Did Russia Trick Snowden Into Going To Moscow? 346
An anonymous reader writes "Ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichko says that spies from Russia's SVR intelligence service, posing as diplomats in Hong Kong, convinced Snowden to fly to Moscow last June. 'It was a trick and he fell for it,' Karpichko, who reached the rank of Major as a member of the KGB's prestigious Second Directorate while specializing in counter-intelligence, told Nelson. 'Now the Russians are extracting all the intelligence he possesses.'"
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Insightful)
... yea, so Snowden still doesn't know he was tricked?
"The Russians are extracting all the intelligence" (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Americans had any intelligence and sincerity, Snowden would not have had any reason to flee in the first place.
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
> This now comes down to whether Snowden was a "useful idiot" or was he working for the Russians all along
If he had been working for them all along he:
(1) Would have gone directly to Russia
(2) Would not have given the information to reporters
Whether or not Russia tricked him is irrelevant (Score:4, Insightful)
If Snowden hadn't been treated like a traitor by his country, he wouldn't've had to flee in the first place. Uncle Sam only have himself to blame if snowden is spilling the beans in Russia.
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:2, Insightful)
The intelligence revealed in the media has done more to drive wedges between the Americans and their allies at a time when both China and Russia have taken on a more aggressive foreign policy.
So then maybe the US government shouldn't have been doing things that would piss off their allies? Being a rapist, murderer, etc. also tends to drive wedges between the criminal and their friends. But that's squarely on their own head not the person who told the world they were a criminal.
Re:Extracting all the intelligence (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still in the news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed. People should just stop caring about whether the government does anything illegal or violates people's individual liberties. Who needs freedom and privacy, anyway?
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
So which US government agency fabricated this theory in order to bolster anti Snowden sentiments?
Re:Extracting all the intelligence (Score:2, Insightful)
If Snowden is a "whistleblower", why did he release so much material about things the NSA does which are not illegal?
So what are you insinuating here? That because he released non-ilegal things that Snowden was not a whistle blower? And therefore he should be prosecuted?
That line of thinking smells a lot like a logical fallacy.
And anyway, did Snowden release the documents himself, or was it the journalists that he passed them on to?
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the US government is astroturfing anti Snowden propaganda like mad. No sane citizen would actually think Snowden is a traitor or even managed to harm US interests, where "US interests" is defined as the interests of the American people and not the interests of the kleptocratic psychos who make up the ruling class.
Re:Extracting all the intelligence (Score:1, Insightful)
If Snowden is a "whistleblower", why did he release so much material about things the NSA does which are not illegal? Why did he release info about capabilities which are clearly under the NSA purview and in the national interest?
Nothing the NSA did was "illegal", since they are a part of the government. This can also be seen in that no one has been arrested for what amounts to systematically breaking the constitutional rights of the american citizen.
Their actions are however highly immoral and reprehensible, which is the reason that Snowden wanted to inform the public. This because he values right over might.
Does that answer your question?
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:4, Insightful)
No need to flee anywhere. He also wouldn't give a fuck about the domestic spying aspect, if he wanted to drive a wedge he could have released that part anonymously while giving all the other juicy secrets to the Russians.
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
If he was really working with Russia he wouldn't have left at all. The whole point of being a double agent is to not out yourself. Since the NSA seemed to be so incompetent to allow him to download massive amounts of classified data he could have easily passed it on the Russia without detection or needing to leave the country. He left because he did not want to be silenced and rot in prison while the NSA kept chugging along with no one else the wiser.
Re:A "trick"? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure it's possible to "trick" somebody who fled the U.S. to hang out with the Peace and Freedom Loving Peoples of the PRC. Unless Snowden is a completely gullible idiot, it's beyond ludicrous to think he didn't know that months of intelligence extraction awaited him after a flight to Russia.
Frankly, I don't understand the guy. There are plenty of better options that would have been available to him; I still can't figure why he chose the PRC as a first stop. Once he got stuck there, his options were between slim and none.
Plenty of options? Like going to congress where the hard liners were calling for his execution? The truth is that it was hard line bullshitters like that which drove Snowden to Russia. The US political class shot it self in the foot with its come-down-on-him-like-a-ton-of-bricks attitude and now Russia is benefitting. It's basically a reverse of the situation faced during the Cold War by people who had legitimate reason to criticises the Soviet system had no way of doing so except by defecting to the west to avoid being locked away. Perhaps you should ask yourself why the only place from which the NSA and the US govt. can be safely criticisesd these days on certain issues without having to fear being disappeared into some CIA run solitary confinement unit, is a shark tank like Putin's Russia?
