Comment by luke727 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by luke727 | Hacker News Reader

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> Says who.

Just a few tabloid rags like The Washington Post [1], The Guardian [2], and The Atlantic [3].

> That doesn’t mean he has to pledge allegiance during that period. Regardless it’s not what an American patriot does. That narrative is untenable now.

Pledging allegiance is required to obtain Russian citizenship, which grants him additional protections from the United States. It is also required to obtain a Russian passport, which is required because the United States revoked his American passport, made him stateless, trapped him in an adversarial foreign country, and would do everything in their considerable power to intercept him should he try to seek asylum elsewhere.

Sure, the timing makes for awkward optics, but I'm going to cut the guy some slack not only for what he's been through, but for having his reputation falsely tarnished as well.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/02...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/29/julian-assange...

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/wh...

> Russian citizenship, which grants him additional protections from the United States

Protections he apparently didn’t need for nearly a decade, but did once Russia was executing its genocidal war. Your “he’s merely scared of America” narrative doesn’t hold water.

> trapped him in an adversarial foreign country

No one made him travel and his passport was revoked before flying to Moscow, evidence elsewhere on the thread. He trapped himself!

> timing makes for awkward optics, but I'm going to cut the guy some slack

Russia is systematically raping and murdering Ukrainians while Snowden is giving his oath to Russia and you call that “awkward optics?”

>Protections he apparently didn’t need for nearly a decade, but did once Russia was executing its genocidal war. Your “he’s merely scared of America” narrative doesn’t hold water.

Protections he couldn't get for nearly a decade, but did once the law was changed and he was able to do so [1].

>No one made him travel and his passport was revoked before flying to Moscow, evidence elsewhere on the thread. He trapped himself!

He could have (and in hindsight probably should have) stayed in Hong Kong. Regardless, it's unclear when he knew his passport had been revoked. Even if he had known beforehand, he thought he had documents for safe passage to Ecuador.

>Russia is systematically raping and murdering Ukrainians while Snowden is giving his oath to Russia and you call that “awkward optics?”

Please reserve this emotional tripe for Reddit, where it belongs.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/23/edward-snowd...

Brought it all on himself. Deserves to rot in jail.

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