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Edward Snowden At Comic-Con: 'I Live a Surprisingly Free Life' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Guardian: Director Oliver Stone talked to whistleblower Edward Snowden in front of an audience at a question and answer session on Thursday evening. He compared Snowden's anxiety over his own appearance in his Snowden biopic film "Snowden" to that of Donald Trump, who was cut from one of his films six years before. Snowden replied: "I'd like to avoid that association." At the event, Snowden did also shed some light on his personal life, years after his revelation of the NSA's secret surveillance of the American public's internet activity resulted in criminal charges under the Espionage Act that led to his exile in Russia. "I can confirm that I am not living in a box," Snowden said. "I actually live a surprisingly free life. This was not the most likely outcome. I didn't actually expect to make it out of Hawaii. I thought it was incredibly risky. I had a lot of advantages in doing what I did; I worked for the CIA on the human intelligence side, I worked for the NSA on the signals intelligence side, and I taught counterintelligence. This is not something that's covered that well in the media. I was about as well placed as anybody could be, and I still thought I was going to get rolled up at the airport and that there were going to be knocks on the doors of the journalists." When asked what he thought about Gordon-Levitt's performance in the film where he plays Edward Snowden, Snowden responded: "This is one of the things that's kind of crazy and surreal about this kind of experience: I don't think anybody looks forward to having a movie made about themselves, especially someone who is a privacy advocate. Some of my family members have said, 'He sounds just like you!' I can't hear it myself but if he can pass the family test he's doing all right." Snowden agreed to participate on the film because he thought it could raise awareness in ways his own advocacy could not. Snowden was also in the news recently for developing a way for potentially imperiled smartphone users to monitor whether their devices are making any potentially compromising radio transmissions.
right now, life looks pretty dismal in so many ways. many problems in the world, problems at home; and for me, personal shit that is becoming hard to deal with.
but when I read about snowden, I feel a little bit better. it feels better knowing that the world is not 100% all corrupt and evil and that some few souls out there really do risk everything to make things better for us all.
I hope mr. snowden finds some peace in his life (sounds like its not all bad, there) and I consider him the #1 hero for our whole century, in terms of humanity and wanting to really improve things, at great personal cost.
mr. snowden: you are an amazing person and I'd do anything I could to help you in any way I could. we all owe you so much. and all we can say is a great big 'thanks!' (we can't even donate to you, which really sucks.)
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Question authority. And the more authoritarian they act, the harder you should question. If someone tells you, "I'm the only one who can fix this problem", run away as fast as you can.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Snowden has personally criticiszed oppressive Russian surveillance laws and never claimed that the life of the general populace if freer in Russia than the USA. His life is what's relatively free in Russia, because of his special circumstances, and that's all he's talking about.
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I've read this comments thread, and I need to admit that the MSM propaganda works. I presume that's what Snowden could have meant (alright, I can't read minds so I don't know) by "surprisingly" free -- that life in Russia turned out to be better than what he could have expected from reading the MSM.
Of course Russia isn't a human rights paradise, but neither is it a nightmare. And if you believe the media are your eyes through which you can see other countries without actually bothering to pay a visit there, you are very wrong.