It's likely they never needed him (Score:5, Insightful)
The press already have it so there's no reason for governments to make deals - a few bucks or a cheap favor to a paper and they've got the lot.
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
People like to prattle on about the tree of liberty and refreshing it with the blood of patriots and tyrants; they always forget the part about the consequences of getting the short end of the stick being rather severe. Mr. Snowden's only real mistake was thinking that he was individually smart enough to take on these world powers and personally win, when in reality he's never going to be free from the machine.
If he wanted to be free and to have done this, he'd have had to move some place isolated, remote, and where he could be somewhat anonymous, and to have released his documentation through several intermediaries. Some place like rural west-central Australia, for example. Unfortunately for him he chose to be known in his releases, and he'll end up paying for that choice for the rest of his life, and possibly with his life.
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, mostly because pretty much everything he has announced has been admitted to be true. I don't think I've seen any stories with Snowden-released information where it was disproven, although I could be wrong on that.
On the other hand, the US (and other Governments) eventually admitted that he was telling the truth about the releases.
Given two stories from two entities, one which is a proven liar and one which is not, which would you be more likely to trust?
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Even putting aside the facts that he was willing to break the oaths he took when he got his security clearance
The oath he took was to "protect and defend the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic"
He's committed many crimes, but breaking that oath does not appear to be one of them.
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:4, Insightful)
He gave all the information he had away. What else does he have, expired passwords?
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, with all the millions of documents he stole
Copied.
he cannot provide any evidence of this beyond "trust me."
Why do you think it is reasonable to expect that people have perfect foresight? He was in a dangerous situation, and not all of the instances where he might have tried to report the problems were necessarily recorded or accessible to him.
I also don't know why you blindly take him at his word.
Who really believes that corrupt government scumbags would care about this, especially when they're the ones who did this to begin with, and many of them still support it?
And for what it's worth, I would have preferred he *had not* gone through the 'proper channels'. The People have a right to know when the government is violating the highest law of the land or people's liberties; not only do they have a right to know, but they should be the *first* to know. By going through the 'proper channels', you risk getting taken out of a position where leaking the information is possible, and then the whole issue would be swept under a rug.
Even putting aside the facts that he was willing to break the oaths he took when he got his security clearance
He had a duty to report the violations of the constitution and people's liberties, silly "oaths" be damned.
he has a strong need to spin his facts and sell his view to keep from looking like a traitor.
You mean like the government? And you realize this is just a silly opinion piece, right?
Real easy to see what's going on here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine a hypothetical situation:
You are cheating on your wife, and have been doing so for some time now. A good friend of hers finds out about what you're doing and tells your her. At this point, people are going to be pissed off at one of two people. People loyal to you are going to be pissed off at your wife's friend for ratting you out. People loyal to her are going to be pissed off at you, and see your wife's friend as a hero. That's just the way things work. So you can always tell where someone's loyalties really lie by determining whom they are pissed off at.
In this situation, the secret police/military complex/power elite/establishment is effectively screwing over the general public and the Constitution (the highest law of that land, for those that are unfamiliar), and has been doing so for some time now. Someone finds out about what they're really doing and tells us. At this point, people are pissed off at one of two people (or groups of people). People who are loyal to the secret police/military complex/power elite/establishment are pissed off at Snowden for ratting them out. People loyal to the general public and Constitution are pissed off at the people screwing them, and see him as a hero.
I'm not trying to scream "shill" to every person who wants Snowden's head on a pike, but you'd better believe that any prominent figure who is crying traitor day in and day out in the public media, well, you know where their loyalties lie is all I'm saying. It's not too hard to figure it out.
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:3, Insightful)
As others have said though, Snowden claims to have complained/objected multiple times, yet so far the only thing that has come out is the one document you reference, and that was released by the NSA, not Snowden, and it isn't an objection to NSA's activities. Did Snowden really fail to keep any copies of the documents that would obviously be needed to help him defend his claims about his actions, or does he have copies of whatever he did and for some reason is choosing not to release them despite making claims about them during interviews (this would imply something about them to me, but that would be speculation, though that doesn't seem to stop most on Slashdot)?
