[guard-of-terra]

What if he is an american Solzhenitsyn? Prosecution will be waived and he'll return to the USA, while disgruntled authoritarian rednecks will have no more leverage than just curse and mumble irrecognizably that it was him him him who brought the great country down.

Of course you still have to get a huge bubble popped first.

P. S. Military-industrial complex will be too busy selling factories for scraps to care.

[downandout]

Solzhenitsyn only returned after the USSR was dissolved - he essentially returned to an entirely different country. The US government is unlikely to be overthrown anytime soon.

I also think that people are underestimating the sheer level of hatred that government types have for Snowden. My guess is that eventually the CIA will kidnap him and either return him to the US for prosecution under a story that he was traveling somewhere and got caught, or they will simply torture and kill him, making it look like a robbery or kidnapping gone wrong. He wouldn't be the first we've done it to.

[AndrewBissell]

I think that's the point of the parent post's reference to a bubble bursting, the fallout from which might include a sudden loss of credibility and power for the American elites who want to prosecute Snowden. And I think it's true that this is probably the only way he'll ever be allowed back to the U.S. as a free man.

[guard-of-terra]

He may also become the next MLK (I'm not sure it's doable without dying, tho).

[beagle3]

> He wouldn't be the first we've done it to.

Do you have links/names?

(Not doubting, trying to educate myself)

[downandout]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ex-cia...

[wyager]

> disgruntled authoritarian rednecks

In this particular case, I think you'll find that the politics work out so that the rednecks aren't the disgruntled ones.

[ogrerut]

One difference is that Solzhenitsyn never fled to US. He really cared for his country.

[guard-of-terra]

He was expelled from USSR and eventually end up in the USA.

He thought too that he will never be able to return.