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Comment by pvnick | Hacker News Reader

It seems he accepted Putin's terms to not release anymore information. I wonder if that means no more information coming out, period, or that since most/all of the information is now with third parties that it's their responsibility. I doubt Putin likes being disrespected with loopholes and technicalities, but I more-so doubt that Snowden would halt the revelations altogether for the sake of his own safety. I suspect this was discussed and that Russian officials agreed to the continued release of what is no longer under Snowden's control.

Does anybody have any more information on that?

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My guess is Putin requested this to placate the US rather than out of concern. Yesterday the US and Russia both announced they'd be arming opposing sides in Syria, so placating the US might not be as big a priority now.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-russia-simultaneously-annou...

Oh goddammit! I thought we were over Russia and the US doing that cold war bullshit.

Seriously, if you're going to fight a war fight an economic war, much less destructive to other people than the little proxy wars the big boys seems to love so much.

Economic wars can be just as destructive in an insidious way...

Wars don't end until the underlying issue is settled. In this case it is very much as it was in 1914, which is "which large conglomerate of regional interests will rule the world," with participants being Russia, Europe and the USA. In the intervening years, we have added China, India and South America to the competition.

But otherwise... "same as it ever was."

same as it ever was

You may find yourself in another part of the world.

War is politics by other means.

When a war ends without the politics being settled, the seed of conflict remains.

However, most either people lack this longer term vision and falsely perceive a physical wins as an ultimate "victory", or don't care because they won't be around then.

"This isn't a peace, it's a twenty year truce!" - Ferdinand Foch, regarding the Treaty of Versailles

As an aside, the U.S's failure to predict the Collapse of the USSR was probably their greatest intelligence failure, with the consequence being Russia beginning a hurtling into the Abyss, arrested by Putin, and a partial reversal of the Democratic trend of Gorbachev. I don't think Demonizing Putin is really going to be helpful. Ignorance of the historical circumstances of Russia brought him in power is analogous to the belief that a Utopian Democracy could simply be imposed on Iraq from above. Take a Spherical Cow in a Vacuum, add some Democracy...

I enjoyed reading your reply. I like the "spherical cow" metaphor.

Foch was proven right. It must have been maddening for him to know the truth of the situation, but be over-ruled by popular sentiment toward ending a disastrous and suicidal war.

This makes me want to reconsider all of my own knowledge of course, because as your examples illustrate, it's possible that there is something worse than being wrong, and it is to not notice something important.

The various three letter agencies had no interest in correctly predicting the USSR's collapse as it'd get them defunded. I'm not saying that there was a conspiracy to not forewarn the various US administrations, I'm just saying that all the analysts slightl skewed things the other way, and the effect accumulated.

> The various three letter agencies had no interest in correctly predicting the USSR's collapse as it'd get them defunded.

You make a really good point here.

It's not that there's a conspiracy, or they censored themselves. There's simply zero reward in pursuing any path that leads to the conclusion that one's job is obsolete or soon will be.

With a minor caveat, I guess. Those who can figure it out without much effort will then be those who seek new employment before it happens. It's hard to predict these things however.

I think that Putin simply cares about appearing cooperative with his American "friends", so as to avoid any repercussions. Also there is definitely some play on words here, since we know that Snowden cannot have any control about the information he has already given to various individuals. So yes, he probably won't release any more info personally.

But imagine he violates the requiements and releases more information. Would that actually be a problem for him?

Putin already said that he won't send him to a country where he may be sentenced to death. So even in that case, he probably won't be sent to the US but to some other country than grants asylum to him.

I can't imagine why he would do something like that, in the open. After all he needs any friends he can get! But even if he was to break his promise of not releasing any more info, it would make more sense if he did it "under the radar". I think he is quite capable of that. Or maybe, he could do it while the Russians are looking the other way :)

Also, when Putin says "don't release" he is NOT saying "don't give to me"....

He _is_ cooperative. Inside, he claims we're under an attack of US spies or US propaganda, etc. But when it's time to act abroad, he is too weak to make anything substantial that would annoy the neocon US President.

Just as Italy replied to Snowden that he should have brought the request personally, our ministry of immigration finds excuses like "the procedure takes time..."

For Putin harboring an "active" foreign dissident would make it just a little bit harder to make live less awesome for the internal dissidents. On the other side, giving protection from "evil" Americans to a young naive guy who is being too harshly pursued by the whole overwhelming force of the said Americans' government for possibly violating some obscure laws in order to defend and promote democracy and openness, etc.. - well, Putin looks almost like a good Samaritan (God forbid that Samaritan come to your help like he came for Snowden) and, by proxy, a democracy defender and promoter :)

Now the headline has changed to: "Snowden asylum still under review, stays in airport for now - lawyer"

... so it seems RT popped their cork too early. Explains why the Guardian didn't cover this yet.

