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by mike_d 1024 days ago
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.
4 comments
jalapenos 1024 days ago
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.

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mikem170 1024 days ago
> 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.

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hnben 1024 days ago
> 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

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holoduke 1024 days ago
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.
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