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Comment by mpyne | Hacker News Reader

What's interesting is how this all should have been entirely predictable to Snowden. He's an American, he knows what Jerry Springer is. He said right from the beginning that he didn't want this to be about him, so why has he let the circus go on so long?

Did he think that the press focuses on human-interest stories because they don't sell or drive pageviews? He's giving the media so much to drive stories on, and all about Snowden and Assange and Wikileaks and asylum... but not about the big bad NSA. But so be it, I'm sure his current padded cell must be more comfortable.

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On the flip side, if Snowden didn't put a human face to this controversy, it's likely that the NSA leak would never have received the kind of publicity it has now.

True, but he could have put a human face on it right at the beginning and then dropped himself off at a courthouse like a certain other famous leaker-to-media of classified data.

And quite likely never been seen or heard from again like Manning.

Only a fool would fight secret courts and secret interpretations of laws by "dropping himself off at a courthouse".

> And quite likely never been seen or heard from again like Manning.

That's not what happened to Manning at all though. While in Quantico he was nearly continuously in the news... it wasn't until he was transferred to Ft. Leavenworth that the news toned down about him.

Nowadays Manning's trial has resulted in updates almost every other day in the news, if you've bothered to check.

> Only a fool would fight secret courts and secret interpretations of laws by "dropping himself off at a courthouse".

Not every day I see people on HN call Daniel Ellsberg a fool.

Yes, Manning was in the news. No, you did not hear any statements from him, unless you read the court martial transcript that was made by the reporter who smuggled in the tape recorder against the court rules of security.

Ellsberg wasn't fighting secret courts and secret interpretations of law.

> Ellsberg wasn't fighting secret courts and secret interpretations of law.

Indeed, he was fighting something even worse: a secret conspiracy spanning multiple Presidencies to help force a nation's involvement in war.

Nixon took the unprecedented step of suing to stop the publication of the newspapers that were going to print the Pentagon Papers, even though the topics described didn't even occur on his watch.

What Ellsberg was dealing in was far more serious, and yet he turned out OK when he turned himself in.

I don't dispute that what Ellsberg did was brave and ultimately the system worked. But it literally took having the Supreme Court rule in his favor and the President thrown out of office (a once ever in 237 years event).

Snowden's situation is different, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the one who also appoints the judges to the secret FISA court Snowden has exposed. It's little surprise he didn't throw himself upon their mercy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/chief-justice-rober...

The Supreme Court did rule in favor of Ellsberg, it ruled in favor of the New York Times, and later in favor of the Congressman who added the Pentagon Papers to the Congressional Record.

Likewise Nixon had nothing to do it. He didn't even lift a finger against Ellsberg until Kissinger convinced him that he had to do so for the integrity of his Office. And even if Nixon really was pushing for it, judicial cases don't reset upon a President leaving office.

Ellsberg's case was thrown out on a technicality, as I recall, not due to any forebearance on the part of the Executive branch.

> Snowden's situation is different, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the one who also appoints the judges to the secret FISA court Snowden has exposed. It's little surprise he didn't throw himself upon their mercy.

I wasn't aware that Roberts counted for all 9 votes now.

Looks like Ellsberg himself has now said it better than I could:

"Snowden made the right call when he fled the U.S."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-l...

I think that the has screwed up in regard to his own safety, possibly because of bad advice from the Wikileaks people. I'm certain that he didn't plan to be stranded in a transit hall in Moscow. In regards to the news he has held a quite low profile himself recently.

You seem to believe that Snowden can control the media.

In fact I claim the opposite; Snowden cannot control the media, and should have predicted its inevitable reaction to the input he has been feeding it.

Ah, and were he not to have done so, are we so sure the NSA bits and pieces would be dominating the headlines, or might those have drifted into the background regardless? Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen.

Last time I checked Greenwald is not an idiot. The ongoing leaks have come without any interaction by Snowden at all, if I'm understanding him correctly. If anything he keeps stealing the thunder of WaPo, Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc.

Media is controlling him, not like mathematical control of direct or inverse relations but more of a sublte control.

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