Edward Snowden Urges Donations to the EFF (eff.org) 99
In October, Edward Snowden was granted permanent residency in Russia. A new web page by the EFF applauds his past activities as a U.S. whistleblower. "His revelations about secret surveillance programs opened the world's eyes to a new level of government misconduct, and reinvigorated EFF's continuing work in the courts and with lawmakers to end unlawful mass spying."
And then they shared this fund-raising pitch written by Edward Snowden: Seven years ago I did something that would change my life and alter the world's relationship to surveillance forever.
When journalists revealed the truth about state deception and illegal conduct against citizens, it was human rights and civil liberties groups like EFF — backed by people around the world just like you — that seized the opportunity to hold authority to account.
Surveillance quiets resistance and takes away our choices. It robs us of private space, eroding our dignity and the things that make us human.
When you're secure from the spectre of judgement, you have room to think, to feel, and to make mistakes as your authentic self. That's where you test your notions of what's right. That's when you question the things that are wrong.
By sounding the alarm and shining a light on mass surveillance, we force governments around the world to confront their wrongdoing.
Slowly, but surely, grassroots work is changing the future. Laws like the USA Freedom Act have just begun to rein in excesses of government surveillance. Network operators and engineers are triumphantly "encrypting all the things" to harden the Internet against spying. Policymakers began holding digital privacy up to the light of human rights law. And we're all beginning to understand the power of our voices online.
This is how we can fix a broken system. But it only works with your help.
For 30 years, EFF members have joined forces to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people. It takes unique expertise in the courts, with policymakers, and on technology to fight digital authoritarianism, and thankfully EFF brings all of those skills to the fight. EFF relies on participation from you to keep pushing the digital rights movement forward .
Each of us plays a crucial role in advancing democracy for ourselves, our neighbors, and our children. I hope you'll answer the call by joining EFF to build a better digital future together.
Sincerely,
Edward Snowden
And then they shared this fund-raising pitch written by Edward Snowden: Seven years ago I did something that would change my life and alter the world's relationship to surveillance forever.
When journalists revealed the truth about state deception and illegal conduct against citizens, it was human rights and civil liberties groups like EFF — backed by people around the world just like you — that seized the opportunity to hold authority to account.
Surveillance quiets resistance and takes away our choices. It robs us of private space, eroding our dignity and the things that make us human.
When you're secure from the spectre of judgement, you have room to think, to feel, and to make mistakes as your authentic self. That's where you test your notions of what's right. That's when you question the things that are wrong.
By sounding the alarm and shining a light on mass surveillance, we force governments around the world to confront their wrongdoing.
Slowly, but surely, grassroots work is changing the future. Laws like the USA Freedom Act have just begun to rein in excesses of government surveillance. Network operators and engineers are triumphantly "encrypting all the things" to harden the Internet against spying. Policymakers began holding digital privacy up to the light of human rights law. And we're all beginning to understand the power of our voices online.
This is how we can fix a broken system. But it only works with your help.
For 30 years, EFF members have joined forces to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people. It takes unique expertise in the courts, with policymakers, and on technology to fight digital authoritarianism, and thankfully EFF brings all of those skills to the fight. EFF relies on participation from you to keep pushing the digital rights movement forward .
Each of us plays a crucial role in advancing democracy for ourselves, our neighbors, and our children. I hope you'll answer the call by joining EFF to build a better digital future together.
Sincerely,
Edward Snowden
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Frelling EFF is astroturfed. This is like when Snowden gets his retarded politics in the conversation and doesn't realize how little he actually knows....
This is the most ignorant thing I will hear all week.
This EFF you so deride went after Clinton's "Clipper chip" with a vengeance, hiring White Hats to attack the cypher, breaking it publicly and posting the "build out" for a Clipper breaker FPGA array
They attacked Obama's "black hole" demands for backdoors.
That they ALSO noted that Both Bushes, Reagan and Trump were all engaged in mass spying and the criminal misuse of FISA warrants against political enemies shows you literally are speaking out of your ass.
