Snowden: Feds can't cover up leaks by 'murdering me'

By reasserting it, Snowden is also signalling that it is useless to go after him directly. Be it true or false, this is the only logical thing to say in his situation.

Lets see:

1) Whistle blower calls attention to actions of their government.

2) Media instead focuses on the personal details of the whistle blower.

3) Whistle blower defends himself and tries to divert attention back on the actual material.

4) Whistle blower is considered "self-righteous and self aggrandizing" for defending himself from attacks that should have never been made in the first place.

Wonderful.

Yes, let's attack his personality instead of talking about the mass surveillance that's going on right now. While we're at it, let's talk about his girlfriend.

Not sure what you are trying to suggest here:

- We don't talk about this because it is not relevant?

- We don't talk about it because it takes focus away from the Chinese, who are the real villains here?

What exactly is your point?

Foreign espionage is arguably more damaging than a government possibly violating its own constitution and betraying the values its country is founded upon?

There always was, and will always be, other countries spying on you (and each other), but once the rights of the people are given up to the authority, it is very hard to take it back.

I hold the prospective that the freedom and prosperity of US are more or less based its foundation on its constitutions and the values it was founded on. It is very hard to agree that foreign espionage would be more damaging to the US as you described.

I do think it's pretty important to talk about this here, as it is "Major Tech Companies" that get pushed into this thing.

The more we know about avoiding it, etc, the better we are

If he is indeed a spy, then the Americans have TWO problems to deal with. And it has absolutely no bearing on the current privacy discussion - the two problems are damaging in two (relatively) different aspects.

I kinda like the melodrama as much as or more than the story (the us/nsa being evil is no surprise), because this is one of the most cyberpunk things to happen in the last few years (TPB and stuxnet being others). I mean, their last name is Snowden! I could not think of a better one if I tried.

not that your point of getting down to brass facts is unreasonable, but the hype is part of the story, and getting more people interested is maybe important in getting lawmakers to maybe pay attention)

Bradley Manning - already fragile psychologically - was thrown in solitary for years pending trial and subjected to treatment the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture deemed cruel and inhuman.

This for someone without a Top Secret clearance... I'd be nervous too.

Do you really think that only other countries perform assassinations?

Where is he complaining about it? I see this:

"Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American"

What he did was disclose classified information. Which itself is illegal. But its a jump to automatically assume that disclosure of classified information is treason.

Now if he turns around and starts helping China with the information he has, then he will be pretty much done for.

And if you don't set morality aside? There can be such a gap between "legal" and "just", and before anyone asks me to set morality aside, I would love to first hear their arguments for me doing that, other than that they do it.