Personally, I think part of Snowden feels his actions were justified, but I also feel the way he did it has caused a lot more harm to legitimate interests than he, or his supporters, want to admit. This of course presumes that one believes there is ever a reason to conduct surveillance against enemies and potential enemies in the world we live in - hint, think about the consequence of being the only one who doesn't perform such surveillance, and I mean in the world we have, not the one you want to think should exist.
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
[slaps forehead smartly] Do you have any idea how blindingly obvious ALL of that crap is? No one with a functioning brainstem, and that includes Iran, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Russia, China, the King of Siam and the boogey man, is the least bit surprised that the NSA has been doing all that. The only red flag is the part about "tracking people whose movements [happen to] intersect", which, with the fact of an all-seeing eye scrutinizing every single person's life, is the whole point of Snowden's revelation of blatant unconstitutional overreaches.
Furthermore, mere revelation that the NSA has been engaged in those processes conveys no useful information whatsoever to any enemy of the US.
Jesus wept to think that so many people are getting hoodwinked by this crap.
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly any information that contradicts your preexisting conclusions must have been fabricated by the evil US government.
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
"Among other things, Snowden signed an oath, as a condition of his employment as an NSA contractor, not to disclose classified information, and knew the penalties for violating the oath."
The entire Wehrmacht swore an oath too. Breaking a pact with evil is no evil. I suppose you think Colonel von Stauffenburg was a traitor as well?
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
In a story as touchy as Snowden's, nothing is as simple as you make it out to be. Not your theory, not the GP's theory. There are probably thousands of strings being pulled as we converse on the subject, and we have no idea.
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:2, Insightful)
It's very simple. You have absolutely no evidence to back up your theory that the US government fabricated this story. You believe that's the case because it fits your existing worldview.
Re: Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:4, Insightful)
he set a personal example and proved this is something worth sacrificing yourself for.
i respect that. complete lunacy, but we do live in a crazy world.
Re:Useful Idiot or Russian Agent (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I find this discussion so absurd.
If the US really was concerned about Snowden giving US secrets to Russia, why not reinstate his passport so he can leave? They're the reason he's stranded in Russia, not because Snowden wanted to go there.
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Even putting aside the facts that he was willing to break the oaths he took when he got his security clearance
The oath he took was to "protect and defend the Constitution, against all enemies, foreign and domestic"
He's committed many crimes, but breaking that oath does not appear to be one of them.
Among the things included within the Constitution are rules governing who gets to determine how the Constitution is to be interpreted and who gets to enforce its language. Nowhere within the Constitution does there exist a clause that states any citizen is entitled to substitute their own judgment for the authority delegated by the Constitution. When Snowden or anyone else swears to protect and defend the Constitution, they do not specifically swear to defend a couple of clauses within the bill of rights, but the entire Constitution. When Snowden first disclosed himself in his very first published interview he stated he did not know if the intelligence programs he was disclosing were strictly speaking illegal, since they had been authorized by the office of the president in some cases and authorized by legislation in other cases. What he said was that he felt he needed to start a dialog about them. And while he was basically correct in that its obvious the majority of the American people want that dialog, there exists no Constitutional authority or right by which Snowden started that conversation.
However else you justify Snowden's actions, they were extra-Constitutional in nature. Its something to consider when considering that the primary power the Constitution provides to its citizens to remedy situations like this is basically the vote. We live in a Constitutional republic, not a Constitutional democracy, and our primary power as citizens is we can change the makeup of our representation within that republic. If We The People don't think that works anymore, its not the Constitution that needs saving, its the Constitution itself that is intrinsically broken. It did not anticipate a day when the people would be incapable of choosing a government capable of representing its own interests.
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Being authorised by the office of the president, or legislation makes no difference if the law is counter to the constitution. Eventually when it comes before a court it will be declared unconstitutional (assuming the judges are not corrupt, but that's a whole other problem) and retroactively will cease to exist.
The legal encyclopedia American Jurisprudence says the following in regard to constitutionality: The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it; an unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed ... An unconstitutional law is void. (16 Am. Jur. 2d, Sec. 178)
So you think the constitution is intrinsically broken, but you still want to follow all the things that are set up by that constitution. You still place the broken government of the day, above the broken constitution. Either way, shining a light on the whole mess is the best way to start fixing whatever it is that's broken.
I dnavid, hereby declare on oath, that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic (except when I'm just following orders, even if I know those orders are wrong and are counter to the constitution I'm swearing to protect).