Does anybody remember this movie about him released in 2016 too?
My memory goes back to the NSA combined with AT&T spying in San Francisco from the 2000s, of course. That was the first time I remember knowing, for sure, that the spy agencies were spying on millions of Americans whenever they possibly could… And some of us cared about it, but the vast majority of the population either didn’t listen or didn’t care.
If they didn’t care then, then of course they didn’t care about Snowden, or Assange, or [insert whistleblower’s name here]. And that’s not to blame the individual people. Of course they have a responsibility to learn. But they also need institutions, such as universities and libraries and media companies, to get their asses in gear helping people understand the tech enough to know exactly when it’s fucking them over.
I have the biography and I need to start it.
Just to add my 2 cents: the list of countries that the US can’t extradite is not that long, especially when you exposed government corruption of the highest degree and you are considered a traitor.
Against his personal safety he told the world what was going on. I feel its unfair to demand that he should have chosen a better country to flee in order to not be thrown in some forsaken US hole with the time he had…
I feel like call him traitor is fundamentally misunderstanding the sacrifice of one safety to alert your country that your own country is spying on you. Like the Army guy that went to jail for speaking out against the current regime (forgot the name).
These are the people doing the sacrifice no one is willing to do for Americans and the World. In my eyes they are heroes just by standing up for everyone
He actually offered to return to the US if they accepted that he would be given a public trial and not a military trial.
Obama’s administration rejected the idea and said that their only guarantee they would give was that they wouldn’t torture him.
Obama just said he wouldn’t give him a pardon, but the administration did say they would give him legal protections and thought he would get a fair trial. One thing to remember is that we typically have 3 branches of government. These days, not so much it feels like
(forgot the name)
Currently known as Chelsea Manning.
These are the people doing the sacrifice no one is willing to do for Americans and the World.
if you’re going to sacrifice yourself don’t stop at the hand, take the whole head.
In my eyes they are heroes just by standing up for everyone
heroes don’t need people to defend their actions because the actions of a hero need no validation.
Snowden is just a man. he’s no hero.
For some reason I read that as Roger Stone and I was confused.
I watched that movie with my girlfriend at the time and her father. After the movie had ended and the credits rolled, her father turned to us and simply said “He is a traitor”. I fucking hated her father so much lol
lol wtf
TBF he did attempt to flee to China then successfully fled to Russia.
After the US had revoked his passport, while he was already in Russia, en route to Ecuador.
Then he shouldn’t have picked China and Russia as his first two options. While speaking with reporters he was already in Hong Kong intending to cross into China but realized they have an extradition agreement with the USA.
intending to cross into China
This is simply not true. Source?
It simply makes no sense otherwise why he would go to Hong Kong before leaking the intel, and then with China puing strings to get him into Russia after his failure to reach Cuba or Ecuador.
Where was he supposed to go? London? Paris? You think US allies wouldn’t hand in over when asked?
France did speak out against the USA publicly after the news broke, so that was one option, yes. TBH Snowden had no reason to believe Russia or China would keep him after he already outlived his usefulness, unless perhaps they still think he’s useful even now.
ITT: “bro he tried to flee to China and then fled to Russia” ad nauseum.
It would feel less like astroturfing if it wasn’t like verbatim the same thing over and over again.
but it’s literally what happened.
you want people to make shit up like the magats?
Almost everyone forget easily and move on, as few – mostly activists – know who he is and what he did believing it was the best for humanity.
Snowden is a direct catalyst for Trump. :/
been saying this for at least since 2022. you’re going to get downvoted to oblivion but you’re right.
How so
He gave the means to manipulate governments through the internet to Americas enemies.
Ah. Thanks.
Oh no.
I’m still surprised how the whole Snowden scandal happened and… we kept going. Same for the Panama papers and in a slightly different way also the 2008 crisis and Covid. All moments we could have used to steer the wheel but nobody did
And now we have the Epstein files ☺️
all the same people
redacted
at this point i wonder what kind of scandal would it require for people to not just keep going
I think the Epstein Files have done that. Look at how much defense Trump has been forced to play.
Human history and existence is one big ball of “just keep going” doused in a heap of “this is awful but imma make some babies because horny” so it just keeps going.
It’s pretty messed up but here we are. Going. Because what’s the alternative?
Widespread starvation.
As long as the “working masses” can still feed their children, the vast majority of us bow to whatever authority wants to rule them.
It’s the same here in Germany.
I saw a documentary once where a wasp had a specific routine when arriving back home, and they showed the routine normally several times and then they showed the wasp doing the exact same thing after having been beheaded- no head to clean, but the wasp swiped its foreleg in the general area, then continued on the rest.
This was given as a difference between wasps and humans, or more generally, between instinctual and considered actions.
At first I worried a little, because I noticed how much I did on autopilot. Then I realized how much everyone does on autopilot and then I worried a lot.
I think if we were able to continue walking around without our heads, people absolutely would.
As someone recently pointed out, the breaking point seems to be when people don’t have to eat.
The crash of 1929. Because rich people lost money.
Pretty sure people would forget Thanos.
