Anyone sitting on comfortable couch can!

I heard a conversation where Assange came out as a "drama queen" for not walking to the car that took him to prison. The event was discussed as if it were part of the Kardashians or something.

If he does not want to stand on principle, then no, I cannot blame him for choosing what is likely his only opportunity for any amount of freedom.

Part of being a martyr, is, well, being a martyr. He knew the game when he released classified information, even if the ends may eventually justify the means (for some, not all of the information he divulged). I agree that he is essentially irrelevant at this point, he has said what he had to say, and done as much as he will ever be able to do.

But I cannot blame reasonable people for believing that it is important he stand trial for breaking the law, regardless of how damning the information released. There is an argument to be made that we don't want to make it okay for every individual person to make their own judgement call about what classified information should be kept secret and what should not.

Well I can kinda understand the principle of not wishing to turn one's self over to be waterboarded or held in draconian isolation in a US prison. I live in Scotland, if I had worked for the UK government, discovered extra-judicial killings and exposed them then sure I'd run somewhere. But it's not home. I lived in another country for a few years, within western Europe within an hour's flight "from home" and just as a "normal mort" I got homesick. Snowden upended his life over his leaks and can't go home. Maybe it's my age, I'm in my early 50's but that's a pretty big thing.

> Part of being a martyr, is, well, being a martyr.

What, as in being double tapped in the back of the head?

We shouldn't need to be "martyrs" these days, we should be given the protection where if your government is committing acts of murder on innocent citizens in other countries (and in the US) then you should be protected. We don't live in the 50's to 80's any more. And also see above, Snowden is an exile, he will likely never be able to go home, that's plenty of martyrdom. And see above.

> [...] I cannot blame him for choosing what is likely his only opportunity for any amount of freedom.

It is my understanding he didn't "accept" Russia's hopitality as such, nor did he actively chose it. I thought the US Department of State cancelled his passport, effectively forcing him to stay put in Russia.

On a side note, there seems to be some confusion with regards to that: some sources state that his travel documents were revoked a day before he boarded the flight to Moscow, whereas Greenwald maintains the opposite (his passport was cancelled while en route to Moscow). The whole Hong Kong episode seems very foggy and confused in places and its likely it will be a good while before the whole truth comes out.

EDIT: some spelling. Its late here.

History will show eventually that Snowden did the the right thing. The people will eventually come around because they know deep down that what he stood for was protecting their freedom. Perhaps not in a way that had boots on the ground against some foreign enemy, but against a government that was overreaching and spying on the lives of its own citizens against the peoples' constitutional rights.

It is your responsibility to hold your government accountable for their behaviour and he did that in the only possible way he could have - any other way would have seen his complaints shut down and he would have been silenced, by legal or illegal means. His only recourse was to obtain the information secretly and release the information to the public and let the U.S. population judge for themselves whether or not a government by the people, of the people and for the people was acting in the best interest of those to whom it is constitutionally bound.

You don't need to be a martyr to do what's right, you don't need to be a martyr to do what you believe in. The fact that he fled to preserve his freedom doesn't make what he did any less right, nor does it make him any less principled.

If I had to flee the country to preserve as much of my enjoyment of life as I could, while standing up for what I believe is right, I would do the same thing - and I think you'd probably find that a large proportion of other people would too.

If you were guaranteed to rot in a cell for standing up for what's right, would you still stand for what's right? Or would you fall in line and do what you were told?

Or would you find another way to stand up for what you believed was right?

You are making a naive, emotional argument based on your own moral convictions and assuming that everyone else must share it, and that everyone will eventually agree with you that disregarding our system of laws is the correct answer.

What principle, exactly?

The principle of spending your life in jail if you dare oppose the US government? Where is the fun in that principle?

They shouldn't have to martyr themselves to get the information out.

Snowden did that and didn't spend his life rotting for no reason, that's the better outcome.

I would argue that we do want this to be okay, at least on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately this means that it's incredibly subjective as to whether an unauthorized release of classified information was justified or not.

We currently live in a world where unethical (and often illegal) activities continue, secretly and silently, likely because people who do have some shred of a conscience are too afraid of the consequences of stepping forward and speaking out. We tighten that status quo only to our detriment and the continued erosion of our civil rights.

It's a tough call. I don't have a good answer.

Cought, ahem, but also overtly - Venezuela, Iran. Sure, not ideal world citizens, but at least Venezuela still has an independent privately owned press, though funded by some pretty unpleasant rich folks.

Iran - not a big fan but I kinda think I'd rather live there (at a push) than Saudi or most of the other UAE, Oman etc type regimes who are US client states for civilian oppression.

What law[s] do you believe he broke? Do you believe he is a US citizen/resident, committed crimes while in a US territory, or otherwise was under US jurisdiction? Please be specific in your legal references. Thank you very much in advance for your detailed legal citations in response.

There's no question that Snowden committed a crime under US law, and is absolutely subject to US jurisdiction, the question is whether it was justified. With Assange, however, you'd be right: he's never even set foot in the US to my knowledge, and was given the classified information by someone else (who was tried, convicted, and served time for it).

This particular thread is talking about Snowden.