[mike_d]

> The fact that the government pursued Snowden

They had to. He broke the law. He would have had the chance to go to trial and defend himself and seek whistleblower protection status. Given the politically charged nature and public opinion at the time, he might have had a pretty fair shake and could have been living comfortably in the US working for the ACLU or something.

Instead he plotted an escape to an openly hostile country (not even a quasi-neutral country or a non-extradition country) and allowed all of his stolen material to fall into the hands of a foreign intelligence service.

[jakobnissen]

He didn't go to a hostile country. He went to Ecuador, not a hostile country. The US government cancelled his passport while he was connecting in Russia, and then the Russian airport refused to let him leave.

The fact that he's now in Russia is 100% on the US.

Also, he didn't bring any stolen information to Russia. He says he was contacted by Russian intelligence but that they pretty quickly figured out he had nothing more to give them than what he gave to the journalists.

[lern_too_spel]

He went to China and leaked documents of what Chinese systems the NSA had compromised in a failed attempt to gain asylum in Hong Kong. China kicked him out.

The fact that he's in Russia is 100% on Russia. If you think the Russians care about Snowden's travel documents, you don't know anything about Russia.

[slackfan]

If you think that russia is not a beuerocratic hellhole that cares to an extreme amount about travel documents you have never had the pleasure of dealing with russian border security in a moscow airport.

Or you have more money and backing than an average person. I hear langely is quite hot this time of year?

[lern_too_spel]

If you think the bureaucracy's dealings with average citizens applies to Snowden's inability to leave Russia, you have no idea how it works. https://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/edward-snowden-ecuado...

[testcaseuser]

In 1997 during the handover ceremony for Hong Kong there was a part that involved the PLA marching into Hong Kong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4-Sr_t_kE4

To pretend that they weren't in control of the situation when he was there from a national security standpoint is a bit naive. Ultimately the decision to allow him to depart Hong Kong was made in Beijing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/china-said-to-...

"The Chinese government made the final decision to allow Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, to leave Hong Kong on Sunday, a move that Beijing believed resolved a tough diplomatic problem even as it reaped a publicity windfall from Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, according to people familiar with the situation."

[jakobnissen]

You're claiming this with no evidence and calling me naive. What's more, there is a good explanation for choosing Hong Kong - it's the only non-US aligned country in the area with a history of free speech (well it was, back then). New Zealand or Australia has free speech too, but if he had gone there he would have been black bagged and sent on a plane to USA, Guantanamo style.

[testcaseuser]

Hong Kong is China and in 2013 the process to take over administrative control by the CCP was already well under way. But looking at it from a national security standpoint China was in control. Why would I look at it from a national security standpoint? Given who he was and what he was carrying it has to be viewed that way. Let's not forget that he was carrying information on NSA espionage on China when he landed in Hong Kong.

2014 - NYTimes: "N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat" https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-c...

[mike_d]

> what he gave to the journalists.

We now know Glenn Greenwald was likely a Russian asset at the time he was given access to the Snowden files. For a member of the intelligence community, he sure did a piss poor job of vetting who he chose to whistleblow with.

https://thespectator.com/topic/why-glenn-greenwald-backs-put...

[hackandthink]

The conclusion of the article you referenced is the opposite:

"Greenwald is not, as many of his critics lazily allege, a Russian agent; that would imply that his motivation is pecuniary rather than heartfelt. Greenwald remains what he has always been: a sincere enemy of liberal democracy and a genuine lickspittle for tyrants."

Glenn Greenwald is a real liberal democrat and fights for free speech. He even left "The Intercept" when they suppressed inconvenient facts.

[didntcheck]

I've noticed that most criticisms of Greenwald seem to be "he sticks to his principles and calls things out consistently, even when it's Our Team doing them. He must be an enemy agent!". At both a domestic and geo politics level

[witchammer]

An agent is a very different thing to an asset.

[darkclouds]

So is a chip off the old block and a chip on one's shoulder.

[boomboomsubban]

Your own article concludes

>Greenwald is not, as many of his critics lazily allege, a Russian agent

[pseudalopex]

Glenn Greenwald advocating isolationism in 2022 is not evidence he was a Russian asset in 2013. Or 2022.

[esafak]

No, we do not know that.

[pgeorgi]

> We now know ...

> ... was likely ...

That would be "suspect", not "know"

[aaron_m04]

> He would have had the chance to go to trial and defend himself and seek whistleblower protection status.

Is this what you would've done in Snowdon's shoes?

[mike_d]

Absolutely. When you make the choice to become a whistleblower, you are making the decision that the information you have is more important than your personal freedoms.

