Snowden swears allegiance to Russia

He should have come out as Trans. Then he'd have been able to stay in the US and be hailed as stunning and brave.

He was a mole for Russia. Big, black facial and neck moles Disgusting.

Is he ever going to get that gross mole removed?

He's neither a hypocrite nor garbage. A Russian mole is your former President Trump.

------------------------------------------- Snowden’s wife, Lindsay Mills, is also said to be applying for Russian citizenship. They live at an undisclosed location in the country with their two sons, who were born in Russia.

Snowden wrote in September: “After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our sons. After two years of waiting and nearly 10 years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for them – and for us all.” ------------------------------------------

"I have no desire to be separated from our sons" is probably THE reason why he thinks he has no other choice. Don't act surprised if people who have done the world a favor don't want to be jailed as Manning was while the Trumps enjoy their lives on your tax money.

Don't be fucking ridiculous. Should he choose to go to prison and be treated like Assange now, because we're mad at Russia?

Conscription next?

R5 In my opinion yes. Both would be out by now and would have proven that they have integrity (and courage). Taking refuge in *Russia* of all places is an awful look. As valid as his criticisms of the U.S. are, Russia is several magnitudes worse.

What mole?

He has dead eyes and is basically a traitor to everyone.

what does he do for money? how does he survive?

I'm guessing he can never leave Russia since many country's have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

He’s a vile piece of shit.

r7 It's a childish opinion. He is in Russia for personal safety, not because it's the bestest country, obviously. He chose to speak, he chose to run, Russia is were he endet up. He never made the choice of what is better or worse between the countries.

R13 The U.S. doesn't kill these people. They imprison them. Like Chelsea Manning who spent 7 years in prison but is out now.

Yeah, breaking news: people do not want to go to prison.

I understand that he sought asylum in Russia and why but does he have to be such a right leaning libertarian shit on Twitter?

He constantly bad mouths the US while either staying silent or being an outright apologist for Putin.

Spoiled fucker and Manning is 100% the person that he is.

R16, they're both horrible.

Any moral authority he may have had has completely evaporated after his cowardly run to Russia. He should be tossed in a gulag and disappeared. It will likely happen at some point, or he’ll be returned to America to stand trial when Russia finally comes to its senses and gets rid of Putin.

Was he this awful when he was married to Princess Margaret?

R16 Because the irony is that Russia is an actually dangerous place if you express dissent against the government. Putin fairly obviously regularly imprisons, poisons or kills people. Either that or Snowden was a Russian asset all the time.

Inbred Mongoloids…

Hmmm...

[quote] In any case, the former systems administrator's extensive knowledge of NSA systems and vetting processes make him very valuable to Russia. Kalugin went as far as to say that he believed Putin got everything Snowden accessed, which top U.S. officials say includes military documents: “Whatever he had access to in his former days at NSA, I believe he shared all of it with the Russians, and they are very grateful."

That makes sense...

Hero. Those many innocent Americans egregiously impacted by the rampant corruption among the alphabet agencies salute Edward Snowden. We pity the boot lickers who are unwilling to look beyond what they are told to see!

He. Was. Always. A. Russian. Spy.

"He constantly bad mouths the US while either staying silent or being an outright apologist for Putin."

Russians who fail to lift up their voices when speaking about Putin aren't around long; what do you think would happen to Mr. Snowden. The man is only in Russia because Putin allows it, period and end of story. As with Lenin and certainly Stalin along with others afterwards Snowden could be a dead man or put away in some gulag for rest of his natural life just by one mere word.

I'd lick his pole. He's a super-nerdy version of Jake McDorman, whose pole I would chow down on every night for a month.

If the US govt hadn't been spying on its own citizens systemically and lying about it then ... Snowden would be happily fat and married in his place of origin.

R28 Yeah but then he sells out to Russia!? That's not a good look.

He showed the world that the US government was lying about the wars to the world.

