Snowden video from Moscow airport | Hacker News Reader

Snowden video from Moscow airport

lifenews.ru

132 pointscaptiva1235 comments

Listen to what he is saying. "Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates. It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”

source of the above, in case anyone is confused: http://wikileaks.org/Statement-by-Edward-Snowden-to.html

thx

I wish the world would stop and think about this.

This truth is incredibly important and it isn't being said loud enough. It's being discussed in forums such as this, but not nearly enough by the media.

Anyone out there who can amplify and repeat this statement should do so.

He seems at ease, laughing at things happening to him, he also seems well rested and composed. I hope people won't read this as a sign he is doing fine and that he feels light about this situation.

There's a very good chance one of his endeavours in the coming weeks goes absolutely wrong, and he ends up in some u.s. prison, and this video of his heavy speech in which tension is relieved by cheery laughter over the absurdness of being at this airport for so long could be the last thing we ever saw of him as a person.

I read this as a sign he's not being tortured or mistreated. He seems in good spirits and overall a nice person who has a sense of humor. Although Putin wants him out of the country unless he stops the leaks, at least he's getting along ok at the airport. Not that Putin should be congratulated for this as it's all politics, but compare this to our treatment of Bradley Manning. Had Manning been released on bail for the time before his trial and allowed to speak publicly, we might have come to know and like him in the same way as Snowden.

He seems pretty relaxed. He & the young woman alongside him share laughs, when the airport's intercom plays during his meeting.

It's likely that if he's granted stay in Russia, his life will be pretty pleasant. As much as he (and we) love America, he had the strength to stand up to some shady characters hiding behind our flag.

People around the world respect him for this. The Russian people especially. Also, if you want my personal opinion, Russian women are some of the most beautiful in the world.

I hope he stays here in Russia. Yes, we as a country are far from the ideals he strives to protect, but it will be difficult to find such country elsewhere in the world. But I'm sure he will find Moscow a cool place to live at least for some period of time.

I think I can easily agree with that.

As a citizen of the US I have signed the petition to pardon Snowden (any activities related to whistleblowing; should there happen to be any actual spying or treason, that is excluded, but it does not seem very likely, imho). As a citizen of Russia (yes, both) I would be happy to sign a petition to offer him an asylum, however such petitions are not really part of the Russian political culture, if such a culture exists at all any longer.

Snowden could easily find job in Moscow, however it would be hard for him to stay private. And to stay away from FSB (or CIA, for that matter). His professional career also is going to be... interesting, be it in Russia or another place.

What do you mean by "such country"?

Russia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Rich and powerful can steal, murder, imprison opposition, rape with no repercussions.

Its science is in the toilet and is getting invaded by the orthodox church.

Its industry is in ruins.

It's basically running on natural resources now.

I think, in context, he meant it would be difficult to find a country whose practices line up with Snowden's ideals.

Russia have said themselves that they will take him, but only if he stops his "anti-American" activities.

Apparently [1:36] Snowden really is at the Russian airport, unlike some have been speculating [0].

[0] http://world.time.com/2013/07/10/snowden-in-moscow-what-are-...

Where is he living and sleeping though? On the chairs in the transit area? How does he handle basic logistics such as laundry, personal hygiene etc? I'm imagining that he is staying inside a hotel in the transit area (many airports have those), but if not, my heart really goes out to him.

I don't think it's known where he is staying exactly. But there's an article by CNN reporter investigating different places where he could be living: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/11/world/europe/russia-snowde...

He's staying rather comfortably at the "V-express" hotel in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport.

http://www.eng.v-exp.ru/

I'm curious how he's paying for it. Surely the US froze his credit cards/etc by now.

Wikileaks

That's the first thing I wondered about when he left Hong Kong. Did he just pull out a bunch of cash at an ATM first?

Just a guess but if I were him Id have acquired some bitcoin before leaving. Learning from wikileaks ....

Pics: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g1439536-d2175603-...

When he left Hong Kong he was accompanied by Sarah Harrison from Wikileaks. She is sitting next to him in the video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Harrison_(journalist)

As serious as all this is (very), and how much of a hero he is (great), I do still wish someone would buy him a horizontal striped red and white t-shirt and cap. He even _looks_ like Waldo.

Cool I guess, but why is the video so horribly filmed? Was filming not actually allowed or was the photographer just extremely lazy?

And a second, slightly off-topic question. The footage of Snowden is obviously news worthy and it would be fair use for channels like CNN to air it without asking lifenews.ru for permission. The semi-transparent watermarks are easy to remove with the right software. Would they be breaking any laws if they did that while still showing the red logo on the top of the screen?

Why would they remove the watermarks? I often see on the news footage that comes from other news companies with the watermark still on. e.g. during a big event in the US that happens without warning the initial footage on UK channels will often contain ABC/NBC watermarks.

Personally I think the watermarking on this video is a little obsessive, but my opinion doesn't matter. I'm asking a hypothetical question, what I think or what the news channels actually ends up doing isn't important.

If they actually had removed it (for whatever reason, justified or not), would that be legal?

I think so. If I remember correctly I saw this footage on another site yesterday without watermarks. I think it was taken by one of the human rights workers and then was used by several news agencies who put their won watermarks on it.

Edit: I was wrong, the BBC used it here and covered one of the watermarks with their own. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23293756 (about 50 secs into the video).

According to the article, no journalists were allowed on the conference and no filming or taking pictures were allowed either. The article also says that Snowden expressed his wish to stay in Russia and get asylum there.

Full audio recording of the meeting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQSVurlAak

Freedom isn't Free. I think we need to get guidance to what is the next step to protect our 4th amendment rights

An easy first step: vote against everybody currently in office whenever they come up for re-election. Throw the bums out.

I'm torn on the national security implications of Snowden's disclosures and the creep factor, but what he did certainly have prompted an important conversation and it seems like he's been reasonably responsible with what he discloses. What a contrast with the Wikileaks diplomatic cable disclosures- blanket, sloppy, and in the end not that important (though it did make life harder for a lot of career diplomats.)

Again, I'm really torn on what Snowden did, and maybe I'm just one of the "naive sheep" cowering in fear from Them blahblahblah, but I really, really don't want any explosions slipping through as a result of it.

The main feeling I get from european entrepreneurs is that Snowden is a hero but here on hacker news if you read the comment it feels like the opposite. Is it that americans in support for Snowden is afraid to voice there opinion agains the government of fear of having there private life followed and investigated by NSA or have I missed something?

As an American I've not met anybody afraid of the NSA.

You are definitely missing something, because I have seen nothing but "Snowden is a hero" stuff in comments here on Hacker News.

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