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Comment by tinus_hn | Hacker News Reader

The big question is what Russia has to gain from this. Is it just to troll the US?

Perhaps you weren't alive or old enough to pay attention back when Russia ballet dancers/athletes/et. al. would come to the U. S. for the Russian Nutcracker Ballet tour, then ask for asylum. Or maybe your country-that-is-not-the-US didn't make a big deal of it, but it would be all over the news about how some ballet performer seeks asylum from The Evil Empire(tm). Of course the person would seek asylum in the U. S., The World's Choice for Freedom(R).

And now Russia has a chance to turn those tables on the U. S.? I'm kind of disappointed that it took them this long to execute the obvious play.

Maybe because they don't really have a story for why anyone would want to move there, other than running afoul of the same state security organizations that Russia is already opposed to.

It's not exactly a huge draw for anyone who does NOT have those unusual security concerns.

I don't think the intent was ever to attract more immigrants. It's simply prestige for your own values and a snub for the opposition.

It’s harder to only make a moral argument in the case of America which is generally richer than Russia.

Why would anyone go to Russia apart from some moral consideration, given that Russian has nothing else to offer? I think that’s a pretty valid argument in certain circles.

Russia is super cheap for americans and there are many beautiful women. You can live for $500/mo. If you’re ok with the culture whatever nest egg you have can last a lot longer.

Well the ballet dancers definitely weren't seeking shelter in the U.S. because they wanted to see Broadway and Yosemite.

For reference: Baryshnikov was perhaps the most famous.[0]

[0]https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1974-mikhail-baryshnikov-d...

Has anyone on this thread seriously discussed leaving the US with their partner, based at least in part on the growth and aggressiveness of its domestic security services?

During the peak of red scare, McCarthyism it quite likely there were people who left because such concerns, so it possible.

Plenty of people from the tech world have had unpleasant experience with US security apparatus, leaving them hesitant take a job in the states. The maintainer of curl project comes to mind notably

Actually, E.F. Codd, who developed the concept of a relational database, moved out of the country. I believe this was less that he feared personal repercussions than that he found the whole business obnoxious.

What, and then become a victim of U. S. foreign policy?

It’s an easy PR win. The US behaves like a petulant child, and Russia can come off like the benevolent country protecting freedom. That seems like an extremely easy decision to make.

Pardon Snowden and Assange. Let all the dirt about all the high level people come out no matter how dark dirty or ugly they are, only then does US can start to establish some legitimacy on the world stage.

Something tells me that the high level people wouldn't like that.

Yep. Obama didn’t even pardon Manning. He only commuted her sentence. The difference being that pardoning removes it from your record while commuted is just “time served.”

As much as I liked Obama, his government would take any chance at spying on others.

Any constitutional lawyer will take advantage of the constitution's shortcomings.

As a senator, Obama missed around half his votes due to campaigning. During 2008, he missed close to 2/3.

But he made sure to be back in Washington in July to vote for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to retroactively give immunity to AT&T for cooperating with a massive illegal wiretapping operation for the secret services. That was the point where I knew where Obama would stand on mass surveillance.

Congress is like the only job where you can take off as much time as you like and use it to apply for a better job.

Congress also gets to decide their own salary hikes.

political jobs were meant to is how sports was a century back.

Being a pro was actively frowned on in many competitions, you were supposed to play part time and still excel.

Political office never paid well, most politicians had farms and other businesses to keep them afloat. Presidents were famously responsible for hosting functions at the White house, some died broke . Also travelling between d.c and your home state was a significant effort for many so extended breaks was needed.

The rules made sense then , they don't now, however given congress makes laws and it's own rules not much can be done to fix it without constitutional amendments.

Congress gets to decide salary for the next congress.

Limiting it to the next congress doesn’t help when they’re career politicians and just get re-elected.

I mean... it helps, because they can't simply pocket the treasury outright. There is presumably some limit where the voters wouldn't stand for it.

The fact that incumbents are generally reelected does certainly weaken the mechanism.

yeah of course not, but then US just going to destroy their brand and image on the world stage, more and more country will start to move away from US.

There's no reason to believe Snowden or Assange have dirt on high level people that they've been sitting on. Why wouldn't they have released it already?

It would be their ace in the hole

Assange seems like he should have played that card by now.

