I do understand why the state wants to prosecute him, but I also think the public deserved to know what Snowden revealed. It's definitely the kind of thing the pardon power was created for, not for drug lords to bribe their way back into freedom.
I do understand why the state wants to prosecute him
Because he exposed the state for being a massively illegal and corrupt pile of shit directly perpetrating crimes against not just the American public, but the world at large?
Like yeah, I understand why cartels kill informants, that doesn't make them justified in doing so.
The american public are just overworked sheep… the proof they did not deserve this info, is in that they got it and literally did nothing about it.
To this day poeple won't stop using Meta and Twitter and there are 29 extra reasons to never touch those platforms again
Don't forget Reddit! That has always been a skidmark-filled guilty pleasure.
Pardon power and the jury nullification.
It's kind of sad. He sacrificed his freedom to let us know about surveillance of the citizenry and we shrugged a little and accepted all the surveillance they could throw at us.
People dont care about their privacy one bit. They want their tiktok brain rot.
This is such a "phones bad" comment, but holy shit is it true. If you tell people why you don't have WhatsApp and instagram or whatnot, they just look at you like you are the idiot. Yeah they are evil, steal and sell my data and rot my brain but have you seen this bot posting ai videos of cats?
Sounds ok except for living in Russia.
Edward Snowden is a permanent resident and naturalized citizen of Russia, living in Moscow with his wife and two sons. Granted citizenship by President Vladimir Putin in 2022, he remains in exile to avoid prosecution in the US under the Espionage Act. Snowden continues to criticize Russian policy while working in IT and presiding over the Freedom of the Press Foundation
That's what happens when the US waits to cancel your passport until you are stuck in the transit hub of a Russian airport waiting for your next flight out of the country.
iIRC it took like 12 months until Russia granted Snowden asylum and he could leave the airport hub.
Like that Tom Hanks movie! I think it's called The Terminal
Which itself is based on the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who lived in Terminal 1 of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, from 1988 to 2006.
It is uncommon, but passports being invalidated during travel does happen.
Wikipedia says this guy was mostly responsible for what happened to him. He allegedly lost his passport, and refused any help from France and Belgium.
He actually sent his passport away to Belgium while en route to London, refused to sign a new passport with his real name, demanding one with the name Sir Alfred and no mention of his Iranian citizenship, and returned to the airport even after he had left it once to go to the hospital.
Sounds to me like he got used to his life there, with the fame and not needing to work.
He also made $200k from the filming rights.
Ah you are right. I seem to have gotten it mixed up with the initial 1 year refugee status he was granted, before the first 3 year temporary residency permit.
Either way, the US tried to prevent his leaving Hong Kong but however they submitted it, their request didn't comply with Hong Kong law so there was no legal basis for them to detain him.
Four countries had offered Snowden permanent asylum: Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. No direct flights between Moscow and Venezuela, Bolivia, or Nicaragua existed, however, and the U.S. pressured countries along his route to hand him over. His intended destination was Ecuador, but his passport being revoked while he was in flight from Hong Kong meant he was stuck in Russia.
He had given all copies of the evidence he had to journalists in Hong Kong reporting on American issues, specifically so when travelling through Russia they would have nothing to leverage.
Snowden said in July 2013 that he decided to bid for asylum in Russia because he felt there was no safe way to reach Latin America.
Considering they grounded Evo Morales' plane because they thought he was on it, I'd say that's a fair bet.
It was revoked before he left China. https://apnews.com/general-news-587786e6e63b4dc2b70c471606d7f584
That didn't stop China from ignoring his asylum request following his release of documentation of hacked Chinese systems and kicking him out of the country because whether you have a valid passport doesn't matter for geopolitical issues. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1259508/edward-snowden-us-government-has-been-hacking-hong-kong-and-china
Russia was under no obligation to keep Snowden instead of letting him continue to Ecuador. Putin just wanted to use him as a bargaining chip with the U.S., but the U.S. understood that all his documents were already public, so Putin hasn't been able to play that card well yet.
Living in Russia and criticizing russian policy sounds like how those intrusive thoughts about jumping from windows get into your head...
They'll probably give him some leeway since they'd rather have him living there as a fuck you to the USA and constant reminder of how fucked up the USA is as well.
Snowden continues to criticize Russian policy
I'm totally showing my ignorance here but I'm surprised they let him do that
Thanks for the update. I didn't know he had children, but I guess life moves on. I still think it is absolutely shameful that Europe wasn't and isn't able to allow Snowden to live in Europe.
They're vassals to the empire. He wouldn't be safe there anyway
The Europeans bucking the US would require them to not be vassals. But right now we see Germany trying to placate Trump and while France does a lot of saber rattling, they also aren't going specifically against the US. Only Spain is currently defying the US, but only insofar that they don't allow the US to conduct its war of choice with Iran from spanish soil. They are not opposing the US on anything that isn't as clear cut morally. That's a lot of words for saying yes, unfortunately, Europe, and Germany above all, is too cowardly to defend what is right against the US. The only opposition allowed against the US is bureaucratic opposition. And even that is failing.
Snowden should get a fair trial but the US won't let him argue that his whistleblowing was for the greater good and outweighs state secrecy clauses
the usa literally trapped him in russia while he was flying back to the us, by cancelling his passport. Also putin sees him as a useful propaganda tool as well.
I remember a few years ago John Oliver flew to Russia to interview him. He showed him a bunch of vox pop interviews of young people in America asking if they knew who Edward Snowden was and what he did, and almost all of them had no idea.
You could visibly see him die inside after watching it.
gen z is unlikely to know him, anyone older will.
Meh. I saw someone being interviewed who didn't know who hilter was. Apparently genuine. They even gave hints. When the interviewer told her who he is, she wasn't even shocked or just having a brain fart. She blamed it on her history teacher...
I have to belive that most of these quizzes where "reporter" walks around asking questions are fake or just show the stupidest answers.
It has to be so. No way the general populace is that stupid. Please say they are fake.
Edit; Love how many people take their time to comment how obscure Edward Snowden is now, when i meant these quizzes as general.
He has been largely forgotten. Recently we were talking about data collection with my slightly younger gf (21) when I mentioned him. Turns out she never even heard his name. It's not that she's stupid or does not care about privacy, he just hasn't been mentioned in mainstream media for over a decade, nobody makes reels about him on Instagram/tiktok. Tbh I haven seen him mentioned all that often on lemmy too.
With the rise of fascist parties worldwide, and especially here in the EU, and talks of AI, privacy seems to have taken a back seat in mainstream discourse.
No way the general populace is that stupid.
It isn't an issue of stupidity. Not like "Edward Snowden" is a name you can conjure up from first principles.
He was headline news back in 2008 and now he's not. Anyone who wasn't following national news nearly twenty years ago likely won't be familiar with him. No more than a Millennial is going to know who Daniel Ellsberg or Robert W. Jackson are.
The entire Wikileaks project has been more or less obliterated.
♥️
All whistleblowers need our support
Suddenly you don't hear about P.Diddy as well
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.