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And he did divulge classified data about US surveillance of computers in mainland China and Hong Kong... I guess he was trying to befriend them to see if they might offer him asylum. This fact is why he will never receive a pardon or in my view be seen as anything more than a traitor.
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What's your basis for believing this? The NYT article that claimed that [nytimes.com] seems to be based on the mistaken belief that he had data on his laptops when in fact the laptops were a distraction [nytimes.com] and he had no data with him.
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Sorry, wrong link - corrected reuters link for "the laptops were a distraction [reuters.com]".
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Sorry, but I'm going with "He's got something with him and now the Russians have it" on this one.
Sorry about that, though you should be able to find similar articles via google. You might find that if you get a decent ad-blocker extension you don't need to do those things.
My understanding on the Russia thing is that the reason that he spent so long in the transit hotel in Moscow airport was precisely because he had nothing. However there are many simple reasons why Russia would take him in
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Did you read your first link?
"The South China Morning Post, a local newspaper, reported on Friday that Edward J. Snowden, the contractor, had shared detailed data showing the dates and Internet Protocol addresses of specific computers in mainland China and Hong Kong that the National Security Agency penetrated over the last four years. The data also showed whether the agency was still breaking into these computers, the success rates for hacking and other operational information"
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Did you read the second. The whole point of my comment is that the first link, which is what the great grandparent probably based his comment on, is wrong and was based on security services slander. That's what the second link shows. I am not aware of any other independent source for this information apart from the first New York Times link which was later contradicted by the New York Times its self.
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Any sources for this? I thought he gave Glenn Greenwald all the info.
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Re:Hmmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
More like he was stuck there because his passport was revoked https://apnews.com/article/587... [apnews.com]
I'd take living in Russia any day over being held in solitary confinement 24x7 in a supermax prison.
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It would be a lot more convincing if he hadn't picked Russia to be friends with. Maybe there were no good choices but still...
I believe that he was trying to get asylum in a number of countries, but Russia ended up fitting the bill because it was a propaganda gift to them.
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I believe that he was trying to get asylum in a number of countries, but Russia ended up fitting the bill because it was a propaganda gift to them.
More specifically, when he was trying to get out of Russia, aiming for South America, the US actually hijacked the Bolivian president's plane forcing it to land in Austria. In the end France had to apologise [bbc.co.uk] for the illegal detention. Given that situation, basically it's the US security services which forced Snowden to stay in Russia.
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I believe that he was trying to get asylum in a number of countries, but Russia ended up fitting the bill because it was a propaganda gift to them.
More specifically, when he was trying to get out of Russia, aiming for South America, the US actually hijacked the Bolivian president's plane forcing it to land in Austria. In the end France had to apologise [bbc.co.uk] for the illegal detention. Given that situation, basically it's the US security services which forced Snowden to stay in Russia.
Right. You think we should have had a parade for him? I know it is really popular to hate on the USA, and a lot of it is deserved. But at some point you get serious about dissemination of classified material by employees. And I defy any one here to claim that their country is squeaky clean in the realm of classified work.
The really neat thing is that China is close to becoming the singular world leader. Fortunately for the rest of the world, they will always be ethical and will treat you as well as they
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Right. You think we should have had a parade for him? I know it is really popular to hate on the USA, and a lot of it is deserved. But at some point you get serious about dissemination of classified material by employees. And I defy any one here to claim that their country is squeaky clean in the realm of classified work.
Nope, I'm pretty okay with them attempting to pursue him at the time. Even though we now know with reasonable certainty he had no intention of doing further damage, at the time they had no way to be sure of that. The job of the security services at that point, however, was to catch him and/or persuade him to return to the country. Once he was in Russia almost any chance of actually prosecuting him without his agreement was lost and in fact the very fact he wanted to leave showed that he wasn't actually work
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You will notice, if you read my posting history that I'm quite majorly down on China and authoritarians everywhere. The US population is 1/3 of the population of China, you have lost your love of science and you lack their work ethic and history of respect for education. Your only chance of maintaining something close to your current status is to be part of an attractive alliance. China is deliberately showing it's respect for other nations that work with them whilst doing a bunch of important things like working with the EU to get rid of green house gas emissions. The US has been working with the UK in an attempt to destroy the EU; has been coming out of important international agreements like the Paris agreement on climate change. I can see why many people worldwide are beginning to align with China instead of the US.
