Posted on 10/01/2022 9:19:46 PM PDT by george76
When Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden on Monday, the news revived a long-simmering debate about the propriety of his revelations of U.S. government secrets. At the same time, it prompted reiterations of a widely-embraced falsehood: that Snowden “fled to Russia.”
That disinformation-trafficking wasn’t limited to random people on social media. Among others, The New York Times, The Guardian, ABC, Christian Science Monitor and Canada’s CBC all asserted in the past week that Snowden “fled to Russia” in 2013 after revealing that the United States government had created a mass surveillance regime targeting its own citizens, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
What many people don’t realize — and what some people both inside the government and out of it purposefully ignore — is that Snowden wasn’t traveling to Russia, but merely through it.
When he left Hong Kong after meeting with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras and turning over hundreds of thousands of stolen files, Snowden’s ultimate destination was Quito, Ecuador.
It’s important to note that Snowden says that, before leaving, he destroyed his cryptographic keys that provided him access to the files, and didn’t bring any copies of the files with him.
At the time, the Ecuadoran government was providing political asylum to Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange at the country’s London consulate, and Snowden hoped Ecuador would provide him asylum as well.
Snowden’s itinerary was arranged such that he wouldn’t land in countries that would extradite him to the United States. Nor would he cross U.S. airspace along the way. He was to make four flights in all, taking him from Hong Kong to Moscow, then Havana, Cuba; Caracas, Venezuela and finally Quito.
However, upon arriving in Moscow, Snowden was escorted by Russian security officials to an airport conference room, where they informed him that, while he was flying to Moscow, the Obama administration had invalidated his passport.
He’d spend the next 40 days at the Sheremetyevo airport, during which he applied to 27 countries for political asylum. “Not a single one of them was willing to stand up to American pressure,” Snowden wrote in his memoir, Permanent Record, “with some countries refusing outright, and others declaring they were unable to even consider my request until I arrived in their territory — a feat that was impossible.”
Seemingly tired of the spectacle, Putin granted Snowden asylum, and he’s been in Russia ever since. The essential point, however, is that Snowden is in Russia because the Obama administration deliberately trapped him there.
In 2013 and ever since, rabid Snowden detractors have failed to acknowledge how that move by the Obama White House belied its own assertions that Snowden was a traitor who traveled to Moscow with highly valuable intelligence information and was at high risk of turning it over to the Russian government.
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Aside from revealing the unconstitutional surveillance regime, Snowden’s disclosures also proved that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had committed perjury in testifying before Congress:
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Clapper didn’t merely escape perjury charges, termination or a shameful resignation — CNN actually put him on the payroll as a “national security analyst,” giving him a pulpit from which to continue spewing all manner of falsehoods on behalf of the national security establishment, on everything from Russiagate to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Meanwhile, though Snowden has been vindicated many times over — including a 2020 federal court ruling that the NSA’s surveillance program violated the Constitution — he’s compelled to live in Russia to escape prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917.
Which brings us to another myth that goes hand-in-hand with “fled to Russia” falsehood: Detractors routinely say Snowden was a “coward” to flee the United States at all.
The noble course of action, they say, would be to go to trial in America and let a jury of his peers decide whether he was justified in exposing his government’s crimes by leaking secret documents to journalists.
However, as government-whistleblower attorney Jesselyn Radack explained in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, that’s not how Espionage Act prosecutions work:
“The Espionage Act has morphed into a strict liability law, which means the government does not have to show the defendant had a felonious intent. A defendant cannot argue that the information was improperly classified…The motive and intent of the whistleblower are irrelevant. And there is no whistleblower defense, meaning the public value of the material disclosed does not matter at all.”
In short, the only way for Snowden to be treated justly is for him to be pardoned or given a plea deal with a very short sentence.
As the intelligence community continues to wield excessive influence on our government, neither outcome is likely anytime soon.
You didn’t answer any of my questions, which says enough.
Conservatives respect the rule of law. Really?
So, in 2017, when the Republicans had the White House, Senate and House of Representatives how long did the hearings about the uncontrolled surveillance the US Intelligence community was performing? I must have missed them.
The same folks that Snowden could have went to are the same ones allowing all of it.
You can think what you want. I’m glad he did what he did.
all of that once his original handlers in the CCP tossed him out of China.
The Eddy Snowjob story starts at the beginning in China, not in the middle of the ending in Russia.
