Are we sue that there's anything left to leak to the Russians that matters?
1. I worked in the aerospace industry in the 80s. Every once in a while, whatever I was working on would show up in "Aviation News". All the details were there, everything.
2. The DoD gives more information about satellite launches to Russian than they do to their own citizens. Yes, this is to prevent Russia from mistaking an Atlas launch for a Minuteman launch, but still...
3. Does it matter? There's very few real national secrets, which are certainly overwhelmed by career-ending blunders, favoritism towards certain contractors, massive budget overruns, and incompetent designs. The amazing majority of "classified" material is absolute tripe, and whoever reads it actually becomes stupider.
No, no one is sure about that. It's very unlikely that the Russians don't have copies of everything he took, unless you think he and Greenwald, et al are somehow masters of infosec that could withstand the actions of the FSB, SVR, etc.
Because Russia wouldn't dare go after the materials if they weren't physically in Russia, right?
The SVR operates outside of Russia, which is why I mentioned them. You really believe they weren't on him right away in Hong Kong, and they haven't gone after whatever materials he passed on to journalists? Come on.
The scaremongering over Snowden somehow giving Russia/China these documents is absurd for precisely the reason you cite - their intelligence agencies operate all over the world.
Does anyone genuinely believe that with security so lax at NSA etc. to allow a Snowden-style leak that Russia/China haven't had spies with similar access levels in place for years now?
Even if they had similar access, a leak is still dangerous because it allows them to behave as if they have the information without divulging as much about their own capabilities.
1. I worked in the aerospace industry in the 80s. Every once in a while, whatever I was working on would show up in "Aviation News". All the details were there, everything.
2. The DoD gives more information about satellite launches to Russian than they do to their own citizens. Yes, this is to prevent Russia from mistaking an Atlas launch for a Minuteman launch, but still...
3. Does it matter? There's very few real national secrets, which are certainly overwhelmed by career-ending blunders, favoritism towards certain contractors, massive budget overruns, and incompetent designs. The amazing majority of "classified" material is absolute tripe, and whoever reads it actually becomes stupider.