No, the damage is done and this is a better deterrent than if they'd killed him. Now any journalist knows that if they annoy the wrong people, they could have their lives and family completely destroyed right out in public and all done perfectly "legally".

I think this is the most important part of this whole story. They (as in "the US government") will get you _anywhere_ and destroy your life if they think it's the right thing to do. And you can't expect any other government to stand in their way (except for those you probably don't want to interact with).

Not anywhere, Snowden managed to evade them.

I haven't heard anything about him in a while, I assume he's still living in exile in Russia? In which case, yes, he might have evaded the US, but he still gave up a lot of his freedom in return.

At a high price, though. Contrary to how this is sometimes portrayed to discredit it him, Snowden never intended to end up in Russia, and now he's forced to collaborate with a regime he undoubtedly despises. And he can never leave again.

And he's ended up being a pawn, a pawn currently not being used, but I can't imagine it's relaxing to live in a country where any moment the security services can take him and say "Mr. Putin has decided to extradite you to the US in exchange for...".

Well not "extradition" in the traditional sense, since Snowden is now a Russian citizen and they don't have an extradition treaty, but hey in a lawless place, anything is possible, they can just ship him to a US-friendly country who will then deliver him the rest of the way.

I wonder if he's got a hiding strategy figured out, with wife and kid(s). Russia's a big place after all.

> say "Mr. Putin has decided to extradite you to the US in exchange for...".

Or worse. Not say anything other than "get in the car now". It is not like dictators need to explain themselves.

Nobody is ever “forced to collaborate”: Collaboration as a concept isn’t coherent if it’s ultimately involuntary.

Dissidents always get mud slung at them. The only really surprising thing is that the people who receptive to the mudslinging are oblivious to how they are being manipulated.

It's the same with an average dim Russian's opinion on Navalny as it is with an average dim American's opinion on Snowden and Assange.

Physically, yes. But his life was unlawfully destroyed and his choices are narrowed down to an ideologically hostile territory that'll keep him alive, and a hostile territory that will torture him to death if he ever leaves the former.

It makes me think of this Google search: <<russia fall out a window>>

The second link is: <<Full List of Russians to Fall Out of Windows Since Putin ...>>

Ref: https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-russians-fall-windows-put...

This is downvoted there are many Russians that do fall out of windows and it has happened quite frequently at Gazprom.

More like "book deal" and "Netflix show"

Podcast? I’d pay $10 per month for a good Assange podcast.

if I were him I would take the first flight to Moscow, can't trust the Australian government, they're a US vassal state, sabotaging their own economy and relationship with China to please the US. Safer to go an enemy state of the US in this case. There's a reason Snowden's still alive while all those Boeing and other whistleblowers are either dead or jailed.

If you’re going to air conspiracy theories on hn, much better to elaborate the evidence for them beyond “there’s a reason”!

Look at all of the psychologically conditioned[1] Westerners who do not follow your rule of thumb:

http://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&que...

Does this variation of the phenomenon bother you as well, and to the same degree?

[1] I mean this in the technical sense, not merely as shit talk.

From my admittedly limited perspective, it doesn’t seem like you need conspiracy theories to rag on the actions and statements of the current Russian government.

I agree...however, do you think most people (or, the HN members in the search results) are able to conceptualize reality (the portion related to this topic) in a manner that does not technically fall into that category (thus invoking hypocrisy/irony/hilarity)?

Do you think they mostly & consistently have the ability (cold/natively, or even if explicitly prompted)?

I don’t know, but if they alluded to evidence that Russia had co-opted a US presidential candidate or something, yes, I’d also encourage them to present it.

"evidence" is one of the most misunderstood, weaponized, shape shifting, etc words in our language....and our language is shit, so that's saying something.