What little read I’ve ever been able to get on the guy I tend to think more towards self aggrandizing over naive.
He wanted to be very important.
He took the pathway that would make him most important. I don’t really think he thought through the impact or implications.
To be fair, Reality Winner was not disappeared to a black site and never seen or heard from again.
Snowdon’s Russia is day by day becoming more interesting. Where she’ll stop…
(source: BANG Showbiz)
Vladimir Putin slipped and fell down several stairs at his official residence.
Claims from a so-called Kremlin insider said that the Russian tyrant - who is said to be suffering from cancer - was helped to a sofa by bodyguards as his personal doctors rushed to assist him.
Putin is also alleged to have soiled himself during the fall.
Rumours have been rife that the Russian leader is seriously ill and leaked documents recently confirmed that he has early-stage Parkinson’s disease and pancreatic cancer.
The latest allegation about Putin’s health comes from the Russian Telegram channel General SVR which claims to have been given information by a Kremlin insider.
According to the channel, the Russian president was walking downstairs when he “stumbled and fell to his back, after which he fell on his side and slid down a couple of steps”.
The fall led to bruising of Putin’s coccyx and highlighted problems with the despot’s “cancer of the gastrointestinal tract”.
The tyrant’s stumble caused an “involuntary” reaction and doctors escorted Putin to the bathroom and cleaned him up before examining him.
Meanwhile, Putin appeared to wheeze and gasp through a meeting of grieving mothers whose children have been killed in the Ukraine war and his feet appeared to twitch during talks with Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev - a possible indicator of Parkinson’s disease.
You know I missed this before.
The FISA court reviews and issues surveillance warrants.
Specifically requests for surveillance of foreign nationals on US soil. That’s a pretty key thing to what Snowden leaked. They exceeded that authority by clearing warrantless surveillance and rubber stamping surveillance and data on US citizens.
They don’t prosecute or investigate crimes.
Were Snowden charged he’d run through the same Grand Jury and Criminal Court system as anyone else.
Hmm. Strong disagree there. You don’t think it was in the public’s interest to know that their own government was routinely conducting bulk surveillance of them and using it for extrajudicial purposes? That citizens at home and abroad were being deprived of due process and some even being considered “enemy combatants” and assassinated remotely? Because that’s exactly the apparatus he exposed.
And that’s precisely the gamble he took with his own life on behalf of American citizens. I don’t think any of us can imagine how terrifying that must have been.
I’ve never heard him say that nor has it been a part of the many discussions I’ve read and listened to. He was afraid he’d be treated like Ellsberg except with a FISA judge that wouldn’t ever have to be made public and without the possibility of exoneration.
Exactly. Just retweeting this for the ratio.
No, see that’s the problem with FISA. The government at the time was very fond of labeling citizens in any way that would justify a de facto revocation of their citizenship and rendition into a non-public trial setting for “national security” reasons. He has repeatedly stated that he would return to the US to face charges publicly, but the US has curiously avoided making that assurance for three administrations now.
I mean, it has been well over a decade and I feel like I’ve seen every bit of evidence anyone has ever been able to supply and have seen nothing but speculation and wild accusations. Meanwhile, he’s been forthright about every damn thing he’s been asked except returning to a nation that has been vocally hostile to him.
Come at me with evidence and maybe I’ll change my mind, but as a veteran who lost fellow soldiers in W’s disgusting campaign against the Arab world and US civil rights, I’m going to need to see proof.
ETA: Ok, sorry. It’s been 9 years. I guess this perpetual discussion has made it seem longer.
You can strongly disagree. But even Snowden noted that, that’s why he brought the documents to legitimate journalists and participated in the sorting and vetting process.
That’s what I mean by handled properly. Snowden took shit tons of documents, including tens of thousands of British and Australian documents unrelated to the US goings ons. And while there are those that covered wrong doing. A lot it was routine. Contained in them were the names of sources, agents, troop movements, details about embassy security, personal information about staff and other info that would have harmed people or put lives in danger if published. Details unrelated to the wrong doing, from other documents not tied to the story.
