Snowden Is anybody going to watch?

[Aloha_Shooter]

Citizen Four is a good documentary on HBO and available for rent if you don't have HBO I believe. Opened my eyes as to what transpired, recorded as it happened.

I think he did what he thought was right for the American people, and I don't believe he was a traitor. His own personal decisions about how he handled himself after are of little concern to me considering I don't believe he would've gotten a fair trial, or one at all.

Edit: No I won't be seeing the movie

You mean it made you see the situation the way they wanted you to see it. Editing decisions can change the portrayal of events, even ones "recorded as it happened." There is no damned way he entered in good faith, discovered something he thought was bad, went to the IG to no avail, went to his congressional rep to no avail, social engineered illicit entry into other peoples' accounts, harvested the data, and set up his escape plan all in the limited time frame he was an NSA contractor. The last three things he obviously did but I am beyond skeptical about the first four. He was a traitor on the order of (or beyond) Aldrich Ames and Christopher Boyce, pure and simple.

[DireWolf]

Not to get off track, but it may not be common knowledge that NSA recently got their asses handed to them big-time....either a bunch of people over there seriously fucked up, or there are other insiders who have chosen to surreptitiously rock the boat....

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

[BushMasterBoy]

There I was on my way to Arkansas, was gonna stop off in Oklahoma City to see about a federal job...

Curse you BushMasterBoy!

I was just starting to loosen the screws on my tinfoil hat regarding the whole Timothy McVeigh thing.....

[Calculated]

You mean it made you see the situation the way they wanted you to see it. Editing decisions can change the portrayal of events, even ones "recorded as it happened." There is no damned way he entered in good faith, discovered something he thought was bad, went to the IG to no avail, went to his congressional rep to no avail, social engineered illicit entry into other peoples' accounts, harvested the data, and set up his escape plan all in the limited time frame he was an NSA contractor. The last three things he obviously did but I am beyond skeptical about the first four. He was a traitor on the order of (or beyond) Aldrich Ames and Christopher Boyce, pure and simple.

You think he was a puppet, defector, mole or traitor? He exposed the gov for lying to and spying on We the People. He didn't sell or cleary have any personal gain from these events, edited or not. You think he prefers his life in Russia? Why was he admonishing his host country recently? To keep up appearance? I doubt it.

He made a sacrifice to make the average American aware of what he thought, and I agree, was wrong. Keep in mind it was also against the law what they were and probably still are doing.

I respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

[68Charger]

Only if I can sharpen my knives while watching it.

FTW... only if you have the free time, and I'll make no judgement on which side you're sharpening knives for...

to be transparent, I haven't read even half of the the posts in this thread... came across Grey's response and couldn't resist responding

[spqrzilla]

You think he was a puppet, defector, mole or traitor? He exposed the gov for lying to and spying on We the People. He didn't sell or cleary have any personal gain from these events, edited or not. You think he prefers his life in Russia? Why was he admonishing his host country recently? To keep up appearance? I doubt it.

He made a sacrifice to make the average American aware of what he thought, and I agree, was wrong. Keep in mind it was also against the law what they were and probably still are doing.

I respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

Schindler outlined in great detail, in the link I provided, why he believes its quite clear that Snowden was a Russian intelligence asset. Most of what he has revealed has been foreign operations that almost everyone believes is the proper job of the NSA.

The NSA has indeed been quite thoroughly penetrated by Russian intelligence.

[Calculated]

So a Russian intelligence asset that had deep penetration into the NSA with a multitude of opportunities to find and send more pertinent information to Russia secretly chose to expose himself and ruin his information gathering capabilities to oust our gov for spying on its own citizens because it's so damaging? Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me.

[Aardvark]

Dramatized event of a traitorous poser...we deal with the repercussions from him on a daily basis so I surely will NOT be seeing that movie.

[spqrzilla]

So a Russian intelligence asset that had deep penetration into the NSA with a multitude of opportunities to find and send more pertinent information to Russia secretly chose to expose himself and ruin his information gathering capabilities to oust our gov for spying on its own citizens because it's so damaging? Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, for a multitude of possible reasons. He may have been believed to be blown already. Exposing him may protect the identity of a more important mole (a tactic that Soviet/Russian intelligence has used on multiple occasions in the past). And it may be believed that the damage he did to the Obama administration / US intelligence reputation was worth blowing him at the time.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Yes, for a multitude of possible reasons. He may have been believed to be blown already. Exposing him may protect the identity of a more important mole (a tactic that Soviet/Russian intelligence has used on multiple occasions in the past). And it may be believed that the damage he did to the Obama administration / US intelligence reputation was worth blowing him at the time.

Especially when people will go on defending him and causing further damage to one of the institutions that was keeping Russian and Chinese espionage in check. What doesn't make sense is why so much of what he revealed damaged our intelligence collection on terrorists and foreign agents rather than on the putative target of American citizens. What doesn't make sense is the timeline behind his claim of being a disillusioned whistleblower. What doesn't make sense is any part of his story. He collaborated with an openly anti-capitalist somewhat anti-Western "journalist" in the UK and had a foreign girlfriend ... that's a pretty familiar pattern.