Tell HN: Edward Snowden hasn't tweeted since Russian invasion of Ukraine started | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Edward Snowden hasn't tweeted since Russian invasion of Ukraine started

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26 pointsjoering250 comments

What do you expect him to say? He is in Russia. If he says something against the war in Ukraine, he is being arrested because it is illegal in Russia to be against the war, you are not allowed even to call it a war. If he is arrested, in the best case he will be deported and then goes to jail in the US. In the worst case, he is put in jail in Russia next to Navalniy. If he doesn't say anything, then apparently the only thing he wants to say is things against this war. There is nothing else for him to say. Therefore his silence means that he is strongly against the war.

> What do you expect him to say? He is in Russia.

Some call acting on principle with the understanding you may be imprisoned for doing so “having the courage of one’s convictions’.

Snowden evaded extradition to the United States by residing in Russia. At present, he appears to be silent regarding the current state of Russia/Ukraine relations.

Courage. Convictions.

He acted on principle and conviction by whistleblowing. Look how far that got him.

Easy to call for being courageous when your not the one facing life in prison.

> Easy to call for being courageous when your not the one facing life in prison.

The ease with which one points out the courage of another’s convictions is distinct from the courage of the subject of attention.

Yes, but it should still be accounted for in their answer. I read someone saying “Snowden isn’t courageous enough” and I think that this person does not have enough information and intimate knowledge to make such a statement. Not everybody needs to be a superhero on every issue.

Courage of convictions is an ideal to impose on yourself. You don't get to impose it on anybody else. You don't know enough about anybody's situation except your own.

> Courage of convictions is an ideal to impose on yourself. You don't get to impose it on anybody else.

With due respect, I politely disagree. One may call out anyone for meeting or failing the courage of their convictions.

Edward Snowden has already sacrificed far more than we can reasonably ask of anybody.

If Edward Snowden hasn’t illustrated enough conviction to meet your standards, I am aching to learn who has.

He sacrificed his entire livelihood for his fellow Americans, yet whose most honorable efforts have still had no measurable political impact despite being the most important media story in the past decade, opting against sacrificing the fleeting bits of life he has left to call his own in the name of yet another unrelated cause.

Realize you aren’t criticizing a questionable action of his. You’re just brazenly insisting that he do more to impress you. Where is the logic here?

I am not saying Snowden is not honorable. He has done the world a great service at great personal sacrifice.

I implied he may not have the courage of his convictions regarding current events in Ukraine.

Yes, I want more from Snowden. I know I am not entitled to more, but I still want it.

In the previous event his great personal sacrifice made a difference becasue he has some secret information.

In this event, he has no information that is not widely available, so another great personal sacrifice will achieve nothing.

Speaking out publicly might not be the most effective course of action. Recall that his previous efforts exposed illegal, secret government programs. He collected evidence and then published it, bringing to light illegal programs that were previously not public. He didn’t just tweet uselessly, he provided extensive proof or illegal programs.

Everyone knows Russia is conducting a blatant power and territory grab (except maybe the willfully ignorant). Snowden tweeting about it would teach us nothing new.

Maybe if the US stopped persecuting him for publicizing our government’s illegal programs he’d be free to leave Russian and criticize their illegal actions.

>Yes, I want more from Snowden.

Why though? We didn't do anything with what he gave us. He gave up a normal life to give us all of the evidence we needed to prove all of the things we always suspected and... crickets. Nothing changed. Neither party cares, they both call him an enemy of the state. Even Trump with his fake war against the Deep State, didn't pardon him when he had the chance.

Turns out, we didn't deserve Snowden.

I’m starting to wonder why Americans think he did what he did. Is it possible that most Americans just think he was trying to become famous or some kind of career-martyr? Are we that broken?

I could not agree more. We have absolutely failed him.

He already showed his courage, and will likely end up in history books at some point - but he paid a very high price for that, and expecting more is very unreasonable of us. Let the man rest and enjoy the relative freedom and safety he has left, he did his part.

Furthermore: If he wanted to say something in support of russia, he would have absolutely been able to. His silence is very eloquent to me.

I mean, what if it’s not about courage? What if it’s canniness? What if he realizes that the long run best way for him to advance his goals is to quietly ride this time out and prepare for the opportunities on the other side?

It is like some people actually want him to commit self righteous suicide for no benefit to anyone besides some tweet saying nothing more than "Russia sucks lol" to satiate the selfish desires of outspoken protestors.

I wonder how many of those people would be virtuous enough to bear the costs in his place to allow him to speak out.

> he is being arrested because it is illegal in Russia to be against the war

do you have any source to support this?

I went thru most "Criminal Code of Russia" searching for anything related to war, and could not find anything in terms of even temporary jail time for speaking out against war. Many people do, in Russia, including politicians of Putin opposition and they are nor being jailed. Looks like you can get jailed for participating in a protest against war or basically against anything in Russia... but nobody is going to bother going after you because you have posted a mean tweet. And if you search Twitter there are thousands of anti-war anti-Putin tweets from Russian accounts posted for years and these accounts keep being acting and keep posting (from jail I assume???).

https://globalcheck.net/en twitter.com is not available in Russia. I suppose some people use VPN to access twitter.

Even google.com gave instructions to Russian translators to not call war a war fearing the safety of their workers in Russia.

