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Comment by hayst4ck | Hacker News Reader

There are two facts you have to reconcile with:

  1. Snowden materially damaged the US government.
  2. Snowden swore an oath of allegiance to the entity who most desires to damage the US government.

I cannot blame someone for having trouble finding the nuance and having trouble reconciling that.

My personal opinion is likely closer to the idea that Snowden was a ethical person who wanted to do good, and he was handled as an asset by people who knew how to manipulate a desire to do good to achieve goals like chaos and distrust. That is a casual opinion, not informed by facts or significant research.

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Strongly disagree on (1) being a fact: Snowden basically exposed the rot in a branch of government. You argue that this made the "tree" weaker; I would counter that this actually gave an opportunity to fix and heal things (which was mostly squandered).

All that was damaged or lost was the pristine public image (which was a delusion in the first place and Snowden exposing it doesn't make him culpable).

I also dont get the whole "Snowden was a cleverly manipulated asset" attitude: Where is the evidence for that? This is exactly the kind of overcomplicated but soothing conjecture that conspiracies thrive on; Snowden put out concise and sensible descriptions of his motivations actions and timeline-- what makes you discard all that and suspect some grey eminence instead?

> Snowden basically exposed the rot in a branch of government.

What we have learnt from the Snowden leaks as evidence by "what has changed" is that it wasnt a branch of government that is a problem, but the entire country its laws, its values and its people.

I will concede that where you put your point of origin determines how you measure the damage.

What I won't concede is that if you measure relative power between Russia and the US, Snowden's actions reduced US power and increased Russian power. Not in a values sense, but in a realpolitik sense.

I think he planted a seed in our rot which will eventually destroy us. I think that seed is in the form of a warning to people of good faith and good conscience that the government is not the place for them.

I think it is probably most correct to say that we are damaging ourselves in response to Snowden's actions.

> Where is the evidence for that?

I am pretty convinced wikileaks is/was/or became part of the Russian intelligence apparatus. Assange's second hand girl accompanying him to Russia is a tragic coincidence.

Ultimately this all comes down to trust. Who should I trust and why? I am amenable to your answer, but cautious of imparting trust to Snowden himself.

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