I don't trust they wouldn't find a way to still lock them up (note that pardons only apply to federal-level cases, not state)

I also don't feel the current administration (or future ones that prescribe to Trump Doctrine) would even entertain the idea, being that hardcore military support is a large part of their narrative.

Pardon him _and_ make him general auditor of NSA operations ;) Didn’t he prove his patriotism? (I’m half joking because I know management certainly requires a network of connections and long-established friendships he doesn’t have).

> Russia can come off like the benevolent country protecting freedom.

Not even the most devoted partisan can claim this was a straight face. Russia kills journalists that speak against Putin, poison political opposition, and paint with microwave radiation any diplomat misguided enough to attempt a dialogue.

It's a mafia state, pure and simple.

HN contrarians don't wanna hear that - they routinely gobble up the narrative that the US is less free than Russia and other autocracies.

I don't think anyone here is saying that the US is less free than Russia. They're saying that this move has PR to that effect as one of its goals.

Yeah, gimme some of that gobbledygook.. gobble gobble gobble

  > they routinely gobble up the narrative that the US is less free than Russia and other autocracies

I have seen little or no evidence to support this contention, and plenty that does not support it.

There are certainly periodic discussions suggesting the US is less free than it's own PR would suggest, but that's not at all the same thing.

I think it's more than Snowden is living the dream of every underappreciated IT worker and to speak against him is to speak against that dream, too.

The more I interact on this website, the more i'm convinced this is exactly it. Snowden represents every IT support monkey disrespected by their org, most of whom check Hacker News daily.

I fully agree IT in every industry deserves more respect, but Snowden is thoroughly enjoying his new found celebrity post-defection. To deny this is part of his motivation is to be blind.

Yes, but mafia states do PR so that they aren't recognized as clearly as mafia states.

Yes, and if you are a citizen of a free country that defects to a mafia state to help in their PR efforts, such an action should be called out for what it is.

Snowden didn't defect to Russia. The US trapped him there by revoking his passport while he was traveling through on the way to Ecuador.

Why do otherwise smart people keep saying this over and over?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24860909

Literally no one contends he defected for the purpose of helping Russia's PR, so you calling it out as that is deliberately slanderous.

> Literally no one contends he defected for the purpose of helping Russia's PR

Right, including me. That just happened to be the result.

Not really, they look like an asylum for criminals, actually. It's also the logical place that people think trump will flee to after he loses the election, because he is as corrupt as they come, and russia will welcome him with open arms. Not exactly a good look for russia.

The irony of this is so great it must really burn the usg. Russia protecting freedom in 2020...

Never thought I'd need to lecture HN about Occam's Razor: Permanent residency is a status for foreign citizens, who have been residing in the country permanently i.e. living there for a long time (e.g. 7 years) and might stay indefinitely. Rather than applying for a visa renewal every year, it saves time and money to grant those people a permanent residency.

Exactly. The article doesn't say if there was anything unusual about his application process. 8 years is enough to get a citizenship in the UK. 5 years in Australia.

The standard requirement for a permanent residency in Russia is 1 year in on a temporary residency. Honestly, I'm surprised he hasn't been given a permanent one before.

It costs them nothing, yeah just PR.

I doubt there's anything they 'get' from permanent residency vs not. Beyond PR, I doubt they've been waiting to get whatever they want from him up until today ;)

Whatever discussions with him they wanted to have likely concluded LONG ago.

I know almost no one on HN wants to hear anything bad about Snowden, but Greenwald has stated that Snowden has leaked some information out of self preservation. We can't rule out the fact that Snowden has given information to the Russian government.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150704033557/https://twitter.c...

Maybe the State Department should have thought of that before cancelling his passport while he was in Moscow.

You are maybe right on process being misguided, but you are factually wrong on the timing. Snowden was in Hong Kong when his passport was revoked.

https://apnews.com/article/587786e6e63b4dc2b70c471606d7f584

Interesting, looks like he got out by the skin of his teeth as the US was on him hard but at the same time:

In October 2013, Snowden said that before flying to Moscow, he gave all the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, and kept no copies for himself.[126] In January 2014, he told a German TV interviewer that he gave all of his information to American journalists reporting on American issues.[77] During his first American TV interview, in May 2014, Snowden said he had protected himself from Russian leverage by destroying the material he had been holding before landing in Moscow.[35]

By granting Snowden asylum, Russia paints the USA as anti-free speech and pro-surveillance.

