Not very hard to see who controls the media these days.
I think most people are confused at how someone could expect to have their freedom of speech protected in a country controlled by China. Territories controlled by mainland China are not usually the first places you think of when you think "need to flee the US government".
Similarly, I think most people are surprised at the ability of someone in his stated position to gain as much access as he said he has, and also at the reported size of his salary - because they are not familiar with what the salary scale is like in the world of government private contractors.
Having questions is not the same as smearing character.
Clearly, if you have a beef with the US Govt, you have to flee to a communist-country, not because you are a communist, but because those government can better resist the gravitational power of the US government.
People tend to forget that "enemy of the US government" != "enemy of the USA".
China, for all its problems, is not Hell unders dominion of Satan. Neither is the USA heaven under dominion of God.
Hong Kong has been more protective of free speech tha n China. I also bet free speech that puts the NSA under a less than favorable light is heavily protected in China.
Despite some amazing success stories, I suspect that the public perception of someone who drops out of college (or high school) tends to lean toward assuming marginal intelligence and little aptitude for skilled labor.
Does the person asking them want to start a real discussion about skill- and merit-based hiring practices? I'm sure much of HN is familiar with the argument there is an over-reliance on formal education as prerequisites to employment.
Armchair quarterbacking someone's leak and escape plan is the same sort of story. There is a lot more to consider in that discussion too (maybe he's got a Chinese hookup for forged travel identification), but I don't think the blowhard on the radio actually wants to have either of those discussions.
Having questions is not the same as smearing character.
And 9/11 truthers would tell you they've just asking questions. Blowhard punditry relies on couching their ramblings in "questions" so much an entire south park episode was dedicated to it: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/255329/preview-im-aski... This might be a bit of an odd link for HN, but we're discussing conversational tactics couched as meaningful discourse and I'm always reminded of this as a quintessential example of the difference.
As for "seeking refuge in a communist nation," it must only be spoken, and not quoted anywhere, because doing a search for "seeking refuge in a communist nation" turns up nothing in Bing, DDG, and Google.
Of course, every new stations was also talking about the "NSA spying" on you, but that's okay.
Pet peeve: It was ON Obama's watch (it's a Navy term [0]).
</pedantry>
Sad but true. :-(
ADDED: And now that, if there is some link, he presumably needs them a lot more than they now need him, he may find that his arrangement with them has ... changed.
"The mistake was made by IBM Technical expert Julia Smith, 38, from Palm Springs, Colorado. Julia, who graduated from Stanford in 2001 was described by neighbors as serious and career focused".
Age, place of birth / residence, education, marital status, character. Journalists will mention as many of these as they can easily find out (and they have established ways of easily finding out). When they find something unusual, in these things they are checking anyway, it becomes that persons defining characteristic, a hook for the story.
I don't much care whether or not he finished high school. It isn't the single measure of intelligence.
Morality is the quality by which I'd rather measure him.
If a communist-spy-high-school-dropout is able to access everyone's private information, what does this say of the NSA program that allowed him to do this?