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Comment by vasilipupkin | Hacker News Reader

I stand by what I said even after the downvote :) I don't like what NSA is doing and I applaud Snowden for exposing their activities. However, people like Putin is why we have to have the NSA in the first place

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"people like Putin is why we have to have the NSA in the first place"

so the government propaganda does work :)

I am not defending the NSA or claiming that we should not curtail or better monitor what they are doing. What I am saying is, being a freedom fighter and then seeking asylum in Russia which is the place that heavily curtails personal freedoms of all kinds is kind of ironic don't you think? especially in light of the fact that Snowden allegedly has these 4 laptops with him

being a freedom fighter and then seeking asylum in Russia which is the place that heavily curtails personal freedoms of all kinds is kind of ironic

when the rest of the world bows to US threats and hands over official presidential planes for searching, there's not much choice is there?

and yes, the whole situation is very ironic, if you your views on the world come from western media

So it all boils down to "the enemy of my enemy" rationale then?

or he was just cornered in there, while trying to reach a more "benign" destination

Where would you seek refuge then, assuming you wanted to remain alive for > 1 week?

What do the recent leaks have to do with Putin? What relevance is there in what you're saying? Sometimes it's not a binary 'good guys vs bad guys'.

Do you honestly believe a trained KGB agent like Putin would give Snowden asylum in Russia without getting something in return ( I mean other than publicity )? Possible, it is also possible he got something in return from Snowden

Has Snowden given you any reason to think that he'd do that? The guy must be principled as shit to have done what he's done in the first place.

I just think it's naive to believe that Russian regime would not use the information that Snowden has in his possession in exchange for asylum.

Do you really stand behind the 1000% hyperbole?

yes. Have you followed news out of Russia lately ?

Yeah, some shitty news coming out of Russia around the criminalisation of homosexuality.

The news coming out of Snowden on the US is very fucking bad too.

So what happens if homosexuality is outlawed in the US and the NSA can dragnet every online thing ever?

this hypothetical if seems irrelevant to our discussion. US and the rest of the western world have a much better track record on supporting individual freedoms than Putin's government, which violates them whenever it sees fit or whenever it's politically expedient. That fact is hard to argue with

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