Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

Upthread, we have:

> Thank goodness he [was more willing to betray his position for moral reasons] than the "I was just following orders" crowd. We know from WW2 that "I was just following orders" is not a legitimate excuse to help facilitate grave atrocities,

Which dilutes to this when challenged:

> he didn't oppose [the invation of Ukraine] for the same reason very few other Russians opposed it.

Those perspectives both can't be correct! If he was willing to face jail and expulsion for opposing US crimes, and to be celebrated for that, surely the same logic should hold for Russian crimes, no?

Snowden is complicated for sure. I think it's not unreasonable to ask why these decisions were different and to at least ask what differences he might have in loyalties and personal aims might lead to them.

View on HN

He has never expressed himself to be anything other than a patriotic American. Why would he be putting his life on the line for a country that he does not identify with?

People who do that ti support just cause like Ukraine have my respect. But I wouldn’t expect if of anyone.

> Why would he be putting his life on the line for a country that he does not identify with?

Edward Joseph Snowden is literally a Russian citizen!

Because he was effectively stateless, and that was the only option available. Context matters..

> Those perspectives both can't be correct!

Uh, sure they can: he saw an opportunity where he could make a difference and bring a program to light where the NSA was otherwise blatantly lying to Congress and the American people, and he took it.

There is nothing he can or could do to stop the invasion of Ukraine.

Which is to say, he didn't merely oppose US crimes. He brought them to light. Everyone already knows about Ukraine.

Exactly this. His original revelations were shocking to his audience; the Ukrainian invasion is already almost-universally condemned among the same. His “speaking out” against it would be pure virtue signalling, not a single mind would be changed or informed by it.

The US harasses and jails prominent dissidents. Russia murders them.

So surely it's more important and not less that notable Russians like Snowden use their influence to drive policy and change, right?

Basically, you're just saying "It's OK not to challenge Putin if you're afraid". Which is fine. But I argue it needs to then inform the way we treat his other decisionmaking. The facts on the ground are at least as compatible with "Edward Snowden is a Putinist Partisan" as they are "Edward Snowden is a Patriotic American".

Yeah, maybe, but it's too easy for me to sit here in a comfy chair, safe in the US, and talk about what an exiled protester in Russia should do. I lack the moral authority to USplain to Snowden that the Russians are just sheltering him for his propaganda value, even though that's obviously what they are doing.

He owes us nothing. Through no fault of his own, he does owe Russia, though. If we didn't want Putin to make a useful puppet out of him, we (a) should not have placed him in a position to make the decisions he did, ideally by following our own laws to avoid inciting his actions in the first place; and (b) we should have been able to assure him of a fair trial without inciting snickers and guffaws.

You hear HRC saying (of Assange) "Can't we just drone him?" And you think Snowden has no cause for concern?! Naive.

Cough* OpenAI, Boeing, MLK ... cough*

I'm sure that seemed relevant when you typed it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com