Sure in an ideal world, where everybody has the courage of MLK,Nelson Mandela or John McCain he should have done that. What he did took guts and required a sacrifice, so I don’t really fault him for fleeing the country to avoid the wrath of an embarrassed intelligence agencies.
I would have much rather Obama pardon Snowden than commuted Manning sentence. What Manning did was stupid and dangerous to others, much like Assuange. Snowden took some care to avoid putting individual in harms way or tipping off individual terrorists.
If I was facing hundreds of consecutive life sentences, I might think twice about turning myself in…
At the same time, I think Snowden gets too much credit. The important stuff he leaked was already “known”, it just wasn’t officially acknowledged. He also leaked lots of essentially trivial stuff about how the NSA operates, and it was this trivial stuff that was really damaging.
It would be a good thing if the Justice Department and Snowden’s lawyers could settle on a reasonable set of charges so Snowden could get his day in court.
I tend to think that Snowden would have been disappeared. I don’t have a lot of faith in our Government’s benevolence here, especially since the deployment of the surveillance state.
My take as well. I believe he felt, and I would be inclined to agree, that his act would have more impact were he to remain a visible symbol of it. By remaining a visible agitator on the subject of intelligence agency overreach he could hope to effect more change. The release schedule and method would support that.
Putin video today: “I find it hard to believe that he ran to a hotel to meet with our girls of reduced social responsibility. Although here also we have the best ones in the world.” Still looking for a transcript.
So, these intelligence agencies are both a) malign enough to disappear someone and powerful enough to get away with it and b) completely stymied by Snowden crossing the Russian border?
I’m not sure that adds up, Mulder.
My guess is the intelligence agencies would much rather have a very public show of trial and punishment. I’m pretty sure allowing government agents to leak top secret information is something they’d very much like to publicly and loudly discourage.
Manning went through the legal process, pled guilty, apologizing while doing so. Then spent 7 years in prison seemingly in anguish for various reasons. Pretty different scenario than Snowden
It’s more that that is the only country willing to harbor him. Our reach is that long when it comes to the NSA and the Surveillance State. If that weren’t the case, I would have expected one of the Scandinavian countries to step up, or maybe Ecuador, but they didn’t even appear to contemplate it.
Oh please note that all alliances are political not military tools.
Either way you cut it they’ve got no one left to fight, and expeditionary warfare against impoverished adversaries is irrelevant.
So @Clay the idea of the leak is to signal him that they have something on him? I suppose that’s possible, if they felt for some reason they couldn’t gently touch him through associates of associates of his staff.
If your concern is people who feel a need to go beyond that, why the hell are you addressing me of all people about it? Why not WaPo, CNN, almost everyone in this thread?
I would tell you I agree with what you said, and that the conspiracy theories are diluting any later impact of Russian collusion and interference (now that would be rational counterintel) , but you give me the shits, after I’ve been arguing precisely that.
Shit, read what you quoted. It explicitly states your dot points! Jesus wept. I mean, you are clearly literate, so why not read and perceive as well? Hell, you’ve got to think a little more but it’s generally worth it.
PS. There is a difference between benefiting from electoral interference and colluding in it. The almost complete public apathy to Russian interference in a US election is the same alienation that resulted in Trump.
So in the absence of evidence he won’t be impeached, and the idea of impeaching Trump is just more of the same bs that lost you the election in the first place. Meh. Knock yourselves out. At this rate it’ll be 8 years of Trump.
What will happen is the Democrats will know they can’t get smashed again like that and will put forward a different sort of candidate who is less worried about offending the perpetually offended, and the media plus most here will follow the new orthodoxy.
Just got to that Trump interview transcript. I keep thinking I’ve appropriately lowered my expectations but no matter how low I go i keep being surprised. It’s like estimating a software project.
You mean the Trump press conference transcript or Putin press conference? I can’t believe Putin actually is openly trolling America by saying those people leaking the report are worse than prostitutes. Then I go to the horse’s mouth, which is Russia Today, and he really did say that. Normally libellous claim is never ever repeated, even partially, but then Putin doesn’t do normal.
As to the Trump press conference, I read the whole thing on NPR as a bedtime reading. It is depressing and funny both at the same time. FOUR MORE YEARS!