong together.
Where I agree he's a traitor... I think you ascribe him way too much power. Snowden is, at this point, just a pawn being used by Putin.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
He probably could have tried legal measures to implement reform if it was actually more important to him than being famous
Really? What legal measures could he have tried while remaining in the US? He would have been arrested faster than SSD read times, and never heard from again for "national security" reasons. The government's first response was to label him a traitor - they don't let you have much freedom as a traitor, in case you didn't know. I doubt any legal measures he could have tried before being arrested as a traitor would even have been reported on by the press, again for national security reasons.
Whether you think his revelations were right or wrong, I think you'd have to agree he couldn't have truly revealed anything successfully by staying in the US.
The government's first response to someone who was tasked to keep secrets safe and secure, but instead rounded up many thousands of said very important, sensitive national secrets and shared them with several reporters and then gallivanted across Asia with them in tow, was to call him a traitor? Hmm. How out of line. You can't argue for a second that he didn't completely betray his duties at the NSA, the only outstanding question is whether or not his betrayal was warranted given that the secrets he shared appear to illustrate abuse of power by the NSA. Had he stayed in the US and given his evidence to trusted sources within the US, the government's reaction would have been much different. Grassroots support would have been a lot more organic and presistent, too. The "Free Snowden" crowd can't exactly picket at the Russian embassy with any effect.
Really? What legal measures could he have tried while remaining in the US?
He could have gone to Congress. Maybe you aren't aware of it, but under the US Constitution the Congress has special powers that are quite useful in situations like this.
He would have been arrested faster than SSD read times, and never heard from again for "national security" reasons.
Not if he had gone to Congress, no.
The government's first response was to label him a traitor
He stole ~ 1.7 million highly classified intelligence documents, fled the country, and started leaking them to whomever wanted a copy - at least as far as we have direct proof. He could have covertly done far worse. The description doesn't seem unreasonable.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Im not going into the validity of what the NSA does or attempting to justify it; thats a complicated discussion and Im actually not too happy with the state of surveillance in the US.
My point is that Snowden is an utter hypocrite at this point-- he chose to get buddy-buddy with countries that are far worse than us. Its pretty hard to defend his choices in where he fled to.