There are literally a handful of countries that are viable to avoiding that. Them being geopolitical opponents is exactly what they are countries that are viable to avoiding that. You are choosing to put the cart before the horse, that he went to geopolitical opponents to give secrets, and not that he was going to a handful of countries that would avoid prison in the US. and yes, I'm choosing to see it the other way, because his actions are more congruent with the other way. He was trying to go to a different country but could not reach it. The US intercepted flights they merely thought had him on it.

So the solution is to take the most sensitive government secrets to a hostile country? Remember that cache of data that was so damaging to the US that it would only be released if he was harmed? He took that to China and to Russia.

It always surprises me how many people still come out with this totally discredited line that he gave secrets to china and russia. Are we done with the equally dishonest claim that he put lives in danger or is everyone across that being a total lie now.

When I think of courage I think of Snowden speaking out against Putin while stuck in russia. When I think of cowardice I think of the lack of prosecution for all those spooks who are now paid by CNN to lie to the public. Who decided not to prosecute clapper? How? He's above the law. Why?

How is this whistleblowing? He also participated in Putin's call in propaganda show, I don't believe for a second that he's said anything that upsets Putin or the FSB particularly if mild criticism is useful for them in maintaining the fiction that he is not under the control of the Russian security services.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

That leak about NSA breaching Chinese servers was in the same time period that Chinese security services executed accused CIA informants with a gunshot to the head in front of their coworkers.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/29/edward-snowd...

And plenty more.

How are your criticisms of the CIA, NSA and Dept of homeland security coming along? Or you are unable to criticise clapper, the cnn paid expert at this time.

False.

The only people who saw the documents that Snowden had were the journalists chosen by Snowden. In any country, including the USA. Some were less responsible than others hence the nyt got a copy. Hong Kong is wholly and totally irrelevant.

The fact the times decided to publish is 100% their responsibility.

Again, what criticisms do you have of the NSA, CIA and dept of homeland security? List them all briefly here, please.

No, the NYT was reporting on documents that Der Spiegel obtained from Poitras, according to Snowden's wishes. The Der Spiegel journalists had decided to publish a book about those documents and made them public in Germany at the same time.

I do not.

Source?

You need to explain this. Why should a whistleblower have to go to prison? Don't deflect with whataboutisms.

Additionally, you neglect to mention that is was the US actions in cancelling his passport that stranded Snowden in the Moscow airport that he was transiting through on the way to Ecuador.

" 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."

You know that's what they would've done, it's what they have always done. He has been proven right about this since he left.

And what does all of this Russia China FUD have anything to do with anything? China and Russia are both technically our allies. The right loves Putin now. What kind of neoliberals cold war playbook like people like you even reading out of. Suddenly the US has all these fake allies and we're supposed to just know we're at war with secretly, and they didn't know anything about the Snowden stuff so he gave them this secret treasure trove of data that got people killed and put our soldiers at risk.

Grow up. You're parroting propaganda here.

So it's 100% on the US government that he ended up in Russia and not Ecuador

Once it got escalated past them, onto Putin's desk, Snowden wasn't going anywhere. Why would he let a juicy trading chip like that go?

Why not?

The fact of being a whistleblower is orthogonal to whether you abscond and where to. And Russia wasn't a "hostile country" - many of the biggest companies in the US had operations in Russia.