I respect him for that at least

The private life is dead, comrade! And when Putin goes (and he will, sooner rather than later), you will be expendable

R16, Snowden and Assange were both always right-leaning "libertarians." As with Glenn Greenwald, their devotion to freedom and transparency was skin deep. "Libertarians" will always side with authoritarians against liberal democracy when push comes to shove.

If the US govt hadn't been spying on its own citizens illegally then we wouldn't have had Jan 6th.

He's a traitor. CIA should get an extraction team STAT. Bring him back here, try him, and then hang him.

IMHO he was spying for the Chinese originally, they just sent him to Russia as sloppy seconds after they’d gotten everything they wanted out of him and his cover was blown.

The US was openly spying under the Patriot Act, he exposed what the spying found, he didn’t expose the spying itself since everyone already knew about that.

You THINK you knew about that.

Yeah, no I knew.

[quote] I'd lick his pole.

Would you lick his mole though?

Yeah, I'm with ElderLez here. I was completely underwhelmed by the Snowden reports. Security is an ongoing issue with technology--of course, stuff can be seen and the US security agencies and military have access to an insane amount of data.

However, the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of Snowden, Greenwald and Assange blinds them to the magnitudes worse behavior of authoritarian regimes like Russia, China and Iran.

Snowden was an arrogant fool.

Who knows what his motivation is for "Pledge Allegiance to the Commies" though it's hard to imagine they didn't tell him to salute Putin or maybe he can go visit fellow American Brittney Griner.

I'll bet Snowden's life is depressing. Living in some huge apartment building outside of Moscow, with barely functioning heat and gross water, distrusted by neighbors for being an American but watched, always watched wherever he goes. Constantly trying to stay on the straight path so as not to cause problems for his wife & children or have them disappear all together. He's outlived his usefulness & the only thing he's got going for him is that he's a little prop that Putin can drag out, though no one really cares what he has to say anymore

He never should have run to Russia. It destroyed his credibility.

He could have served time in prison, say he was a political prisoner and had his sentenced commuted when things had calmed down a bit.

Now he's in a shitty prison of his own (and Putin's) making, which probably isn't that much different than if he'd just stayed in the US.

Traitor.

In OP’s picture, it looks like he’s positively over the moon 🌝 with “his” decision

[Quote]Devine likened Snowden's personality to Aldrich Ames — a American who spent years giving secrets to Russia and is now serving life in prison — and said that the Russians would know what to do with him.

Read that again. LIFE IN PRISON. That's what Snowden was/is facing in the USA. Even Russia is better than this.

I don't see that he had much choice. I understand why the U.S. government didn't want to make an exception for anyone who leaked secrets but its failure to make any compromise made this inevitable.

R43 Very unlikely Chelsea Manning out within 7 years. Snowden would probably have got something similar. Life is for murderers.

He’s spying for Russia now.

Did he flee to Russia though?

I seem to recall he was on his way to some other destination via Russia, learned that he would be arrested and extradited back to the US when he reached his intended destination, so stayed put in the layover location, which was Russia.

Am I confusing him with someone else?

R47 You are correct but he chose to stay in Russia and sell out because of cowardice.

His original destination was Hong Kong, by the way. He claims that he chose Hong Kong because at the time “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”...................

He took his laptops full of information to Hong Kong. (which was already back under CCP control at that time although still under the two systems rubric) he was there for two weeks on “vacation” BEFORE Glenn Greenwald showed up to do the story. Then China booked him to Ecuador via Moscow. When he got to Moscow he discovered the US had pulled his passport, which could have been meaningless, but Russia used as an excuse to keep him and the laptops in perpetuity. That’s what I remember, if I’ve gotten anything factually wrong please do correct me.

If his primary concern was privacy rights I fail to see how sharing dick pics of American citizens with Xi and Putin accomplishes that end. A real whistleblower would have gone to Ecuador to start, met with Greenwald as soon as he got off the plane and only brought as much information as necessary to establish his claims without causing unnecessary further privacy violations.