The Guardian’s job, and their lawyer’s job. Was to sort through that. To keep that sort of thing out of the reporting. It’s a routine part of journalistic ethics. And a major thing that separates Snowden and the Guardian, from Wikileaks and anything they’ve ever touched.
Again.
The FISA court can not try or investigate people. The criticism around the FISA court does not involve accusations relating to this sort of thing. They can, and only, vet requests for surveillance warrants.
A FISA court could not even technically authorize a wire tap on Snowden’s phone. Because he’s a US citizen, and he’s now on foreign soil.
The scandal is they legalesed their way into doing that sort of thing anyway.
FISA courts do not do that. FISA’s place in this is in authorizing surveillance on American soil. And in particular exceeding their authority by creating a legal carve out allowing warrantless surveillance and authorizing surveillance on American Citizens. Neither of which they are allowed to do.
To the extent rendition and extra judicial detainment was involved in the FISA end of the scandal it was in providing justification for the extra judicial detainment. By other agencies, through other means.
I exaggerate obviously. But you are right here. Right now presenting a fairly fantastical shadow court that was gonna disappear him. And that’s my point.
The justification here always boils down to risk of some special, secret process he’d be subjected to. One that’s never been seen, heard of. And no one can provide an example of.
So now he have that the FISA for the first time ever would secretly try and convict Snowden. Or is it just that’s he’d be detained and renditioned? Or publicly parked at Guantanamo? Something that generally hasn’t happened on/from US soil. And when it has involved US citizens, typically involved those abroad. And was run by the CIA, not the NSA.
The claim is always vague on exactly what the risk was. But claimed as so obvious that it makes running the clear choice.
Again the frustration I have with this is that those proposing a first time ever, only for Snowden lizard court. Always demand proof of the things we see going down every day.
So proof: Snowden’s own leaks and the reporting around them. Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning and assorted other people that were supposedly going to get memory holed but didn’t. They were tried in public through usual means. Every single bit information about how our courts work.
There is no secret criminal court that could this. It does not exist. The multiple scandals involved here do not claim that there is, or provide evidence that it does.
The detention end of this involves people being kept out of court. Because there is no secret court that can try these people. So you can not keep them secret if you involve the courts.
That being the fucked justification for keeping them out of court.
Yeah, I totally agree with you there.
Do you not remember how routinely all of those citizen protections were thrown out and citizens treated as foreign agents and enemy combatants? FISA is just one component of the apparatus he exposed. This is a bit hair-splitting when the end result is to void a citizen’s due process and civil rights.
I’m not sure if we’re talking past each other or what, but whether it’s termed a “court” or even resembles one is immaterial. The US has and uses numerous extralegal justifications for achieving nefarious aims.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-6696.ZO.html
https://www.aclu.org/other/frequently-asked-questions-about-targeting-killing
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/ghost-prisoners-and-black-sites-extraordinary-rendition-under
(That one is straight from the DOJ themselves)
But honestly, I don’t really care about his justification for staying in Russia nor that it’s potentially beneficial to Putin (which it surely is, but incidental to his situation). If you’re saying that you would put full faith in the US security apparatus to act in good faith with a public hearing, cool. I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Yes. But counter to what you seem to think, FISA’s roll in that was in blanket authorization for the surveillance. They do no try or charge crimes. It is not a criminal court. They don’t even, and aren’t even accused of, issuing orders to detain people.
To the extent that US citizens were improperly charged or detained as result of this. The vast majority ran through the regular courts. In full view of the public. In terms of the rendition scandal, it was on foreign soil. Pretty important detail in that particular shit storm.
Not really. I just don’t think they’d have another choice. Particularly with how visible Snowden is and was.
Fact is no one can provide info or an example of otherwise. There isn’t a critic or whistle blower who just disappeared around this series of scandals. None of these leaks have anything to do with some sort of NSA program to assassinate US citizens on US soil. There aren’t US journalist falling down stairs. Those targeted killings are going down in war zones, under military actions with military rules. No in CNN’s studio. We simply put do not have a person like Snowden who was packed into black site.
