Edward Snowden (1983 - )

Tue Jun 21, 1983

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Image: Edward Snowden speaks about the NSA leaks in an interview with reporter Glenn Greenwald at the hotel The Mira Hong Kong. [Wikipedia]

Edward Snowden, born on this day in 1983, is an American whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the NSA in 2013 when he was working as a CIA employee, exposing multiple governments’ widespread surveillance programs.

Snowden’s disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments, prompting a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.

In 2013, the United States Department of Justice unsealed charges against Snowden of two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property, revoking his passport. Two days later, he flew into a Moscow Airport, where Russian authorities noted that his U.S. passport had been canceled, and he could not leave the airport terminal for over one month.

Russia later granted Snowden the right of asylum with an initial visa for residence for one year, and he continues to reside there on extension today.

“Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give to an American.”

- Edward Snowden

  • Troy@lemmy.ca
    372·
    21 hours ago

    I appreciate what he did. I hate that he is in Russia.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      433·
      19 hours ago

      Reminder that the reason is in Russia is because the US trapped him there, that was not his intended destination. The US was leveraging every country they could to prevent Snowden flying anywhere. They ended up cancelling his passport while he was on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow in transit to a final destination somewhere in Latin America.

      So he ended up being stuck in the international terminal in Moscow and not able to even leave the airport since he had no valid passport. Russia and the US do not have an extradition agreement, and the US has always refused to send criminals back to Russia, so they did the same, also citing that his actions would not have even violated Russian law. Eventually over a month later they processed a temporary one year asylum request since he was stuck in Russia anyway. And that was extended until he was granted permanent residency in 2020.

      In short the only reason he ended up in Russia is because the US trapped him there.

      • UsernameHere@lemy.lolEnglish
        52·
        16 hours ago

        I’ve seen what Russia does to American citizens they detain (atheletes, reporters, teachers, etc.).

        It’s telling that Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent, would not get the same or worse treatment in Russia.

          • UsernameHere@lemy.lolEnglish
            31·
            14 hours ago

            I find it hard to believe that Russia is just being nice to Snowden. Snowden was a former CIA agent. There are many examples of double agents in espionage throughout history, let alone between Russia and the US.

            If Snowden isn’t working for Russia then you can guarentee Russia would be torturing him for any information he has. Which they don’t show any signs of doing.

    • VirgilMastercard@reddthat.com
      143·
      20 hours ago

      To be fair to him, he’s been in Russia since like 2013 which was before all the Ukraine stuff really started to blow up. And from a practical point of view, he’s probably much safer there than he would be in any US friendly country.

      It’s unfortunate that his actions in the interests of raising awareness of mass surveillance to the US public were also in the interests of the Russian state, which will be all to happy to see the US government undermined in some way.

      Nonetheless, I think he done the right thing.

      • real_squids@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        91·
        20 hours ago

        After Georgia “stuff” blew up though. And everything before that. And let’s be real, you could see who would be their head today even back in 2013.
        He deserved better.

        • Troy@lemmy.ca
          9·
          20 hours ago

          I suspect he is in the equivalent of house arrest now, whether officially or otherwise. A pet.

      • Troy@lemmy.ca
        111·
        20 hours ago

        Russia uses his presence as a propaganda point. It also give Americans the ability to paint him as an actual traitor (by fleeing to an enemy country).

        Wish he had vanished into the Canadian wilderness or something instead.

        • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          112·
          19 hours ago

          You’re foolish if you think Canada wouldn’t have handed him over in a moment or allowed American forces into said wilderness to track him

            • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              5 hours ago

              Yeah okay. I’m sure the American government with all its resources would have sooooo much trouble finding a fucking dorky tech nerd that decided to play survivalist

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Frein

              Eric Frein was an actual ass survivalist here in PA who shot two cops trying to start some kind of revolution to overthrow the government and disappeared into the PA wilderness. Because he killed 2 cops they went hard, state police from multiple states (they were paying crazy amounts of OT), atf, FBI, and, us marshals. They caught him in a month and half. This was a libertarian “I do war reenactments and live in woods for fun sometimes” person so for a while it really looked like he would successfully dip, especially given the time of year was not super conducive to tracking as it was raining a lot. He specifically knew how to avoid being tracked as well using stuff like rivers to his advantage and there were even several times where the cops saw him and he was able to dip because of terrain advantage

              Now you really think some nerd who has not LARPed as a survivalist mercenary for the past 15 years and has the aggression of the entire federal government, not just one state, would be able to successfully shake them off? No fucking way. You’re public enemy #1. That’s some delusional thinking shit inspired by fucking Rambo or something. You’ll have 5,000+ people after you with serious equipment advantage, they’ll spend 10s of millions, if not way more (pa spent 12 million to catch Frein)

        • vivalapivo@lemmy.today
          114·
          20 hours ago

          I am from Russia myself. I don’t live there because I am concerned about my safety. And I unironically think it’s the safest place for him for now.

          Also Russian propaganda isn’t based in reality, so it’s a weak point