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Comment by Grue3 | Hacker News Reader

You know what's awful? Living in a country where political opponents are murdered, not just spied upon. Or else they are prosecuted for crimes they couldn't have possibly committed. Where there are actual enforced Internet blacklists which can contain anything from political blogs to github.com. Who could possibly support this? Oh right, Snowden does. The fact that he lives in this country, in a penthouse apartment and buddy-buddy with Putin, while Russian whistleblowers like him (e.g. Navalny) are constantly persecuted, and people are actually praising this guy is what's actually depressing.

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This is basically a 'but those guys are even worse'. That has never worked when attempting to excuse our own behavior.

It would be if I weren't talking about my own country. I'm saying 'our guys are worse than your guys and Snowden is actively aiding and abetting our guys'.

"Living in a country where political opponents are murdered, not just spied upon. Or else they are prosecuted for crimes they couldn't have possibly committed."

Your unstated presumption is that this doesn't happen here, and I think that's a presumption that up for debate. Not only that, but the surveillance engine is generally the precursor to any such more overt totalitarianism (as warned of by Thomas Drake, speaking of prosecuted for crimes not actually committed by the way).

If he had voluntarily chosen to remain in Russia you might have a point, but that is not what happened.

Do you think he ended up here purely by random chance? I find that laughable. He clearly intentionally seeked Russia for asylum, knowing that Putin won't give him to US. Do you think he's an idiot? He had to know perfectly well what the deal is. And nobody's keeping him here, I'd surely like him to go away and stop being Putin's PR boy. But he won't, and we all know the answer why.

<< And nobody's keeping him here, I'd surely like him to go away and stop being Putin's PR boy. But he won't, and we all know the answer why.

Everybody but you, since you seem to think it's for a reason other than fear for his life. Do you think the powers-that-be in the US are joking when they say that they're going to execute him?

>> You know what's awful? Living in a country where political opponents are murdered, not just spied upon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

Are you're living in the 60s? Is this the part where I bring up GULAGs?

Some people have enough hatred of the US to accept Putin. They don't have enough hate to get their own government to stop dealing with the US though.

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