It’s not there.
We have abundant examples where the opposite happened in this same period.
But Snowden, and Assange and other. Get a pass.
Because of the implication.
Nothing particularly specific.
Just you know.
Hell Snowden didn’t even really reveal any of this.
Most of the stuff in his leaks was already publicly known, having been revealed under the W admin. There had even been several very visible lawsuits about it in open court. With documents in public record and wide reporting.
What Snowden revealed was the extent of the NSA over reach, and lots of detail. Proof that it was still going on. Along with further ties to the other related scandals, and info about just how lax the NSA was with it’s control and security of these systems.
None of the other people who revealed this stuff. Put documents in court. Reported on it. Leaked shit about. Blew whistles in the years before Snowden seem to have been shuffled off to no where.
I don’t really disagree with most of your points and frankly, don’t really care if he approached it in the best way, was first to reveal info, or whether it was smart/calculated to end up in Moscow. I came here to push back against (eta: baseless) assertions that he is a Russian asset, that he put the seized info in Putin’s hands for a quid pro quo or that him acquiring citizenship is proof of any of these things. I consider myself a loyal American; loyal to the unfulfilled ideals of America, not the bureaucracy. But I’ll tell you; if my wife or child were under threat of being separated from me or my child taken as a ward of state, my loyalties would rapidly vanish.
I think the undercurrent of your argument is that, despite its flaws, our system is still better than nearly any other option and the courts exist, in large part, to disinfect our darker corners. I absolutely agree. But that’s about the limit of my faith in any system of governance, including this one. And if it came to my family, they would lose even that grace.
The thing is, we really don’t know what happened in Hong Kong or at the airport in Moscow. Look at the account on Wikipedia. It is just full of contradictory accounts from officials of various governments, none of which are reliable at all, but all of which were reported in a frenzy at the time.
I mean, look at this passage.
“According to one Russian report, Snowden planned to fly from Moscow through Havana to Latin America; however, Cuba told Moscow it would not allow the Aeroflot plane carrying Snowden to land.[208] The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Cuba had a change of heart after receiving pressure from U.S. officials,[230] leaving him stuck in the transit zone because at the last minute Havana told officials in Moscow not to allow him on the flight.[231] The Washington Post contrasted this version with what it called “widespread speculation” that Russia never intended to let Snowden proceed.[232] Fidel Castro called claims that Cuba would have blocked Snowden’s entry a “lie” and a “libel.”[228] Describing Snowden’s arrival in Moscow as a surprise and likening it to “an unwanted Christmas gift,”[233] Russian president Putin said that Snowden remained in the transit area of Sheremetyevo Airport, had committed no crime in Russia, was free to leave and should do so.”
I don’t trust any of the people quoted there. I don’t trust anything written by Glenn Greenwald, who was reporting on a lot of this.
Look at this passage.
“On June 22, 18 days after the publication of Snowden’s NSA documents began, officials revoked his U.S. passport.[212] On June 23, Snowden boarded a commercial Aeroflot flight, SU213, to Moscow, accompanied by Sarah Harrison of WikiLeaks, with an intended final destination of Ecuador due to an Ecuadorian emergency travel document that Snowden had acquired. However Snowden became initially stranded in Russia upon his landing in Moscow when his U.S. passport was revoked.”
The timeline makes no sense. His passport was revoked one day before he travelled to Moscow, and shouldn’t have mattered because he was traveling with emergency papers from Ecuador. Did the US stop him from leaving Russia or did Putin do that on a pretext?
How about this article, which says Snowden met with Russian diplomats in Russia according to Russia?
Do I believe that? I don’t know, but it underscores my point about us not really knowing what happened unless you fully trust any single source. I don’t trust what Snowden has said since then because he is under Putin’s thumb.
To me, it sounds like Snowden got played by Greenwald and Assange, who had plenty of reason to want Snowden to end up in Russia.
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