Donald Trump has been an accelerator for the decline of the US. Nobody is going to be stupid enough to follow the Kurds in allying with the US and expecting them to stay loyal and supportive. Nobody is going to trust the US to be a reliable long term partner on the environment and stick with their agreements. Biden has a chance to improve things but I frankly doubt it. He would have to start with serious investigations and prosecutions against the Americans that have been working with US enemies like Russia [npr.org]. Instead I think he will go with some stupid "bipartisan" malarky which paralyses the country.
Just to be sure, remember that many people and countries have written off the USA as indolent fat lazy anti-technology, anti fill in the blank here. They have often been wrong in the end. To use an old example, the Japanese Military was convinced that their attack on Pearl Harbor would be the beginning and end of what turned into a nasty ass response.
As far as countries aligning with China - Go ahead, it's a free world, and China's human right's history has been perfect. I suspect that a lot of Slashdot
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It would be a lot more convincing if he hadn't picked Russia to be friends with. Maybe there were no good choices but still...
I believe that he was trying to get asylum in a number of countries, but Russia ended up fitting the bill because it was a propaganda gift to them.
Nope. He got stuck in Moscow airport because his passport got cancelled.
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It would be a lot more convincing if he hadn't picked Russia to be friends with. Maybe there were no good choices but still...
I believe that he was trying to get asylum in a number of countries, but Russia ended up fitting the bill because it was a propaganda gift to them.
Nope. He got stuck in Moscow airport because his passport got cancelled.
That's what they want you to believe! 8^)
Regardless, a patriot wouldn't do what he did. What he did makes him just look like a Russian tool.
Re:Hmmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
He didn't pick Russia. The U.S. forced him to be stranded there.
And there has been no evidence or even accusation by anyone credible that he ever shared intelligence with Russia.
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1) Russia has an asylum/immigration system similar to many other developed countries. They have granted asylum to thousands of people over the past decades and their individual intelligence value or their "usefulness" to Putin has nothing to do with it. Certainly Putin could assert authority to grant/deny any case he wanted to, but in this case I am sure he perfectly ok with having the US/UK stew over not having Snowden in their custody.
2) Snowden made it a point to leave everything he had with what he
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I do not know how to reconcile this. At this point if I were him I would come back and take my chances. I think the political climate is such that the government would not be able to get away with what they did during the Cheney/Bush administration. But I can understand him not wanting to go into that.
There's no way he's getting anything like a fair trial. The security services generally just can't afford to let it be known that people can get away with the kind of leaks he did. How do they explain to their current agents that Snowden released information about "bad" illegal stuff, but the illegal things that you are working on are okay? Biden will follow the advice of his security people which will be to nail Snowden. His only chance is that Trump has a brain fart and pardons him, which looks unlikely
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There's a hilarious similarity there. Snowden ran out of places to go and wound up in Russia. And Trump ran out of bankers dumb enough to do business with him, and wound up with Russian money. Both wound up being manipulated to some degree by Putin. The difference is that Snowden stands for something positive, while Trump is just a dumpster fire. (Trumpster fire?) He never has cared about anyone but himself. As proof, I offer his presidency.
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There's a hilarious similarity there. ...
It's a shame that pointing stuff like that out gets a post flagged as troll or flamebait around here. (sigh)
Also, "Trumpster Fire" -- ha! :-)
Alter world relationship to surveillance forever? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seven years ago I did something that would change my life and alter the world's relationship to surveillance forever.
I'm sorry to disappoint you Edward, but nothing's changed.
Before, everybody suspected surveillance was ubiquitous.
Then you came along, stirred things up and created some newsroom agitation for a few months.
Now we're right back to where we were - apart that now, everybody has had confirmation that surveillance is ubiquitous, and you're fucking stuck in Russia.
