Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by redthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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>I'd expect the criticism to be more specific than what you said.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/the...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/17/either-edwa...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fable-of-edward-snowden-1483...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/5-ways-nsa-leaker-edward-snowdens...

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/snowden-lied-and-acted-out-of-piqu...

>hey want to take down the United States" thing is pretty extreme and a bit "InfoWars" sounding

USG, not US. There's a very specific sort of western libertarian/leftist that believes the US' foreign policy is evil, that the military-intelligence wing is a tool of evil, and that opposing it in any way possible is an unalloyed good. I put all three of them in that camp. You could add the likes of Chomsky to that mix. That doesn't mean they don't like their conception of what America is or could be, but they see America's actions in the world as evil and in need of opposing.

edit: Again I'm not the one downvoting you, disagreeing with someone is not a reason to downvote IMO

I was kinda hoping for something a bit more substantial - those aren't particularly convincing and smell slightly of hit-pieces attempting to smear Snowden while conveniently diverting from the main issue (that the US Government applies an insane level of surveillance on the US people).

First story is about an interview with Putin and why he didn't go in harder on him. The second is that his NSA boss denies he had the sweeping access he had (of course he did, the official line is still that these programs don't exist isn't it?). The WSJ one I couldn't read in its entirety but it opened by calling him a liar and a thief, so I'm not sure how impartial we can consider it to be. Both yahoo articles boil down to "we don't think he could earn and do what he said he did". None really discredit what he leaked, they all seem to be geared towards stoking the flames around this idea that he's an untrustworthy, shady liar who has questionable motivations.

I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this, which is fine - neither of us are in a position to change anything around the situation. But your final line - "they see America's actions in the world as evil and in need of opposing" - man it's really hard to argue that this isn't true. Even if we just look at the Middle East, what the US and the UK have been up to over there for the last few decades is pretty appalling.

  The WSJ one I couldn't read in its entirety but it opened by calling 
  him a liar and a thief, so I'm not sure how impartial we can consider 
  it to be.

"Impartial?" I'm not seeing "liar"/"thief" or any such innuendo in the opening. Here's the full article [0] -- which is an extract from an upcoming book. This pokes holes in Snowden's narrative, i.e. How Snowden Escaped Hong Kong Exclusive [1], and, if true, would fill a lot of glaring holes (i.e. How did Snowden get on an Aerofloat flight out of HK almost a week after the manhunt started?).

Also, a big concern raised is the breadth of information Snowden walked off with. Allegedly, it wasn't just privacy/surveillance info, but also national security and military secrets. From an audit of the 1.5 million docs Snowden walked off with, "most had nothing to do with domestic surveillance or whistle blowing." This raises eyebrows.

[0] http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fable-of-edward-snowden-1483...

[1] http://news.nationalpost.com/features/how-edward-snowden-esc...

> i.e. How did Snowden get on an Aerofloat flight out of HK almost a week after the manhunt started?

Because Hong Kong let him go, as he wasn't officially wanted at the time:

> as the US had revoked his passport (and issued an arrest warrant) and notified Hong Kong of the revocation a day before the plane took off. However, as numerous news reports of the time reported, the US information [in the arrest warrant] was contradictory and incomplete, and thus Hong Kong did nothing to stop Snowden from leaving [0]. The Guardian [1] quotes a Hong Kong official as saying Snowden left "through a lawful and normal channel".

The rest of that blog post is worth a read:

http://blog.erratasec.com/2016/12/your-absurd-story-doesnt-m...

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130822210647/http://www.thesta...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/23/edward-snowden...

It was quite funny, IIRC: The US was increasing the pressure on HK and submitted an arrest/extradition request, but apparently they had left out his middle name and the passport number on the form.

So HK let him go, claiming they followed all laws and obligations from their treaties, basically saying "Oh, that Edward Snowden! Damn, if only we had known."

I'm not sure how it's possible to miss the liar/thief part - the opening sentence is "Of all the lies that Edward Snowden has told since his massive theft..."

However now you're getting somewhere - criticism that he's picked up docs related to military secrets does seem pretty valid. I'd hope that it was just that he picked up a broad range of docs in the hope that that some would contain information supporting the surveillance issue (kind of ironically mirroring the "dragnet" approach to surveillance) - but we can't be sure I suppose.

re: liar/thief...

I'm sorry as I did a poor job qualifying my statement. As it stands now, my claim is incorrect. I apologize and thank you for your note.

I meant to say that saying Snowden is a thief (true) and that he has told lies (many of his claims are disputed) isn't being partial. I can see how the paywall would make the opening seem partial. I'd read the entire article so I was putting the opening in the context of the author's possibilities, e.g. Snowden didn't necessarily have collusion with Russia in mind.

>so I'm not sure how impartial we can consider it to be.

Surely the question isn't whether it's 'impartial' but whether it's accurate. If he is a liar and a thief then it's perfectly ok for the WSJ to call him one.

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