https://www.wired.com/2014/10/snowdens-first-emails-to-poitr...
"You ask why I picked you. I didn't. You did. The surveillance you've experienced means you've been selected, a term which will mean more to you as you learn about how the modern sigint system works."
I wish everyone here would watch the movie Citizen Four to learn more about the backgrounds and the actual events. He was an anti-surveillance activist. Is it because of the Ukraine conflict that people are now trying to link him to anti-US foreign policy sentiments? Why wasn't this the topic in 2012?
Being anti-US foreign policy is generally a good thing and the only reason you are going to leak to Glenn Greenwald of all people in late 2012.
Snowden also exposed that it was not Bashar al-Assad's legitimate democratically elected government that turned off the Internet in Syria in 2012. It was actually the NSA:
https://time.com/3107684/snowden-nsa-syria-cybersecurity/
No other "anti-surveillance activist" would have stood up Assad in 2012. Only Snowden dared to do that because he is a heroic world citizen opposed to US influence and control of the world.
Nothing wrong with Greenwald besides being a well-written PITA. He also saw the story though, at substantial risk to himself. A great choice to be included, even from hindsight.
I read GGs pieces on Salon about the Bush Admin in the early 00s and was impressed enough to remember his name later. At no time do I remember him being an “axis of evil” apologist.
This isn't why he went to Greenwald, he did so to avoid American outlets like the New York Times, since before the leak they censored the illegal wiretapping story (Room 641A) at the request of the Bush Administration.
Snowden found himself in a situation where both the Government and the Media were in cahoots to cover up criminal behavior. At that point I don't blame him, going to Glenn and then fleeing to Russia was exactly the right thing to do. If he didn't the story would have been covered up and he'd be sitting in a dark cell right now, with none of us none the wiser.
If it was about anti-surveillance/pro-privacy activism there are so many other ways Snowden could have leaked it and so many other people and organizations he could have leaked to. Snowden would probably be living in Vienna by now and not in Moscow if he was just an anti-surveillance activist. However his primary motivation for the leaks was to lower US influence and control of the rest of the world.
Obviously for the rest of the world Snowden is a net positive that raised awareness about mass surveillance by US Big Tech. But I cringe whenever Americans declare him "an American hero". I am sure Snowden cringe even more at that term to be honest.