Yep. Got this from a live blog that Greenwald tweeted a little while ago.

"Federal migration service has not issued documents allowing Edward Snowden to leave the airport yet, there was a misinformation today in the media, said Kucherena."

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_07_24/Edward-Snowden-leaves-Sher...

It's quite possible Snowden has already passed on all his information to other parties. There's no need for Snowden to be the messenger any more.

It's not quite possible, it's factual: http://rt.com/news/snowden-leaks-guardian-greenwald-264/

(well, maybe 'almost all' rather than 'all.')

Which is the right thing to do. Perhaps then people start paying more attention to the leaks instead of the messenger.

Snowden will halt the revelations abruptly. He would be a fool to break the agreement with Putin.

Putin is a man of his word, and expects the same from Snowden.

Information may continue to leak, but not from Snowden. His part of the show is finished (and luckily for him, he's not even bruised!).

> Putin is a man of his word

:-)

Any reasons to believe otherwise?

The only thing I hold against him is his failure, as promised, to hang Georgian president by his balls. Eating necktie is a weak substitute.

Being president of a large country pretty much guarantees you've had to lie and cheat at least a little bit to get there.

For one random example (not being a huge student of 21st century Russia), he promised Bush that he wasn't arming Saddam's troops. Turned out they were outfitted with a lot of Russian anti-tank and night vision gear when we got there.

Proof, please? Soviet-designed doesn't mean Russian. Soviet designs are in manufacturing all over the world, including countries much closer to Iraq.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/01/10/evidenc...

It's a he said, she said, of course.

> For one random example (not being a huge student of 21st century Russia), he promised Bush that he wasn't arming Saddam's troops. Turned out they were outfitted with a lot of Russian anti-tank and night vision gear when we got there.

That doesn't say anything about Russia arming Saddam's troops. I'm sure there are a lot of cases U.S. arming their "allies" and then these weapons in some way became available to terrorists...

I simply don't think it is possible to know and predict how and by whom weapons will be used.

That could be done via 3rd party like Ukraine without direct involvement or even awareness of Russian government.

Reason? He's politician.

He's well known to fake publicity stunts, such as:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045848/Vladimir-Put...

Remember, he comes from the KGB, eventually rising to be the FSB director (the KGB successor).

Can you provide proof to otherwise? I'd imagine you've done proper research on the topic of Putin's honesty due to the flippant response.

He's a politician.

Basically, he's a politician ;-)

I'm always amazed how the public opinion of putin ranges from "evil dictator" to "clever politician".

Isn't it the same for every politician?

To become an evil dictator, it's often necessary to be a clever politician.

I had trouble putting this in words. By "clever politician" I mean people seeing Putin on TV or something and saying, "Ah, thats very clever" or even "Pretty amusing how he dealt with/did x". Media coverage in Central Europe is always very critical towards Putin, and while their stories may be distorted in some respects, I still believe them about many civilian rights beeing violated under his influence.

My guess is that Putin would be happy to have Snowden break the agreement, as long as he doesn't go to the press and take credit for it. Putin's government has been working constantly to undermine America's foreign influence, and these leaks go a long way towards doing that.

> Putin's government has been working constantly to undermine America's foreign influence

Can you elaborate on that? Any concrete examples of how they were doing this?

From the same Putin's regime we hear the same about the US, although just guesses, no facts. I'm curious how the west sees that.

I have no doubt its true for the US too. They're competing for influence in many parts of the globe.

Its not a rigorous example, but I think the front page of RT (the Russian - state backed media outlet) is a good example. Most of the US based stories are highly critical of the US government. It's also no coincidence that Julian Assange has his own show on RT.

I also believe Russia's backing of Assad is mostly an attempt to block Western influence in the middle east. But there's probably a number of reason and thats just one.

>Information may continue to leak, but not from Snowden. His part of the show is finished (and luckily for him, he's not even bruised!).

In my opinion, being exiled from your home and living the rest of your life with the world superpower ready to kidnap you is relatively bruising.

Didn't Snowden say that this was only temporary so he could secure a flight to a south american country at some point ?

meh. everything's temporary, technically. the line blurs between that and "not temporary"

I suspect the arrangement is he ceases to disseminate any new information during his stay in Russia. This avoids any undue tension in the US-Russian relations.

Once he's left Russia, I suspect he'll be able to continue his activities.

You are not material for politician -> good thing :-) But don't be naive, they say lot of gibberish. Only thing that matters is interest.

I think that 'no more information' is just a temporary thing until he gets out of Russia into a country where he has asylum.

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