"The bigger question, however, is whether Snowden can restore his reputation among the much larger group of people who viewed his initial leaks as admirable, and his appearance with Putin as risible. The answer to that question is, at this point, unknown."
Ed Snowden is/has risked his life, the prospect of life locked in a solitary cage, and any opportunity to ever see his friends & family in person, for the sole purpose of releasing information of vital importance to the public.
Not just to the people of the US, but Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the world at large to an extent, so that they have the opportunity to become informed about illegal surveillance, gross human rights violations, and the establishment of a totalitarian police states. This makes up for the fact that while doing all of that, he is still the only person with balls to ask Putin if the Russian government is spying on it's people. Not to mention the fact that Russia (Putin) was the only state to grant him asylum.
It may have not gone as he had hoped, sometimes honest people underestimate the capability of sociopath tyrants.
He's a traitor who is now doing puff pieces for Vladimir Putin because the Chinese were too disgusted to take him. He released information about legal surveillance operations which were creepy but hardly surprising. He did this primarily to make himself a celebrity -- there's no reason he ever needed to "out" himself as the leaker -- and immediately ran to our worst enemies to buy favors with other secrets that he stole. A "whistleblower" doesn't grab a hard disk full of every file he can steal, then indiscriminately release some of them every time his name falls below the fold on the news blogs. And his latest shenanigans (shameless Putin propaganda on the Russian language program, fake concern about human rights for English language consumption) should destroy any myths that he actually cares about government surveillance.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 20.3 ms ] threadEd Snowden is/has risked his life, the prospect of life locked in a solitary cage, and any opportunity to ever see his friends & family in person, for the sole purpose of releasing information of vital importance to the public.
Not just to the people of the US, but Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the world at large to an extent, so that they have the opportunity to become informed about illegal surveillance, gross human rights violations, and the establishment of a totalitarian police states. This makes up for the fact that while doing all of that, he is still the only person with balls to ask Putin if the Russian government is spying on it's people. Not to mention the fact that Russia (Putin) was the only state to grant him asylum.
It may have not gone as he had hoped, sometimes honest people underestimate the capability of sociopath tyrants.
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