And here we go again, again. Again.
prediction:
fox new’s headline: “snowden to sell state secrets to Brazil for protection”
If his intended audience is the people of Brazil, why didn’t he have his letter translated to and published in Portuguese?
I guess the cold climate in Russia, ironically, doesn’t agree with him.
I hope someone helps him. It’s painful watching him trying to get a nation to take him in.
How do we know he didn’t?
You mean this?
The price for my speech was my passport, but I would pay it again: I will not be the one to ignore criminality for the sake of political comfort. I would rather be without a state than without a voice.
This guy is a hero.
Maybe it´s not the kind of hero we are accustomed of, but the kind of hero we need now.
And just in time for World Cup! That boy is a genius.
I have to say i still applaud his choice of Hong Kong with it balancing multiple power structures and legal structures. I do not think he is naive in the balances of politics.
Glenn Greenwald spent the whole day basically trying to correct this framing of Snowden proposing an exchange. In truth, Snowden did not mention any exchange whatsoever; he just pointed out he’d be happy to help Brazilian authorities in their efforts to investigate NSA malfeasance in their country, but he’s currently unable to do so because of his status. Whether that can be interpreted as proposing an exchange, it’s in the eye of the beholder really.
I hope that Brazil received the offer, at least partially, in recognition of Terry Gilliam’s wonderful eponymous 1985 film which featured a distopian big-brother government which spied upon its citizens so thoroughly and ineffectively.
Brazil also spies, as was exposed a few weeks ago by a whistleblower who apparently doesn’t deserve Snowden’s fame and support. This is almost as funny as first his choice of Hong Kong and then Russia, not to mention Venezuela . He doesn’t chose who to ask for asylum based on principle, but based on where opposition to the US is greatest. He’d look like less of a hypocrite (he’s obviously not naive) if his principles about spying extended to who he asks for support.
rigs: Hypocrisy? I don’t think so at all. I’m sure Snowden would be happy to get asylum in a nice Western European country but none of them are offering. Countries in opposition to the U.S. are presumably more likely to have the balls to oppose U.S. hegemony by giving him asylum.
Inane faux bobblehead commentaries:
Unlimited power with no accountability is the apocalypse eating your babies from the inside out. A brown Santa Claus!
Unless real 'muricans like Bush and Cheney do it, then it’s puppies and the flag and apple pie cooling in the trailer window.
Something of a shame that words like Hero and Champion have been so thoroughly cheapened.
How about Exemplar; I can’t see the sports commentators running off with that one.
I get tired of this non-argument by USians. “He did it too” stops being an argument after leaving kindergarden. Just because other governments do the same it’s not less disturbing/wrong … and by the way those other governments (Brasilia, France, Germany etc.) aren’t telling the whole world for decades that they’re the champion of freedom and liberty.
So the outrage is in equal part fueled by the hypocrisy and because of the whole FUCKING scale. The US is spying on everyone (not only foreign politicians/government types but the average Joe, Pierre and Hans) everywhere in every form of communication. Yes everyone spies - but NOT on EVERY word spoken or written. The scale is off and that makes us furious. And lets not get at the whole “spying on countries you pretend to be BFF with”.
The NSA isn’t spying on “EVERY word spoken or written” either. The metadata collection is much wider than most folks expected, but not quite that bad. Let’s keep it focused on the reality, which most folks seem to find quite annoying enough.
And yes, every country does spy on their friends. Again, you can object to the order of magnitude but … well, let’s put it this way: spies are by definition not gentlemen.
You have to catch up it seems. “just metadata” was yesterday.
