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Comment by dfreel | Hacker News Reader

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Even if you are playing tic-tac-toe at a chess tournament, you still have to think a move ahead. Saying "Very naive to think that the Russian and Chinese governments didn't get a full copy" makes your initial point moot. If the adversaries you are supposedly worried about already have everything, what's the point of keeping it from the American people?

You're changing the subject from how you misrepresented why Snowden ended up in Russia.

I won't engage further with someone acting in bad faith.

What Russia and China has in common? Why would somebody work for both countries?

Do you know, for example, that China willingly sells huge amounts of drones to Ukraine?

GP didn't claim that Snowden worked for both countries. Snowden certainly did offer details of compromised Chinese networks to SCMP, which is now a propaganda rag for the PRC, in a failed attempt to gain asylum in Hong Kong. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266821/us-hacks-chi...

Snowden gave the full set of documents to Greenwald, Poitras, and The Intercept. Greenwald's opsec in particular is highly questionable, and I would be shocked if Russia and China didn't get a full copy from him. China had no need to barter with Snowden.

Here in 2026 China is supplying Russia with weapons in exchange for oil under global sanctions.

Russia is in no position to reject China for selling to both sides. They may not be allies but each is the enemy of their enemies.

Which exactly weapons are supplied by China? Even ever lying news sources like Bloomberg and CNN never made such unfounded accusations.

Also, how and why some "spy" would work both for China and Russia? Two very different countries from every point of view: culturally, economically, and in every other way also.

The only thing in common is that USA wants to destroy both Russia and China and that because of that reason US controlled media (like 90% of media in the world) publish scary fakes about both countries.

>Very naive to think that the Russian and Chinese governments didn't get a full copy of the documents Snowden stole and absconded with.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

>Snowden is some sort of hero?

He left his cozy upper middle-class life, partner, and put his life on the line to expose illegal mass surveillance. That's gazillion times more risk and sacrifice to do the right thing, than you'll ever accomplish.

The problem is that much of it wasn't illegal. Some was, but some was just spy agencies doing spy agency things. The laws draw some pretty fine distinctions that are at odds with what you expect.

Perhaps it's worth it to have exposed the genuinely illegal things and have scrutiny on the legal but unpleasant ones. But I don't think that's obviously the case. Spy agencies are by definition going to do stuff you wouldn't approve of if you weren't paying close attention to what protections are in place.

> Very naive to think that the Russian and Chinese governments didn't get a full copy of the documents Snowden stole and absconded with.

Does one need to be gullible to believe this? Or will you substantiate your extraordinary claim?

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