Any major US news publication or the EFF would have put their legal team to work protecting him. He could have fled to a friendly country like France that has strong civil liberty protections. He could have gone to a neutral country like Switzerland. Instead of trying any of these things, he went right to Russia and horse traded information for protection - which plays a lot more like an asset coming home than a legitimate whistleblower.

[jalapenos]

Poking a rights-violating government in the eye by exposing their rights violations, and then asking that government to protect your rights, isn't such a genius move.

Running away and getting protection from a different rights-violating government that you haven't poked in the eye sounds quite a bit less masochist.

It's also common knowledge he didn't go directly to Russia but had his passport canceled by the US, leading to the Russian airport he was transferring through not letting him leave.

[mikem170]

> When you make the choice to become a whistleblower, you are making the decision that the information you have is more important than your personal freedoms.

So it's wrong to expose a corrupt government without becoming a martyr? It's better to let the public to be fooled?

Not everyone thinks this way. Sometimes it matters, and sometimes it doesn't.

> he went right to Russia and horse traded information for protection

Do you have a source for the above statement?

It's my understanding that the U.S. revoked his passport while he was en-route to Ecuador, trapping him in Russia. I haven't heard that he gave the Russians any intelligence.

[hnben]

> He could have fled to a friendly country like France that has strong civil liberty protections. He could have gone to a neutral country like Switzerland

he could not [1]

> Instead of trying any of these things

he did try [1]

> horse traded information for protection

when he was in russia, he had nothing more to give them [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401495

[holoduke]

You have no idea how whisleblowers are treated in even the most democratic and rich countries. There are numerous examples of people becoming the enemy of the state and a fair trial never ever happened. The legal system does not apply for those.

[soraminazuki]

Of course not. GP would happily accept and participate in illegal mass surveillance, not blow the whistle on it.

[dTal]

>He would have had the chance to go to trial and defend himself and seek whistleblower protection status

No, he wouldn't. Google "snowden fair trial". He has always said that he is perfectly willing to come to the US and do exactly as you describe, if the government is willing to guarantee a fair trial. It isn't.

Go on, Google "snowden fair trial". Go do it. It's a key part of the story you're apparently unaware of. It'll take 5 seconds.

Sibling comment pointing out same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401553

[mike_d]

Trump makes the same claims every time he is caught doing something.

Implying there is some sort of kangaroo court cabal out to get you is a deflection tactic that you seem to have fallen for.

If the American system is so corrupt that we ignore our own rules, why didn't the CIA just black bag him and bring him back? Or kill him outright? Both would be easier and more effective than a show trial.

[sensanaty]

> He would have had the chance to go to trial and defend himself and seek whistleblower protection status...

In what universe would the US Gov't not just ship him off to some blacksite on a remote island somewhere and disappear him forever?

[saalweachter]

Now I'm not going to say the sentence Chelsea Manning received was fair or that I'd be down for going through what she did, or pretend that her life will ever go back to normal, but can we not act like we don't have multiple, recent whistleblower/leakers who have served their time and been released from jail?

For all conspiracy theorists like to talk about it, there is remarkably little disappearing going on in the US, even when intelligence agencies are involved.

[quarterdime]

The espionage act famously does not allow for whistleblowing as a defense. Tulsi Gabbard [1], Rashida Tlaib [2], Ron Wyden and Ro Khanna [3] (and perhaps others) have tried to introduce legislation to change this. For example, Reality Winner was unable to make any public interest arguments in her defense [4]. Ed Snowden has repeatedly said he would happily return to the US to face trial if he were allowed to make a public interest defense. For example, in a 2019 NPR interview [5]:

> My ultimate goal will always be to return to the United States. And I've actually had conversations with the government, last in the Obama administration, about what that would look like, and they said, "You should come and face trial." I said, "Sure. Sign me up. Under one condition: I have to be able to tell the jury why I did what I did, and the jury has to decide: Was this justified or unjustified." This is called a public interest defense and is allowed under pretty much every crime someone can be charged for. Even murder, for example, has defenses. It can be self-defense and so on so forth, it could be manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. But in the case of telling a journalist the truth about how the government was breaking the law, the government says there can be no defense. There can be no justification for why you did it. The only thing the jury gets to consider is did you tell the journalists something you were not allowed to tell them. If yes, it doesn't matter why you did it. You go to jail. And I have said, as soon as you guys say for whistleblowers it is the jury who decides if it was right or wrong to expose the government's own lawbreaking, I'll be in court the next day.

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/crsj-fe... [2] https://theintercept.com/2022/07/12/whistleblower-espionage-... [3] https://www.rcfp.org/espionage-act-reform/ [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reality-winner-espionage-act-60... [5] https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/761918152/exiled-nsa-contract...

[pseudalopex]

James Clapper broke the law. The government did not pursue him.