The fact that he's now in Russia is 100% on the US.
Also, he didn't bring any stolen information to Russia. He says he was contacted by Russian intelligence but that they pretty quickly figured out he had nothing more to give them than what he gave to the journalists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4-Sr_t_kE4
To pretend that they weren't in control of the situation when he was there from a national security standpoint is a bit naive. Ultimately the decision to allow him to depart Hong Kong was made in Beijing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/asia/china-said-to-...
"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."
2014 - NYTimes: "N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat" https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/world/asia/nsa-breached-c...
We now know Glenn Greenwald was likely a Russian asset at the time he was given access to the Snowden files. For a member of the intelligence community, he sure did a piss poor job of vetting who he chose to whistleblow with.
https://thespectator.com/topic/why-glenn-greenwald-backs-put...
>Greenwald is not, as many of his critics lazily allege, a Russian agent
> ... was likely ...
That would be "suspect", not "know"
"Greenwald is not, as many of his critics lazily allege, a Russian agent; that would imply that his motivation is pecuniary rather than heartfelt. Greenwald remains what he has always been: a sincere enemy of liberal democracy and a genuine lickspittle for tyrants."
Glenn Greenwald is a real liberal democrat and fights for free speech. He even left "The Intercept" when they suppressed inconvenient facts.
The fact that he's in Russia is 100% on Russia. If you think the Russians care about Snowden's travel documents, you don't know anything about Russia.
Or you have more money and backing than an average person. I hear langely is quite hot this time of year?
Is this what you would've done in Snowdon's shoes?
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.
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.
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.
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]
> My ultimate goal will always be to return to the United States. And I've actually had conversations with the government, last in the Obama administration, about what that would look like, and they said, "You should come and face trial." I said, "Sure. Sign me up. Under one condition: I have to be able to tell the jury why I did what I did, and the jury has to decide: Was this justified or unjustified." This is called a public interest defense and is allowed under pretty much every crime someone can be charged for. Even murder, for example, has defenses. It can be self-defense and so on so forth, it could be manslaughter instead of first-degree murder. But in the case of telling a journalist the truth about how the government was breaking the law, the government says there can be no defense. There can be no justification for why you did it. The only thing the jury gets to consider is did you tell the journalists something you were not allowed to tell them. If yes, it doesn't matter why you did it. You go to jail. And I have said, as soon as you guys say for whistleblowers it is the jury who decides if it was right or wrong to expose the government's own lawbreaking, I'll be in court the next day.
[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/crsj-fe... [2] https://theintercept.com/2022/07/12/whistleblower-espionage-... [3] https://www.rcfp.org/espionage-act-reform/ [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reality-winner-espionage-act-60... [5] https://www.npr.org/2019/09/19/761918152/exiled-nsa-contract...
In what universe would the US Gov't not just ship him off to some blacksite on a remote island somewhere and disappear him forever?
For all conspiracy theorists like to talk about it, there is remarkably little disappearing going on in the US, even when intelligence agencies are involved.
> Chelsea Manning
Bradley Manning
> she
he
No, he wouldn't. Google "snowden fair trial". He has always said that he is perfectly willing to come to the US and do exactly as you describe, if the government is willing to guarantee a fair trial. It isn't.
Go on, Google "snowden fair trial". Go do it. It's a key part of the story you're apparently unaware of. It'll take 5 seconds.
Sibling comment pointing out same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401553
Implying there is some sort of kangaroo court cabal out to get you is a deflection tactic that you seem to have fallen for.
If the American system is so corrupt that we ignore our own rules, why didn't the CIA just black bag him and bring him back? Or kill him outright? Both would be easier and more effective than a show trial.
They had to. He broke the law. He would have had the chance to go to trial and defend himself and seek whistleblower protection status. Given the politically charged nature and public opinion at the time, he might have had a pretty fair shake and could have been living comfortably in the US working for the ACLU or something.
Instead he plotted an escape to an openly hostile country (not even a quasi-neutral country or a non-extradition country) and allowed all of his stolen material to fall into the hands of a foreign intelligence service.