Felix The Cat wrote:Maybe, maybe not. But if you were in his shoes right now, you wouldn't fear for your life? The CIA/NSA are probably last group of people in the world you'd want to piss off and embarrass. And we may call him a whistleblower but if he were to give himself up to the U.S. government, I seriously doubt he'd be treated as a whistleblower. If getting w/e he'd get in a hypothetical book/movie deal is worth not setting foot in most countries of the developed world and possibly looking over his shoulder the rest of his life, then yeah, he's set for life.
As for the attention this is getting, I think it's mostly a result of a 24-hr news cycle. It'll die down in a few weeks and people in general will stop caring. Like the gun control debate. Like SOPA (even though newer bills like CISPA will threaten similar things and won't get the same type of public awareness).
I don't know if Snowden should fear for his life. You are correct that this story will fade, but if he turned up dead, you could be darn sure this thing would blow up to Watergate type of intensity.
It's also possible that Snowden actually did something wrong (he may have hacked into and seen things he wasn't supposed to). This could be another reason he could be running. If he gets accused of something like that, I hope he gets a fair trial.
“As a law-abiding resident of this nation, I have the right to do whatever I want without a shadowy organization recording my every move, unless of course it’s part of an electronic campaign designed to figure out, based on all of my emails and phone conversations, what types of clothes, shoes, and houseware products I like. Then it’s fine.”
Sorry for not reading the article you posted. When I heard about this story, one of my immediate thoughts was about that old program I mentioned. I came to this forum with little time yesterday, to specifically add that bit of history to the discussion.
If I had had more time, I would have seen that. My bad.
Sorry for not reading the article you posted. When I heard about this story, one of my immediate thoughts was about that old program I mentioned. I came to this forum with little time yesterday, to specifically add that bit of history to the discussion.
If I had had more time, I would have seen that. My bad.
I'm glad this guy leaked, truly. But whether he's a hero or not, I am starting to get the idea he's a bit of a drama queen.
His latest: "The U.S. government will do anything to prevent me from getting this to the public eye."
I like Toobin's point about the irony of not being willing to live in a nation that reads your emails, then running off to hide in China (more or less), where that liberty would be one of the least of your worries. But I just don't like the idea that no one's allowed to have a change of heart in America anymore without the derision of Limbaugh and/or Stewart and/or hundreds of columnists.
This thing has made Reddit almost unbearable. It's leaking into non-political subreddits. I've never seen a bigger collection of Wild West loving Randians in my life. At the height of my libertarianism, I was never even close to some of these people. I was more or less called sheeple a few minutes ago.