R1 is insane and is fixated on trans people.

You all don't seem to understand what the government was/is doing with the information they find on an individual basis. They have and still are Watch Listing perfectly innocent Americans based on their own beliefs, opinions, and ideals if those beliefs don't fall in line with the official explanations of ANYTHING! For example: You may believe that the events of 9/11 were an inside job. Youu very vocal about that belief in physical company and virtually online. Remember, you're just an innocent American believing in you right to freedom of speech. You're now watch listed after having been deemed a threat to national security and society. You're no longer just being watched. Now, a highly coordinated campaign has been launched against you to destroy you utterly.

Again, you THINK you know but even then you only know what they want you to know. You do not know the incredibly awful extent of it!

R52 Do you have some real-life documented examples? I mean you said that they will "destroy you utterly".

Dead eyes. I can't even remember what he did.

IFH this tratiorous p.o.s. Enjoy Russia as it collapses into a diseased prolapse around you, motherfucker!

Russia is not a communist country. It’s a totalitarian rightest nationalist state.

He’s probably directing troll farms…giving them tips on to how to sound American

Maybe he’s their chief propagandist. Like, their Tokyo Rose.

Well, r51, you have to admit it’s a brilliant psychological operation…convincing the western world that men are women.

Hats off to Putin. He found a weakness & exploited it for all its worth.

Women, gays, children, animals, the environment, the elderly & disabled are not any safer in the west than in the rest of the world.

Consider that “they” now includes Russia and China too. You are the one who is naive if you think Snowden’s action action protected dissenting opinions amongst Americans. All it did was expose American citizens to foreign blackmail.

R58 They absolutely are, fuckwit.

QAnon blames the threatened expansion of NATO for Russia’s necessary aggression in Ukraine. There is an entire counter explanation for things than the “lame stream media” permits us to see. It all seems to come down to being angrily suspicious of a Jewish star chamber from what I’ve heard.

You'd be singing a different tune with another choir if it happened to you, now wouldn't you?

Only someone poorly informed would believe Snowden would receive a similar sentence to that of crazed tranny Manning.

Here are some ways in which the cases differ.

Mother of 20% of Elon Musk's 10 children, the elf Grimes (actually a Canadian chick named Claire Boucher), is dating Chelsea Manning. Meaning, they're conjugating through mutual press opportunities.

R60, how many women are killed each day in the USA?

Where’s the outrage?

Why don't you tell us R65? Since you seem to know the answer.

Putin should just send him to the Ukrainian Front. Everyone’s problem solved.

Moles are disgusting...anyone who has them is total trash......white trash, I say......

I was just reading his conversations with people before he activated himself - he's an extreme Libertarian narcissist who cracks jokes about black women on Welfare and thinks poor people are all osers.

They were also saying he thought up the "noble anti-government" approach after he released the data, originally it was released out of spite and revenge-seeking.

DL threads are like the Kevin Bacon game...

...they always eventually connect back to the Ts - lol.

R68 Rachel Maddow = Snowden

100 percent agree R32

Russia is not a communist country. It’s a totalitarian rightest nationalist state.

Exactly this and Putin is a hero to white Christian nationalists the world over which is why the far right loves him.

ElderLez at R50 has the accurate information here - he went to Hong Kong on vacation. It wasn't his final destination - he wanted to go to Ecuador. He was booked on a flight to Ecuador through Moscow, and then the US pulled his passport while he was in Moscow and he couldn't go any farther. He didn't choose to end up in Russia.

Me, in those circumstances, I would go back to the US to face prison rather than resign myself to spending the rest of my life in Russia.

Snowden wanted to stay in Hong Kong but he was sent a message believed to be from Beijing telling him to leave.

I wouldn't bet on longevity for that guy.

[quote]Don't act surprised if people who have done the world a favor don't want to be jailed as Manning was while the Trumps enjoy their lives on your tax money.

Sniff! That's fuckin' beautiful, man.

