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Comment by sc68cal | Hacker News Reader

This whole situation has severely killed my faith in organizations and people. Snowden put a lot of trust in people that he had every right to believe they would do the right thing, and unfortunately it's been shown that that trust was misplaced.

Through a combination of blackmail, personality clashes, vanity and ego, incompetence, the whole thing just fizzled out completely. A real shame.

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It feels like there is "backpressure" that has been backed into our current world that makes people like Snowden and Assange an impossibility. The collective control of politics, media, and corporations have built a society that is inoculated to truth and no longer have a response to evil.

Even when the truth is told to us directly to our faces, no one seems to care.

IMO the underlying reason for this is one or more of:

1) Americans are [statistically speaking] doing very well, high GDP, lots of consumer products to buy, lots of entertainment, lots of cheap food... and wikileaks is not doing anything to help but maybe destroy this.

2) Americans are also doing very poorly, the bottom 25% have bigger problems to deal with than wikileaks. Why would they care if the CIA is watching them if they can't afford next month's rent?

3) Information overload: Similiar to 1, we get overloaded with things we ought to care about, climate, wiki leaks, wars.... it's too much and people really just want. #1.

Or maybe I'm off...

Re 2): because you can't have a handful of extremely wealthy people in a completely equal world; so one wonders if enough accidental topplings of foreign democracies would not an "inequality" enforcement agency make?

Reading a bit, it's become somewhat apparent to me that that little independent government agency is the instability enforcer in order to sustain the world as a set of abstractions to keep people artificially poor: from cartels (involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking), to toppling of budding democracies (IIRC, Iran 1953) ... further revealing they and their masters consider that progress is a zero-sum game for them.

I'm not sold on anyway we will ever reach inequality, and I don't think it is a actual goal we should have as a target. I think it is a political wedge issue. I'm happy have my mind changed though.

The rest of your reply is getting too much into conspiracy theory for me to reply.

My hopeful side sees a future where he's pardoned and can live here as a hero.

Something tells me in that future he would never be allowed to leave Russia. His entire value to the Russian government is to prove to Russians that the US is also repressive. If the US magically stopped being repressive enough to hail snowden as a hero, he would suddenly turn into a liability for Russia: proof that a repressive government can be changed by ordinary people fighting back. A very dangerous thought for any authoritarian government to allow unchecked, Russia and US alike

> Something tells me in that future he would never be allowed to leave Russia. His entire value to the Russian government is to prove to Russians that the US is also repressive.

They don't need him to be physically in the country for that though. What he leaked is proof enough and there's plenty of evidence that's come to light since. I do wonder how easy it'd be for him to leave if the US welcomed him back and he was willing to risk returning though

He may have lost that opportunity when he took refuge, incredibly hypocritically, in a dictatorial police state.

Snowden did not take refuge in Russia. He was trapped there when his passport was cancelled by the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden_asylum_in_Russi...

He still accepted their asylum rather than voluntarily going back to the us. His original intention does not exculpate him.

Why would he go back to the US lmao. He's foolish enough to trust the US people but not that foolish.

Taking refuge in a country isn't an endorsement of their political system or leadership. He was fleeing political persecution. Most of us would do the same thing in his place

Rather easy to say from your couch.

Right? The charge that "he took refuge, incredibly hypocritically" is a blatant lie, and then the GP moves the goalposts. As we all know, including the blatant liar, Russia was not Snowden's destination and he was trapped in the airport because the U.S. cancelled his visas. The claim that choosing to accept Russian citizenship months later as an alternative to spending a lifetime in a U.S. prison is hypocritical is vile.

His only condition for going back to the states is a fair trial, in which he can make his case in front of a jury. Something that the constitution guarantees, but is "prohibited" under the Espionage Act. He's not asking for anything close to a pardon, just basic due process. Yet the government denies him of that basic right.

He's got more moral integrity than all of us combined. But nice high horse you have there.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/461578-snowden-ultimate-go...

The Constitution guarantees Snowden an impartial jury trial on the criminal charges against him. It does not guarantee him the right to have the jury decide whether breaking the law was morally justified or beneficial to society. The Sixth Amendment requires a jury to determine the elements of the crimes; it doesn't constitutionalize every defense a defendant would like to make.