To be fair, by going after Snowden the US painted itself anti-free speech and pro-surveillance.

Yep, keeping Snowden safe from the government that wants to hang him from the tallest tree just keeps the wound open and bleeding.

By giving asylum to near #1 target of US establishment they can prove to all kind of corrupt politicians, dictators (or just plain military criminals and terrorists) who serve Russia interests that they able to protect them from US too.

Quite a cynical take, but makes sense.

I think the PR angle mentioned elsewhere also makes sense and is a rational argument for Russia's actions, but this adds another meta-level to the whole thing.

Different messages being signalled to different audiences.

Presumably it applies a floor on what your life will be like if you whistleblow (or betray, depending on views) against the US, thereby encouraging more such actions.

Just part of normal spycraft then.

The more unfaltering facts uncovered about US the better for Russia. They also like to point to US to justify actions within the country: COPM is justified by NSA surveillance. They see Snowden as their guy and protect him.

Snowden is against government surveillance. It's hard to argue he can be used to justify SORM.

He can’t, but his findings can. That’s a common doublethink technique: «you say X is bad, but Americans do X, so shut up».

> The more unfaltering facts uncovered about US the better for Russia.

In this sense, the move could be seen as an investment in future whistleblowers— "If you see something, say something. Then come here if need be."

It basically costs them nothing. It is a thumb in the eye of supposed freedom of the press/whistleblowers protected/good guys mythos of the USA. Here we have the supposed "bad guys, enemy of Team USA" housing a citizen and giving him sanctuary because all he tried to do was let the truth be known about unConstitutional activities and violations of the TLA government departments.

Russia has everything to gain from a divided us, because a divided us is less capable of opposing Russia. Classic divide and conquer.

Where is the divide and conquer in this? Don't mismatch a popular strategy.

that kind of trolling is called diplomacy. US will refrain from talking officially in international venues about freedom of speech in russia, for fear of being embarassed by this story.

Yes

They are signalling that they are willing to protect future leakers of embarrassing information.

What do they get out of protecting political dissidents from unfair persecution in their home country? I don't know, why not ask America from the 1900's?

Snowden is "Exhibit A" for how the US is hypocritical about opposition to surveillance states. Any time the US wants to try to shame Russia at the UN Security Council, Putin can just put a picture of their newest Moscovite up on the projector.

Not to defend the intelligence apparatus in the US (and several other Western countries) but hypocrisy would imply the US is actually acting on its intelligence to target or influence its own people along a similar vein as many authoritarian countries with policies widely criticized in the US. I think that's a very low bar, and we should be able to criticize the US system even though it doesn't have these widespread far-reaching powers, i.e. without resorting to hyperbole.

I'm not sure if you consider a Predator drone monitoring protests[0] as influential but, surely, you must admit camo-clad officers in unmarked vans abducting specific protestors[1] as worthy of a legitimate concern.

[0]https://twitter.com/jason_paladino/status/126639991697850777... [1]https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-us...

Yes, absolutely. I think this is despicable and should not be tolerated. However, it's the scale and widespread nature that differs. Most Americans will never be confronted with or even know people who have been confronted with this sort of abuse of authority. Unfortunately, this is not the case in many countries, and this difference should not be dissolved to make a point. I think the US should be able to do better, although not because it's inherently better in some way (what country is?).

I can't agree. They all take an oath to protect the basic premises of the US Constitution and yet here we have direct evidence that they don't care about amendments like the 4th or 1st, two very critical ones. I think it should be obvious and not hyperbole. The only agency I can see having any excuse at all to do such things is the CIA when it's operating outside of US borders. All the other agencies are basically writing their oath on a piece of toilet paper, using it for it's primary purpose, and then flushing it down the drain.

I'd think this isn't just a PR move, but his technical knowledge would probably be an asset to Russia, or any country for that matter. He'd be the perfect candidate to create a thriving startup, increase Russia's GDP, and create thousands of jobs. Or assist Russia's government in identifying threats from foreign cyber-spying.

What country wouldn't want highly skilled and knowledgeable people in STEM to immigrate, thrive, and boost the country's economy? Oh right, the US.

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