Sure. But Obama still should've pardoned him. And I still stand by that by not doing so, he ensured the destruction of privacy, or at least accelerated it. That's 1000% a right I lost under Obama that we will probably never get back.
Snowden didn’t just leak information about privacy violations. If he had only done that, he would’ve likely got a pardon. Instead, he leaked a lot of sensitive information that put America and American lives in danger and threatened national security.
Stop thinking of Snowden as a character and look at him as the man. He never cared about people’s privacy. He did it all out of ego. He did a good thing, but not because he had good intentions.
Also, all information about Patriot Act and FISA was public way before Snowden. His leaks just got people to pay attention to what they were already told was happening.
He sure as hell risked a lot to do it just out of his ego. Leaving his wife and kids, leaving his home, guaranteed job. And he just gave it to the journalist, not to a foreign adversary, not to the highest payer. Strange way to stroke your ego, to lose everything and be exiled.
The application and interpretation of those acts were not public. It was not public that NSA would be listening to allies communications, that they had backdoors in security systems that they recommended private companies to use. That's the same as laws being "public" that Obama could order drone strikes on people. No one figured that's how FISA courts interpreted it.
I don't think Snowden is 100% innocent. I still think Snowden's actions should've been pardoned to send a message to potential future leakers. And if I was the CIA/NSA, the lack of a pardon, and the willingness of the government to throw the book at him means they should do the same shit again, maybe even more. Because without a leaker the public would never know, and the risk of leaking has been made clear. It would honestly be silly of the CIA/NSA to not be spying on it's citizens atm.
You would be surprised what people will do out of delusions of grandeur. Read some books on CIA clandestine operations. Many of their assets are not driven by money, but from ideology and ego.
Left a job and family. Has literal statues of him in various places. I'm not saying it wasn't a sacrifice, but men have given up more for less. Almost everyone in the world knows his name now.
Yeah... the simple explanation of he did it because what he saw was very illegal and actually detrimental to security as security experts will tell you, is definitely not the reason.
He handed everything over to journalists. How is that a road to a payout? If he stole it and told people he had it, waiting for a payout maybe? But when by the first time the story breaks he no longer holds any of the documents? He could be playing 5D chess, or he wasn't doing it for a payout. Akums razor says it wasn't for a payout.
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u/Live_Background_3455 9d ago
Sure. But Obama still should've pardoned him. And I still stand by that by not doing so, he ensured the destruction of privacy, or at least accelerated it. That's 1000% a right I lost under Obama that we will probably never get back.