I admire you Edward. But you come 40 years too late. People today don't care anymore, are too apathetic, think - quite rightly - that the whole system is so huge, so entrenched and so corrupt nothing they can attempt will ever change anything. Best proof, you're fucking stuck in Russia and nothing has changed.
Nice try though.
Re:Alter world relationship to surveillance foreve (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot has changed. E2E encryption is a desirable selling point in the public's mind. All major browsers are enforcing HTTPS and the cost of mass surveillance has risen significantly.
Many of us suspected the stuff you talk about but the proof really got things moving. It indirectly lead to strengthening laws in Europe too, particularly regarding data sharing.
Re: Alter world relationship to surveillance forev (Score:2, Insightful)
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Almost all commercial grade HTTPS services are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle monitoring by security agencies, with the collaboration of the major commercial proxy and cloud services. When local high grade proxies are not vulnerable to back doors, cloud services are vulnerable to attacks we simply will not see from outside the cloud provider, whio may face "Patriot Act" warrants they are not even allowed to disclose receiving. The SSL certificates and disk encryption keys are accessible to the providers, e
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You're trying so hard to be edgy.
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Re:Alter world relationship to surveillance foreve (Score:5, Interesting)
> I'm sorry to disappoint you Edward, but nothing's changed.
I have to respectfully disagree - setting aside any personal political views on Mr Snowden, as someone who's been inside infosec for years, encryption has become a Thing in the wake of the disclosures. Consider a project to encrypt all the data flows INSIDE your datacenter. Prior to the Snowden leaks, that's have been a non-starter in most large firms: "Dear Board of Directors, please approve this multimillion dollar project that provides no user-visible benefits, is only really advocated by a few cypto-geeks and is only hypothetically going to protect us from some un-proven risks - Signed the tinfoil hat brigade"
Now if you're selling serious product to a listed publicly traded company, encryption WILL be on the list of questions their security department will be asking you prior to signing off on the purchase. Let's Encrypt is a thing now. Hell even the Feds want your internal data center network to be fully encrypted for Fedramp certification.
Remember the conversations about Zoom e2e encryption? Thank Snowden for those.
Min
Amazon Smile works with EFF (Score:5, Insightful)
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so he revealed the US government are traitors against we the people, what's your problem?
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so he revealed the US government are traitors against we the people, what's your problem?
He should try that trick with Russia. Hidden in there is my point, although I suspect you prefer Russia to the USA and would miss the irony.
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Russia is awful but they are irrelevant, I don't care where Snowden wound up.
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His presence in Russia is an astonishing embarrassment to the USA. One of the things Mr. Biden might be able to do as a new president is correct this massive abuse of a US hero.
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His presence in Russia is an astonishing embarrassment to the USA. One of the things Mr. Biden might be able to do as a new president is correct this massive abuse of a US hero.
I guess "hero" depends on which end of the binoculars you look through. Was his action a crime? If a crime is a moral thing, not a law term, you might say no. But that's a two headed axe. Your hero might be your USA enemy's goat, and vice versa.
He knowingly and deliberately committed a pretty serious crime. And ran away rather than face the consequences. In the end, his actions are indistinguishable from an old school Soviet agent that just wants to commit espionage and embarrass the USA. And that ain't
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what Snowden did is not one-tenth the crimes he exposed that were committed by most presidents, congress, and judges against the american people
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In the end, his actions are indistinguishable from an old school Soviet agent that just wants to commit espionage and embarrass the USA. And that ain't no hero.
That's an interesting definition of hero. Clearly that agent isn't your hero, but they were clearly a hero to someone. In the modern age, we tend to require heroes to be paragons of virtue, rather than just having performed brave/extraordinary feats. Virtue is, of course, often subjective. There are some virtues that we consider more universal than others, but others we tend to see as very relative to who they're helping. A great military hero for one side may be considered a terrible monster to the other s
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In the end, his actions are indistinguishable from an old school Soviet agent that just wants to commit espionage and embarrass the USA. And that ain't no hero.