So did he. He signed an agreement when he took the job, then reneged on it. Called into work and lied about getting checked for epilepsy. Downloads stuff he didn’t bother to read or filter and takes it off site. Fails to make any effort to go through chain of command or at least some duly elected official, even bypasses the idea of taking his supposed constitutional concerns to the judiciary. Embraces a reporter for The Guardian, and also Poitras, a/k/a Dances With Iraqi Insurgents. Runs to the tyranny of Cuba where citizens aren’t just snooped on but have no freedom at all. Dabbles with Venezuela, another tyranny. Runs to Russia. He says he is a “citizen of the world,” and last time I checked anyone who produces nuggets like that is a douche. Now he is citizen of Russia.
I'm not unhappy that he did it, I just don't think running away makes him a hero.
He made his choices and it's his choice to be in Russia. If he's willing to take accountability for what he did he can come home any time
He said he would return if he could get a fair trial.
He cannot get that in America anymore. Nobody gets a fair trial unless they are supporters of the regime in DC.
He might as well stay where he is at. He ended up better off than Julian Assange.
Who was he going to run to? There want anyone in the government or their media partners to run to.
Had he stated he’d be in the DC prison or SuperMax rotting away, if not worse.
They wouldn’t have let any of that see the light of day
Look at what they did with the Epstein stuff….
https://thepostmillennial.com/flashback-abc-news-killed-the-jeffery-epstein-story
There would have been an all out disinformation campaign and it would have disappeared.
Believe that or not, today he could easily raise the money from supporters to hire the best defense lawyers out there. And every aspect of his prosecution would be public.
The simple fact is he broke the law and he knows it. It wouldn’t take some government conspiracy to convict him.
He wants an exception because he feels his lawbreaking was justified, and who knows, a jury may agree, but there’s no reason to think he wouldn’t get a fair trial
I meant to include you on 26.
“The Obama administration had invalidated his passport.”
And then for more than two years, Biden has refused to validate Snowden’s U.S. Passport.
And Trump for 4 years.
If he refuses to come home no one is going to validate his passport.
All of Congress, the FBI, CIA, NSA, et al, took oaths to defend the Country and the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.
What about that?
Do you think Clapper upheld his oath? Barr? Durham?
“In short, the only way for Snowden to be treated justly is for him to be pardoned”
A few years ago I read that there was discussion by Trump and his administration to pardon Snowden. Snowden was not receptive because he didn’t like Trump, said something like, “Trump doesn’t know what true love is”. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! Makes no sense, and I don’t even know if it’s true.
He could raise a billion for his defense. He’d never get out of jai, regardless.
And you’re still hung up in the fact that he broke the law.
With that thinking you’d never know about what the US government was and is doing to us.
So, I’m ok with him breaking the law. I wish more Snowdens would do it.
You’re ok with that, good on you.
Well, yeah.
Who decides which criminals shouldn’t be prosecuted because some people think what they did had merit?
There’s the rub.
Some could argue that there are two crimes committed:
Snowden stole files that the US Government was illegally spying on citizens for NO reason.
The US Government was spying on American citizens, anytime they wanted for NO reason.
You’re more concerned with the former, than the latter. You’re a Deep State Plant/Stooge/I have nothing to hide so I don’t care. I’m more concerned with the fact that the US government was and is, spying on American’s. Listening to phone calls. Storing metadata.
Look at what they did to President Trump. And all you care about is....he stole something and should be held to account.
Snowden gave those files to two people he thought he could trust to get the information out. If he had gone any other route anything he found would have been handled like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie.
And you still didn’t answer ONE of the questions I posed to you, earlier. Ergo, you’re a fed. You’re a Deep State stooge. Or you’re not seeing the forest for the trees.
Either way, I’m done talking to a door knob.
The activities of our intelligence agencies were reviewed by Congress and some changes were made but no criminal acts were uncovered. That’s how our system works.
Snowden broke the law, he knows it, but won’t face his accounting.
You know it too but want to give him a pass because you like what he did.
…you’re a fed. You’re a Deep State stooge. Or you’re not seeing the forest for the trees.
I haven’t taken a penny from the government and I see clearly. Snowden may have meant well but it isn’t for either of us to say he doesn’t have to obey the law.
Go away. Good Lord.
The same government that lied to take down a sitting President found no wrongdoing.
IOW, we asked the bank robber if he robbed the bank and after his in-depth investigation, he reported that he did NOT rob the bank.
Is Ray Epps a good neighbor?
Please explain that to the Jan 6 political prisoners.
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