“I’m for the jobs the halvening will provide”
Not until the US runs out of borrowing capacity will they balk at anything I think. There is no shame, only money to be stole.
I’m shocked that Europe and others happily saddle themselves under US surveillance fully knowing the details.
There hasn’t really been an alternative before now, the USA was a technological superpower offering services which only existed there and to a lesser extent in China (who wants to kill the EU and NATO to make conquests easier).
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A whole lot came about from the Panama Papers, you just stopped paying attention.
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Very few people trust the guy who attempted to flee to China and successfully fled to Russia. For good fucking reason, too.
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There have also been a lot of discussions and legislatures involving the NSA and surveillance since then, though people keep voting for Trump (in part because of Russian and Chinese psyops supporting him) so not as much legislation as I’d like.
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Watch a better movie about him: Citizen Four
What’s weird is JGL did this twice. Once with Edward Snowden and once with Philippe Petit.
Stone’s film isn’t that good, Citizenfour is much better. You can watch it here: https://archive.org/details/citizenfour-2014
At least it mentioned Ed and recognized his importance.
Stone is fast and loose with historical details.
I liked the documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour
Watched it when it came out…can’t believe it’s been 12 years! Very good doco.
Companies like Google profit enormously from data-mining of your personal searches, behaviour and habits. There is more money in selling that data than in selling a product. It’s surveillance capitalism. It really is a new kind of totalitarianism
ironically this is not what snowden brought to light - that was the government hacking and access everything, from which there has been little to no downside
the greatest threat to our society has been facebook, x, and all the other shitty media that has corrupted our democracy and aided totalitarians and monsters like russia
spying on terrorists has been a great asset
snowden is now just another russian asset
stone is a lunatic fantasist, but also a great artist
that was the government hacking and access everything, from which there has been little to no downside
Attention everyone screaming about tankies: this is the guy you neet to watch out for.
My 20 year old son doesn’t know who Snowden is.
That’s intentional. It’s the same reason no one will be reading about Jan6 in history books anytime soon.
Just another business plot
I worked with a woman about ten years ago who was probably about 40 who didn’t know who he was. I immediately lost respect for her.
And now you gotta wonder about what other activists you never heard about, yourself
I should know the relevant ones of at least three decades. My interest started with Bamford.
Article from South China Morning Post lol
Or, ya know, the person it was based on. Who gave up his life and fled the country to blow the whistle and we did nothing.
I don’t think you read the whole title lol. I mentioned him. He is a true American.
I read the title. It’s just insulting to invoke the film as the warning, in my opinion. Most of all because the warning actually came 10 years earlier than that.
The film is now 10 years old. This was all in good intentions.
Snowden seems cool but anybody who flees first to China but upon learning about their extradition agreements then to Russia is probably not a trustworthy source on anything liberty.
I mean, what he exposed came with proof. There is no believe or disbelieve. It’s not religion, there is no faith. He made an assertion and proved it with evidence.
If you think that the government doesn’t need to follow the laws and that they are immune, then yes I can see why what he did would seem negative.
But if you believe the government should also follow its own laws, I have difficulty understanding your objection.
The information is the information, focus on the man is only a distraction.
A cat leaked it. A dinosaur leaked it. Hitler was resurrected and leaked it while riding a flying pig. Snowden leaked it and fled to Russia.
It makes no difference, the information is the information regardless of the catalyst.
Before Snowden, the US government was thought to obey its own laws, though obviously not always (for better or worse). After Snowden, we finally had confirmation that violations are commonplace and intentionally hidden.
If Hitler had leaked it then a shitload of people would be apprehensive to the topic, leading to both a ton of nazi sympathy and exaggeration as well as leading to many outright denying his claims, so yes that’s a correct comparison.
stembolts: “Snowden is basically Hitler”
I would probably choose a shithole like Russia over US prison (or a death sentence…?). I’ve heard terrible things about Russia, but I can say the same for the US penal system. And being high-profile probably doesn’t help him.
It seems like a false choice to say those are the only two options. Being comfortable in China and Russia implies he had contacts there beforehand, and that wouldn’t make him a whistleblower it would make him a foreign agent.
I’m not saying he didn’t reveal some important stuff to the public while working as a government contractor employed by the NSA, just that I don’t think he’s a cool person and I understand why people don’t trust him.
Nah, it just means he was smart enough to know the US couldn’t extradite him from there. Other, smaller countries could be bribed or bullied into handing him over.
You’re the kind of person who would have defended Italy and Spain joining hands with the Nazis. There is nothing smart about fleeing to Russia because Russia only acts out of greed and malicious intents. France and Germany both spoke out against the USA when the news broke. Austria, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Norway, Spain, and others all stated that they would consider his requests for asylum if he had been present in those respective countries at the time his US passport was revoked.
The condition for which he was granted Russian asylum was that he stopped leaking classified info.
But he had gone straight to Hong Kong while meeting with reporters at the start intending to cross into China, and then he fled directly to Moscow.
Yes I’m sure the U.S. had Snowden’s best interests in mind.