That's an interesting definition of hero. Clearly that agent isn't your hero, but they were clearly a hero to someone. In the modern age, we tend to require heroes to be paragons of virtue, rather than just having performed brave/extraordinary feats. Virtue is, of course, often subjective.
Yeah, it is. It does depend on who's Ox is being gored. There is a lot of anti-American sentiment here in Slashdot. So it's understandable that a lot of Slashdotters would enjoy Snowdon's little misadventure. We don't hear a lot about other countries, which might lead some to believe that the USA is the center and only evil on earth.
There are some virtues that we consider more universal than others, but others we tend to see as very relative to who they're helping.
Kind of like how Al Capone ran soup kitchens in Chicago and started the practice of putting expiration dates on milk, but he also orchestrated at least 700 known murders, and wh
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You wrote:
Not exactly that sort of thing. Running soup kitchens isn't usually the sort of thing that makes someone a hero. Many criminals do get made into heroes in the popular imagination though. The people who considered Capone a hero even in his own time were those who admired hi
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You wrote:
Not exactly that sort of thing. Running soup kitchens isn't usually the sort of thing that makes someone a hero.
Perhaps not, but you can tell these guys they are wrong if you want to. https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com] That's Al Capone - hero.
It's the great deeds that people look at. Often people overlook the monstrous part when it isn't directly affecting them.
Right - like this guy who believes any Americans killed by Snowdon's acts is necessary, because Founding fathers. Sounds more like parler than Reddit, but this fellow believes the monster part is good.
Not sure I really get your point here.
I was merely following the point you made about:
Looking back in history, we can look at people like Simo Hayha (The White Death) or Manfred Von Richthofen (The Red Baron) fairly neutrally. Even some people whose own great-great-grandfather was killed by them might be more likely to find that fact a source of bragging rights these days than a reason to hate them. Distance, both physically, temporally, and emotionally tend make the difference.
In simplest terms. If you h-word a country, any and all things they do is fodder for your h-word. We can without fear of repriman
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What I don't really understand about your point about concentration camps is how a camp could be considered a hero. It just doesn't really parse.
Ultimately, we're arguing over a definition of a word that has a range of connotations. So it's probably not productive. In general, I don't agree with putting people on pedestals because they will always disappoint you. Real live humans are fallible. I don't think I actually have any personal heroes that are actually human. I tend towards putting principals of var
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he doesn't want the prison life, and there is no guarantee there will be national pressure to release him when he goes to prison
Well, fortunately he ended up in a land of total freedom. He won.
Which is why I don't understand why the MAGAs don't emigrate to Russia. Seems that it would fit them well.
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Real life is much like the board game of mouse trap. There are many players trying to interfere with one another, and the game is complex and baroque and something you didn't even perceive can trap you.
Unless you believe that the whole thing was orchestrated, then you should be able to believe that Snowden ran out of options and wound up there.
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Real life is much like the board game of mouse trap. There are many players trying to interfere with one another, and the game is complex and baroque and something you didn't even perceive can trap you.
Unless you believe that the whole thing was orchestrated, then you should be able to believe that Snowden ran out of options and wound up there.
There are some facts. The first is that Snowden disseminated classified material, knowing that that action was a crime.
The second fact is that he ended up in the very place that had the ability and desire to make maximum use of the material that he stole.
Some folks end up making complicated stories about intentions and bad luck. My thoughts? Seems like a person who would be of maximum interest and value to Russia for propaganda purposes would fly in to Moscow if they intended to hand them over.
Seems t
Re: Snowden (Score:2)
"If he was planning on being a hero, he would have stayed right here, faced the music and become a marytr for his cause."
Most of what you wrote made some sense, but then we got here. Becoming a martyr helps no one.
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"If he was planning on being a hero, he would have stayed right here, faced the music and become a marytr for his cause."
Most of what you wrote made some sense, but then we got here. Becoming a martyr helps no one.
People rally around martyrs. If the US is as bad as you and other slashdotters claim, a martyr will start a revolution of like minded people who will institute rational ethical and loving government, one that only does what is just and right.
