I mean I don’t blame him for not wanting to be murdered by Russia but he isn’t a freedom fighter when he only leaks things for countries that don’t directly threaten his life.

This argument is completely nonsensical, this idea that who revealed the crime matters more than the actual crime.

What does it matter who "influenced" him, if the information was legit? And is it your opinion that none of this information should be released unless it covers all countries equally? Do you honestly think he should have thought, I can't reveal this crime until I find an equal Russian crime, for equality. What a wonderful, open world that would be! Utterly ridiculous.

This is the same stupidity as "Hunter's laptop". It allows the Idiocracy to dismiss anything because "the Russians!".

Because they may have influenced the timing and content of the leaks to further their own ends. Revealing sensitive information is not a neutral act. It has consequences far beyond the exposure of bad actors.

Grow up.

The underlying principle is the rule of law and the Constitution codifies the powers of the government with legislation codifying more details. That’s why the government is accountable to you, not because of your tax dollars. If you are a citizen who doesn’t need to pay any taxes, the government should be as equally accountable to you as to the very wealthy because of the rule of law and everyone being equal to it.

...yes. That's what a job is. There are also off-duty codes of conduct employees must adhere to.

That’s why the government is accountable to you, not because of your tax dollars.

I didn't say my taxes are why they're accountable. I said my taxes are why I want any and all evil actions taken by them exposed.

Again, we’re aligned on that. But the “ma taxes” argument is facile because for nearly 100 years there wasn’t even income tax so it was secondary taxes through purchases or tariffs. As for off duty codes, there usually aren’t any meaningful ones and they generally are very constrained by the legal system (eg they can’t punish you for political activity). It’s the same reason someone standing up to a politician and screaming “my taxes fund your salary” is blatantly incorrect. The economy is a circular dependent system. For example, government tax dollars pay corporations which then pay your salary which you then get taxed on. You’re over privileging your personal role in the economic system when you make this argument and then the next follow up argument is “well I pay more taxes than you so I should get more of a say than you in how government is run”. It’s a flawed premise that leads to all sorts of directly harmful lines of reasoning. Just argue that we’re a country based on the rule of law and no one is above that. That’s literally the founding principle of the country.

For consistency, you should then feel guilty that criminals use the roads we’ve built. After all that was government dollars used to create jobs infrastructure that murderers use to travel to kill their victim and to escape justice. And what about guns in the first place. Government tax dollars go to sustaining those gun manufacturers in the first place, otherwise we wouldn’t have guns for our military. Those guns are then used for murder and all sorts of bad things. And heck, the internet was created through government funding and many big tech companies make a lot of money from the government and that’s got a lot of crime and victimization that happens. So you should feel guilty about that too.

However, for me, personal feelings about him should not matter in this case. It's a question of how our society treats people that expose bad actors. He's a flawed human being like every other one, but what he did was not wrong even if deemed illegal (by the justice system from the exposed party, who would've guessed).

When presented with evidence of her infidelity, her first and only reaction, "Who sent you those screenshots?! It was Sarah, wasn't it? You know she hates me. Why are you talking to her?!"

IDGAF if Russia and China do the same things. I ASSUME they do them.

The west enjoys the "free world" moniker and the distinction it implies. It should be held to an accordingly higher standard.

Agree with it, I want to read news about different countries, but it looks like the people\bots are obsessed with Russia on reddit.

Also it's interesting to see how people react to the same news about civilian deaths. People are happy when Russian civilians die. I with these forums had a feature to hide/swap country names in a news/posts so people can realize how evil they are.

You know what's even more exhausting? Russia being so bad.

Also, whining about 'relentless "Russia bad!" parroting'.

The way to end the "parroting" is for Russia to stop being bad.

Not saying Russia doesn't engage in propaganda attempts, but they are more or less irrelevant for any domestic discussion then and now.