In another comment, you said that he should try to enter the US despite his passport being cancelled, which is also breaking the law.

Russia actually did the legally correct action, in giving refuge to a stateless person.

Not likely, both political parties hate him.

Maybe Americans will rid of both of them...

> Maybe Americans will rid of both of them...

There are recent trends to suggest they could

https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-politi...

Doesn't really seem possible. The two party system is so deeply wound into the structure of the u.s. political machinery that a new party doesn't really stand a chance.

It might be time to throw the machinery out the window.

Wrong phrasing, a new political party could absolutely come into power. It would just replace one of the two-parties ideologies but be called the same thing and you still have 2 parties.

And especially treating political parties like sports teams that must defeat the other, regardless of whether it's in the best interest of the country

Fleeing the country, to a rival country no less is not the best way to come back as a hero. If he really wanted to stand as a hero, he would have stayed in the US and stood for trial, all while being as loud as possible.

It would probably have ruined his life, but being a martyr makes an even stronger point.

Instead he chose to live a (hopefully) good life in Russia, I mean, good for him. The archive is out, he did his thing, he doesn't have anymore duty to anyone. But he pretty much burned his chance to be recognized as a hero in the US. He has his chance in other countries however. He has overwhelming support in countries like Germany and the rest of western Europe, these are nice countries that value privacy and freedom, that's probably where he should go (should he want to and can leave Russia) instead of the US.

I think it's unreasonable to expect whistleblowers to volunteer to be tortured or killed. The US would likely seek extradition from most countries that don't have antagonistic relationships with the US and the fact that his passport was revoked would have limited his ability to travel around looking for protection anyway.

Not wanting to be subjected to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... doesn't unmake someone a hero

He destroyed his life and he is a hero for that. Movie type symbolisms and ethics would offer nothing more and good for him that he was lucky and resourceful enough to save his physical self.

A disgrace that although he is available and what he revealed is now more relevant than ever, he has been buried in the media, which is another continuous signal on the limits of freedom vs elite interests and control.

> He destroyed his life and he is a hero for that.

A hero of the world, not a hero of the US. That's what I wanted to say.

As loud as possible? That's naive. They would have black bagged him instantly, no trial. In fact a public trial is his only stipulation for voluntary return - that this has been denied should tell you everything.

Funny how this always seems to happen.

Chelsea manning leaks - fizzled out

Edward Snowden leaks - fizzled out

Panama papers - a couple token people charged and many more acquited so that also fizzled out

Epstein files - clearly fizzling out

It just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you expose and uncover and dump into the press. It doesn't matter how many reddit threads go over the corruption in detail coupled with available documentation. It doesn't matter how many podcasters talk about it.

It just doesn't ever matter. If the powers that be don't want the boat to rock, it simply will not rock. We've seen this time and time again over this past century. As sobering as that is to realize, the current crop of power has an absolute chokehold on this planet. We can openly talk about how corrupt they are and they know we won't do anything material about it.

"If the powers that be don't want the boat to rock, it simply will not rock. "

Hear me out, it's not so much the powers, it's the people. If you poll people, they might say they want all this information and government reform.

But if you try to give them even 1 bit of hardship to accomplish this, then will not and it is easily forgotten.

This to me makes a lot more sense than 'the powers' in complete control.

I was going to add a little more to my comment on how the powers that be have gotten us just comfortable enough to not care to be the radicals that our grandparents might have been. The squeeze was too hard in the early 20th century and triggered revolutions and the toppling of governments in favor of socialist causes. The squeeze was too soft by the mid 20th century and the powers that be figured they were leaving too much money on the table in the form of worker vs say executive pay. Seems today the boot on our neck is just right: just enough to ensure high inequality and an anything goes business environment without very many of us threatening to cut their heads off.

It's all fun and games until the mind wanders to you getting polonium-210'd for your work, and you decide 'my life isn't worth _this_.' It's kind of dumb people choose fear, but I understand it.

Being killed for your reporting happens to a lot of journalists. I think your comment about "dumb people choosing fear" is incredibly tone deaf. I don't see you risking your life to expose the Panama Papers and being blown up with a bomb for it. It's easy to write something so brave from behind your keyboard.

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