But the only way he can be of any use is that way. Right now, he provided classified material to an adversarial government. It takes a slashdotter to make that heroic. He's a criminal, no matter if he rubs shit in our face or not. A lot of it depends on how much a p
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I know enough to pick American, relax. But I still think there's a lot of improvement to do, and that we can never really let our guards down regarding the function of our government.
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I know enough to pick American, relax. But I still think there's a lot of improvement to do, and that we can never really let our guards down regarding the function of our government.
I would certainly agree on that. I think that t the moment, we have to get a handle on the Republican party, which is acting rather oddly. https://news.yahoo.com/republi... [yahoo.com]
When they sue their own party's Vice President to personally overturn an election, they've kind of gone around the bend. Not much point in having an election if one guy can look at the results and say "No, I don't think so" Republicans want us to go from "one person one vote" to "one person, the only vote".
Re:Snowden (Score:5, Insightful)
Fighting FOR America. The NSA broke the law, violated the Constitution billions of times.
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Fighting FOR America. The NSA broke the law, violated the Constitution billions of times.
And you do not find it ironic that he lives in Russia now? You think as a fighter for truth and justice they will grant him TS clearance? I mean as a hero, he should be above reproach.
Query - if you had the opportunity, would you choose moving to Russia over the USA?
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He didn't end up in Russia by choice, he was on his way somewhere else, Iceland perhaps. Just got stuck there.
He's said he would come back if he was guaranteed a fair trial.
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He didn't end up in Russia by choice, he was on his way somewhere else, Iceland perhaps. Just got stuck there.
He's said he would come back if he was guaranteed a fair trial.
Define a fair trial. The Slashdot Snowden fans would likely define anything other than an innocent on all counts as unfair. All I know is we have a supposed Patriot, disseminates classified information, then goes on the lam and ends up in the country that has the resources to make the very most of that classified data.
My, my - what a set of circumstances.
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Open civilian court, not a secret military court or closed proceedings. The usual stuff like him being able to see all the evidence against him. No black site prisons, no torture (e.g. solitary confinement).
They could pick a neutral location too, a trusted 3rd country. Scotland did that with the Lockerbie trial, it was held in The Netherlands but in a special Scottish court.
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Open civilian court, not a secret military court or closed proceedings. The usual stuff like him being able to see all the evidence against him. No black site prisons, no torture (e.g. solitary confinement).
They could pick a neutral location too, a trusted 3rd country. Scotland did that with the Lockerbie trial, it was held in The Netherlands but in a special Scottish court.
I don't think you are wrong. I do think that we both know that there will be plenty of conspiracists that just won't accept anything but not guilty. As well, there is still plenty of propaganda value in him being permanently in Russia. So he's more valuable to them than us.
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Re:[Pardon #]4824824 (Score:1, Troll)
I think you're conflating issues here. The abuse of pardons by HeWhoBS (from HWN3BS from He Whose Name Need Not Be Spoken) is not really related to Snowden. That pardon will be decided by the master puppeteer Putin. I'm pretty sure Putin will pull the appropriate string on HeWhoBS to pardon Snowden, but only because it will screw with America even more. Frankly, I think the Snowden pardon is a no-brainer because it will divide both sides of America, and the more divisions the merrier. At least that's how Pu
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I'm pretty sure Putin will pull the appropriate string on HeWhoBS to pardon Snowden
Your whole theory relies on Putin pulling the st(r)ings. Not sure he (Putin) can still do that, at this time.
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So what's your explanation for HeWhoBS's response to the recent discovery of large-scale hacking from Russia?
But overall looks to me like a non-discussion.
