Snowden to Critics: Questioning Putin Has Opened Conversation About Surveillance 168
The Guardian carries Edward Snowden's detailed rebuttal to critics who say that his recent live-TV interaction with Vladimir Putin, in which Snowden asked whether the Russian government was engaged in spying on Russian citizens' communications, was a scripted moment intended to curry or maintain favor with Putin. After all, Snowden is currently living in Russia, where he has been granted only temporary harbor, goes this argument, so he is at the mercy of the Russian government, and has just gamely thrown Putin a softball. (Slashdot reader Rambo Tribble said the exchange had a "canned quality," a sentiment widely echoed.) Snowden writes that, far from being a whitewash of actual policies by the Russian government, his question ("Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals' communications?") "was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion"; he decribes Putin's answer as a combination of inconsistent denial and evasion. Snowden writes:
"I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them. Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded 'will make our nation stronger.' I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then. I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims."
Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Russia, you twit! How can there be a Russian conversation about domestic surveillance when they have trouble having political opposition, let alone a free press! The Russian Federation is 148th in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders World free press index, and here you are, talking about how you asked a tough question to a leader who doesn't give a shit about looking hypocritical or lying, and has been using you for the last 10 months to discredit the West while he goes forward with his project of grand russian unification.
Why do people think Snowden would've done that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Snowden to Critics: Questioning Putin Has Opened Conversation About Surveillance
If he really wanted to ask questions about freedoms, he should have asked about the LGBT rights in Russia or Chechens' right for self-determination. In the US, asking about surveillance violations is the right question to ask because, by and large, it is one of the most pressing issues. In Russia, that ain't.
The proper question to ask when it comes to freedom is always the one concerning the greatest, most infamous violations.
US Revelations vs. Confronting Putin (Score:4, Insightful)
He was an idealistic young programmer who, some would say, naively did what he thought was right in the U.S. He knew or at least suspected there would be a downside, but he is under no illusion what would happen if he attempts to publicly upset Putin's apple cart.
The first thing that comes to mind is we wouldn't have even heard of this video if it didn't go according to script.
Re:Dumbass (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead of sneering from you perch, get involved yourself.
But he *IS* involved !
He is working on the side of NSA in making sure Snowden's life will be hell, no matter where Snowden lives.
Re:Wrong Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wrong Question (Score:5, Insightful)
The proper questions to ask are those that you know something about. For Snowden to suddenly jump on LGBT rights or Chechen independence would come off as the type of issue-of-the-day “activism” sometimes seen with celebrities. It would make about as much sense as if Pussy Riot went on U.S. television to talk about Obamacare or the Keystone Pipeline.
Re:Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in the US, we haven't done much about what he exposed, we haven't thrown anyone in jail for lying through their teeth about the program, instead we (and you, right now) have been focusing on discrediting the person who gave up everything in order to tell the truth. How can you sit there and say he should stop trying to expose corruption because the corrupt are too corrupt to care? Why don't we tell everyone under an oppressive government they should just give up and live with it?
Maybe instead of complaining that Snowden should've known better than to ask, you should be complaining that Putin is lying yet again, considering that's the actual problem. I can't understand why people think he should've just not bothered asking when he had the opportunity.
Re:Why do people think Snowden would've done that? (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't believe he gave up his principals. We suspect that his principals are not what you believe they are.
They will attack Snowden no matter what ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Mr. Snowden asked Putin a question and they crawled out from under the rocks and singled out on Snowden for asking "soft question" and/or "canned performance", et cetera, et cetera, et cetera ....
Even if Snowden didn't ask any question (didn't participate on the call-in program at all) they would still find a way to attack Snowden
NSA has a long memory - and they will never stop harassing Snowden, period.
Re:Dumbass (Score:1, Insightful)
Lets expand on that. Why can't ordinary citizens of the many nations (US, UK, AU, NZ, CA) that Snowden took documents from and leaked have a grievance against him? Do they all work for the intelligence services of their government? Or can ordinary citizens be against it and express an opinion? If not, are you working on the side of the FSB and Chinese intelligence in the conduct of political warfare against the US by advocating in favor of Snowden? If not, why can't someone have a contrary view, that Snowden's actions were bad, without working for the NSA? Does the fact that he arranges for a few of the documents that he stole to be published make it all OK? Does that give Snowden a pass to do whatever he wants without criticism?
Re:Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
>Should the man's life not be hell after that? Or should he simply be hung for treason?
Treason is "a citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the parent nation."
If you seriously think that the *people* of the United States are the enemies of the United States, and aiding them is "treason", then you are completely beyond any hope of redemption.
Re:Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have time to write a full answer, but I'll just give one counterpoint.
During the 1944 there was a World War going on changing the comparison dramatically.
Bletchley park was strictly a military/couter intelligence operation working against Axis, while the NSA is fcuking surveillance on a world scale against *everyone*.
Re:Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
I have mod points, but we're supposed to point out why someone is wrong rather than simply mod them down. So:
Zimmerman Telegram? That was in 1917, during World War 1. The UK and Germany were officially at war and were _shooting at each other_. ... *looks around* ... I seemed to have missed the declaration of World War 3, the US and Russia are not officially at war and they are certainly not shooting at each other (to everyone's immense good fortune, because, y'know, nukes).
Bletchely Park? That was in 1944, during World War 2. The UK and Germany were again officially at war and were _shooting at each other_.
Snowden Leaks?
Furthermore, if Russia seriously wanted to FUBAR the United States, it would not need Snowden to do it, because the American security apparatus has focused for so long on playing selfish little power games instead of remedying the nation's vulnerabilities that a precocious five year old could tell you how to cripple the country (and frankly, successive US governments have been doing a pretty bang up job of that on their own anyway).
Re:Why do people think Snowden would've done that? (Score:2, Insightful)
By 'we' you mean the people puppeting the astroturfers who are trying to discredit snowden to support the govt line on the issue in forums such as these?
No, by "we" he means all of us who think that. Thinking that doling out the huge amount of information he stole, and then wandering his way through one totalitarian country before setting up shop in another is a bad thing and indicative of his muddled world view ... that's not "the government line," that's being realistic. Snowden was and is being handled. His appearance on TV with Putin couldn't have looked more scripted, or more set up to allow Putin to answer in the dismissive, oily way that he did - all while sending the Useful Idiots that think Snowden is a clear-headed hero a nice little pat on the head.
Re:Dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't think, Russia is an enemy, then you have not been paying attention. You may not have anything against them, but they are sore and butthurt at the West and anxious for a revanche.