See КоАП РФ 20.3.3 and УК РФ 207.3, passed in March. You won't be jailed for a single tweet denouncing the war - but you will likely get up to a $1k fine if you are reported (and since around half of Russians support the war it isn't that unlikely you WILL get reported). If you are more politically active, you can get visitors irl (police coming to your house, or just random pro-government activists doing vandalism around your house/flat). Additionally, spreading "fake news" can get you up to 15 years in jail (but most people "only" qualify for 3 years). By the way, I'm Russian, so feel free to ask me further questions about the overall situation.

that's insane! who the heck pass this as a law?? do you guys know names of these people? how come you cannot vote them out of office?

my heart goes out to all Russians on the right side of history...

Putting on my conspiracy robe, I would say something like he's a Russian spy, but his roots are well researched and he's the most doxxed person on the planet, so it's hard to claim he's a Russian spy. The guy seems genuine enough in my eyes, and changed the Internet forever. Like, 90% of sites are encrypted now, and he sparked a privacy revolution after the leaks. He's not a traitor, he's a hero IMHO. Others who claim he's a traitor probably think outfits like the NSA or other agencies are good or benevolent (Hint: they're not).

> Like, 90% of sites are encrypted now

How much does that have to do with Snowden vs. Let's Encrypt.

It's not just the Internet traffic being encrypted, it's the proliferation of alternative services that have popped up because of the leaks (Protonmail, Tutanota etc).

Many services exist now that are because of the revelations, and it's not just about HTTPS. You can very readily install many tools & utilities that thwart the NSA dragnet. Think Signal, Matrix, Cryptomator, self-hosted Nextcloud, AD-blockers like uBlock Origin etc.

This guy sparked a privacy revolution.

> Many services exist now that are because of the revelations

That's the narrative but doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

> Signal

Moxie's original encrypted messaging apps date back to 2010 and Open Whisper was officially started in Jan 2013.

> Matrix

Came out of an effort to build a unified communications suite for corporations.

> Cryptomator

Never heard of it. More widely used solutions like Attic/Borg have been around since 2010.

> self-hosted Nextcloud

Nextcloud was forked from OwnCloud which was started in 2010.

> AD-blockers like uBlock Origin

Ad Block Plus has been around since 2005. uBlock Origin solves the same problem but does it better. Claiming this had anything to do with Snowden is a very tenuous argument.

It can be argued Snowden's disclosures have accelerated adoption of such privacy tools.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

> Assume good faith.

Matrix actually came out of frustration from implementing RCS, and wondering if we could do better. There was no influence from Snowden; the reason that Matrix is E2EE is just common sense to avoid smearing plaintext data everywhere.

Thanks for the correction!

He's not a hero, he is a traitor who betrayed the trust placed in him and damaged our national security.

Or he's the only one who lived up to that trust, since the surveillance he exposed is unconstitutional. He owes his loyalty to the American people, and what is a better expression of their will: the constitution, or the intelligence agencies?

Are you making the argument that doing the bidding of people who would corruptly misuse their power and lie about it to the American people... is a good thing?

In addition to what other commenters have said I would imagine Snowden is keeping a particularly low profile since he represents a significant bargaining chip for Russia with the USA. The more fraught that relationship is the more likely one or both sides will reach for all the bargaining chips they have.

It's really outrageous to me that one of the few things the Democrats and Republicans can agree on is the unjust vilification of Edward Snowden. Someone who gave up an amazing life to protect and defend the American people against illegal surveillance by their own government. It should be just about as clear a hero's story as you get and yet here we are.

Does anybody know why he ended up in Russia? Are there really no other countries that will not deport you to the US?

I think I would probably pick Cuba, for instance, over Russia.

If the United States is after you, you don’t get to pick anything, you grab on to whatever is available and hold on for dear life.

He did pick Cuba! If I recall correctly he was flying from Hong Kong to Cuba and the US canceled his passport on the layover in Russia, stranding him there.

Always looked at him as an anti-governmental corruption and abuse advocate... it feels weird he hasn't said a word since Russian invasion in Ukraine started...

It was always a condition of him staying in Russia that he could only call out things that occurred anywhere but Russia.

He has a wife and child now and in calling out the Kremlin he’d either be jailed by the Russian government or expelled by Russia and likely taken to the US for trial.

This

People are getting jailed under highly specious circumstances in Russia. It wouldn’t surprise me if I learned he was already under some sort of precautionary light house arrest.

Don't you think he's risked and sacrificed enough already?

That became hard to swallow when he ended up in Russia.

He would literally be putting his life in danger. He isn’t putting out tweets in support. Therefore, his silence means that is his best option for the moment. You can’t expect someone to put his life on the line for you to feel justified. It’s not his country.

He did say a word since the invasion started:

"I'm not suspended from the ceiling above a barrel of acid by a rope that burns a little faster every time I tweet, you concern-trolling ghouls. I've just lost any confidence I had that sharing my thinking on this particular topic continues to be useful, because I called it wrong."

By "called it wrong", he means this, from February 11:

"So... if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3AM, I'm not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility."

This comment should have been top level, it explains everything.

Even a perfectly working clock is wrong twice a year for daylight savings time :)

This supports the theory that Putin is a) a rational actor who was b) fed bad information about Ukraine's political disposition, and so c) appeared to act irrationally. Snowden knew a, didn't know b, and then felt rebuked by c. I would tell him: it's okay, Ed, how could you have known?

Cause he is a fraud.

No, he's actually real.

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