Anyway, any thoughts on why Greenwald helped Snowden so much but then threw Reality Winner under the bus? By the tone of your post you seem to be morally superior to the rest of us and deeply knowledgeable, so I'd LOVE to get your thoughts on this.

He fled to Russia. He didn't accidentally end up in Russia. The idea that Russia is a necessary layover to get to Ecuador is ridiculous.

Snowdon went to Hong Kong and immediately began sucking up to the Chinese, saying he wanted to stay in HK forever because the US has committed "a tremendous number of crimes against China" and he sympathized with them. He provided China with NSA information about the US monitoring Chinese internet activity.

It seems pretty clear that China was working, or at least discussing all this, with Russia, because Russian press revealed Snowdon's secret location while he was in HK. Even after that, Snowdon went to Russia on his way to Ecuador, which is not the usual route to get to Ecuador from Hong Kong. That made it look like Snowdon meant to go to Russia on purpose, though I think it's possible that he simply let himself be taken there because he wasn't smart enough to realize how high the stakes were in the game he was playing.

WaPo's extensive reporting at the time said it was almost certain that Russia had never intended to let Snowdon leave for Cuba and then Ecuador, as was supposedly planned. It looks like China allowed Snowdon to leave HK only because he was going to Russia, knowing Russia wanted him and wouldn't let him leave.

Either way, whether Snowdon worked with Russia to release this information or not, it was in Russia's best interests to make people think he did. Snowdon may very well have been a stupid, spiteful idiot who did the right thing for the wrong reason, all while now understanding how serious this all was, or that he was the exact kind of mark China and Russia are always looking for, and now he will pay for it by being stuck in Russia doing Putin's bidding for the rest of Putin's life, and probably beyond.

R78. Very, very plausible.

Which just indicates he was an idiot who didn't realize the consequences of the game he was playing. The idealism is adorable but Russia and China are not friends of democracy, human rights, or their own people.

I knew this MF'R was no good. POS. He's no hero.

Can they just assassinate him already. He such an insufferable cunt. America you slacking.

R78 you are right on.

It is my supposition that he had been spying for the Chinese for a while, went to HK to meet his handler, learned his cover had been blown back in the States and then concocted the whistle blower nonsense by inviting GG to come interview him. I also suppose that he expected to spend the rest of his life pampered and protected by the CCP. But China was done with him. They have no respect for traitors and wouldn’t want their own citizenry getting any ideas about objecting to surveillance. So Xi decided to give Putin a gift. And of course Putin is all about destroying other nations whether or not that is in Russia’s best

But your theory is equally consistent with the timeline..

The only people who think Snowden is a “hero” now are Trumpists.

He’s a piece of shit and I’m tired of people who excuse his hypocrisy by claiming he’d be wasting away in a federal prison had he returned to the US.

Chelsea Manning is a DJ living her best life in New York, and Reality Winner was released from prison after a few years. Snowdon continues to exaggerate his situation and his fans eat it up. However, it doesn’t change the fact he’s sworn fealty to the Russian state and is likely scared of returning to the US because he’s now added supporting a state sponsor of terror to his CV.

Elon Musk tweeted out a poll about whether Assange and Snowden should be pardoned. He wrote:

[quote]I am not expressing an opinion, but did promise to conduct this poll. Should Assange and Snowden be pardoned?

Who did he promise to conduct that poll? Why did Musk also tweet out what Putin demands from Ukraine seemingly out of the blue a while back? Why did Musk tweet out a conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi that sounded Russian-created? He has reinstated Trump and neo-Nazi accounts on Twitter.

I might be paranoid but there's something not right about this.

[quote] Elon Musk tweeted out a poll about whether Assange and Snowden should be pardoned.

He paid $44b for that? Moron.

[quote]I might be paranoid but there's something not right about this.

At this point I don't think it's paranoia; Musk seems to be operating at the direction of Putin (others) to destroy what's left of Twitter controls & just use it as a forum for hate & craziness.