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Re:Google to close engineering office in Russia by minimax on Friday December 12, 2014 @11:01AM (#8740776)
If you were an Eastern European person who made it into West Berlin with thousands of secret Soviet intelligence documents in the 1960s, then you probably were a spy.
Re:Google to close engineering office in Russia by jazzyk on Friday December 12, 2014 @02:47PM (#8742287)
Some were, some were not (I grew up there). Also, while some spies are money-motivated, most spies from Eastern Europe were simply fed-up with the system.

We will never know for sure, but did you watch "Citizen4"? A closer look at Snowden - IMO, it's highly unlikely that he was a spy. It is clear (to me, at least) that he is highly principled, not money-driven. He'd have to be an extremely good actor.

Re:Google to close engineering office in Russia by minimax on Friday December 12, 2014 @03:26PM (#8742493)
Snowden's principles are exactly what make him such a great Russian agent. They don't have to sell him on the ideology since he already has it. It's like Aikido. All they have to do is take the momentum of his enormous ego and sense of self righteousness, and just sort of redirect it a little bit. Now all of a sudden Snowden finds himself sitting in Moscow being debriefed by Russian intelligence. It's brilliant on the part of the Russians and terrible for NATO.