• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Yeah that’ll happen when you go on the run to China and Russia with classified laptops full of shit you downloaded from the top secret Internet.

    Had he stayed or simply gone to a non extradition country without the laptops he would be a hero. Hell he’d have been out of prison by now. The longest sentence anyone’s ever gotten for whistle blowing in the modern era is 5 years.

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Listen. How the fuck it it possible that people understand:

      • propaganda exists, and

      • that it is in a government’s interest to keep an unpopular project secret from its citizens

      and not even think to question the narrative that comes out of the media?

      Do you mean to tell me you uncritically believe the notion that there is some way Snowden could have exposed government secrets and the government would be like: “whoa kay, ya got me, its true, and go ahead and listen to what he has to say?”

      or do you suppose that maybe the government would still put a bit of FUD out to minimize the damage, keep its citizenry from wanting to look too deeply? I mean, wouldn’t that just be a smart decision? We aren’t talking about bastions of transparency right? we’re talking about the same govt that just got caught wiretapping its citizens.

      Rant over, lemme boil down what i’m looking for here:

      Which of the many negative things that came out about Snowden do you believe was the truth vs FUD?

      What are your feelings on how the media focused on Snowden himself rather than the content of the leaks?

      Who do you suppose benefitted from that choice in focus?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s funny from the crowd that routinely says he’d have been renditioned and tortured when there are multiple cases of actual whistle blowers getting a 3-5 year prison term and being treated completely normally in the system.

        Why is he special?

        He was in Hong Kong for a month. Why couldn’t he fly to a non extradition country in the month before they stopped his passport?

        You’re right that the story doesn’t add up but it’s not the governments story.