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I think you're conflating issues here. The abuse of pardons by HeWhoBS (from HWN3BS from He Whose Name Need Not Be Spoken) is not really related to Snowden. That pardon will be decided by the master puppeteer Putin. I'm pretty sure Putin will pull the appropriate string on HeWhoBS to pardon Snowden, but only because it will screw with America even more. Frankly, I think the Snowden pardon is a no-brainer because it will divide both sides of America, and the more divisions the merrier. At least that's how Putin sees things, and so far he's seen things pretty sharply and he's grabbed all the chances when they come up. (And of course that includes when Putin seized the opportunity to plant Snowden in Russia after he got trapped in the Moscow airport. (I rather doubt the end-game tactic was Obama's idea, but does it even matter who screwed that pooch? Especially after HeWhoBS explodes the pooch and Snowden moves to Florida or Texas.)) Maybe America can't get any more screwed up than it already is, but I'm sure Putin is not yet satiated, and his time with the HeWhoBS puppet is running out. The 3D chess question is only "When?"
As regards the EFF, I regard it as a great example of the failure of big donor charity. Sure as heck don't see any reason to throw any of my small donations down that yawning rat hole. Double entendre intended. Ditto the ACLU, though with fewer big donors. (Disclaimer time? Naw, not worth it for Slashdot 2020.)
Oh yeah. And my New Year's Resolution is never to speak the other name of HeWhoBS. Pejoratives only, but better still not to refer to HeWhoBS at all.
Quoted in response to censor mods.
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Jeebus! Now you're spamming the place!
Public masturbation of 1673220 (Score:2)
Z^-3
Re: [Pardon #]4824824 (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s probably about time to get over the fact that Clinton lost. Trump will soon depart, at which point Iâ(TM)d suggest you either get help or, if youâ(TM)ve already been seeing a therapist, find a new one. And read something other than Harry Potter. They are books for children.
Public masturbation of 702266 (Score:2)
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This bot is spamming the forum (Score:1)
Is that what Slashdot wants to reflect?
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More bot spam (Score:1)
Who will defend us?
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Especially after HeWhoBS explodes the pooch and Snowden moves to Florida or Texas.
That would be insensible. There are almost certainly no states where he would be less welcome. Florida and Texas are surely the places he would most likely be shot by some would-be patriot who understands nothing about the constitution, or civil rights.
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Welcome has little to nothing to do with it. I don't want get into a big argument about what patriotism is, or about what whistle blowing is, or even about what guts are. I actually speculate that Snowden was set up as the fall guy or the NSA is incompetent. Maybe both, but I'm not buying that Snowden was stupid enough to think he was going to live "happily ever after", even if he had made it to South America. I don't even want to try to imagine what I would have done if I had found myself in Snowden's shoe
Re: [Pardon #]4824824 (Score:2)
His orangeness will not be without protection ever again, so that comparison is irrelevant.
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How about if we throw in all the other famous (and infamous) people who don't dare show themselves in public in today's America? Actually, I'm not even sure the Secret Service will be up to guarding HeWhoBS over the mid to long term. Good thing he's so old? Maybe that's just a short-term thing?
(Plus, I would not be surprised if the life transition is too stressful for him. He may collapse into an easily guarded and immobile heap within a few weeks.)
Snowden's real problem these days is Putin. He only lives i
I remember (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when Slashdot wasn't filled with a bunch of sycophants who would believe that exposing a large-scale, illegal, domestic and international surveillance program was a worthy goal even if it wasn't 100% completely free of governmental collateral damage. That the US Govt. and its allies were embarrassed by the revelation of their secretly breaking encryption on private communications is a very, very good thing. Without events like this, there's nothing to keep governments in check. Those fucking assholes work for us goddamnit, and Snowden was one of the best steps forward in holding them accountable to that.
vital asset (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, the US is a free country.
A parallel (Score:2)
There is a short story I think by Victor Hugo. In it, a gunboat was transporting a general (Napoleon?) and in a storm a cannon got loose from its moorings and started crashing about. At great risk to life and limb, a gunner managed to secure the gun and save the ship and the lives of everyone aboard.
The general gave the gunner a medal for bravery--and then had him executed, for it was his fault that the gun got loose.
That is Snowden. He is that gunner.
He should be rewarded for the illegal activities agai
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe before calling for execution, you could remind us of who exactly died again?
TRUTH (Score:2)
TRUTH is always suppressed in the name of trust/loyalty/compliance/privacy/conspiracy/discipline/patriotism/sedition/job/national security/unity/intellectual property/etc
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