Edward Snowden has spent
32 days inside a Moscow airport; a Russian news agency reports
that Snowden's request for asylum is in process, and that he may spend up to a year in temporary asylum in
the country.
The
question has been all along: what’s motivating this guy? What makes him tick?
Why did he choose to do what he did, and how well planned was it?
One website
has part of the answer—maybe. According
to addictinginfo.org, Snowden is a gun-loving, pro-NRA, libertarian
dickhead. Think I’m wrong? Catch this alleged exchange from a techie chat room,
Ars Technica.
SNOWDEN: save
money? cut this social security bullshit
User11:
hahahayes
User18: Yeah!
Fuck old people!
User11: social
security is bullshit
User11: let’s
just toss old people out in the street
User18: Old
people could move in with [User11].
User11: NOOO
User11: they
smell funny
SNOWDEN:
Somehow, our society managed to make it hundreds of years without social
security just fine
SNOWDEN: you
fucking retards
SNOWDEN:
Magically the world changed after the new deal, and old people became made of
glass
SNOWDEN: yeah,
that makes sense
User11: wow
User11: you
are just so fucking stupid
SNOWDEN: yeah,
[User11]. and you’re quite a gem
User19: and
magically, life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years.funny how that
works.
SNOWDEN:
[User19], you don’t think modern medicine has something to do with that? no?
it’s social security? wow. I guess I missed that.
User11: hurr
wait a second, life expectancy has shot up in recent times along with the dissolution
of the communal family unit in exchange for the nuclear family
User11: gee i
guess we might need to create a safety net for the sudden glut of helpless
elderly????
SNOWDEN: they
wouldn’t be fucking helpless if you weren’t sending them fucking checks to sit
on their ass and lay in hospitals all day
User11: you
are so goddamned stupd*pid
User11: PUT
OLD PEOPLE TO WORK IN THE FIELDS
SNOWDEN: my
grandmother is eighty fucking three this year, and you know what? she still
supports herself working as a goddamned hairdresser
Right—and here
he is on guns:
User: the
restrictions were made to appease the conservatives to get another bill passed.
fucking cons.
SNOWDEN: See,
that’s why I’m goddamned glad for the second amendment. Me and all my lunatic,
gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span
feed finished.
From the
website, it appears that Snowden had no problem spying on people during the
Bush administration: he lambastes The New York Times for revealing the
existence of the phone metadata collection in 2006, and thinks the
whistleblower should be shot in the balls. But he changes his tune when Obama
is elected.
Throughout
it all, Snowden has seemed just this side of paranoid and delusional. There is
the persistent story that the United States will find a way to off him; to
avert that, he has given top secret, highly damaging documents to various
people, who will reveal causing enormous damage after Snowden’s murder.
As well,
Snowden seems to be winging it completely. He
takes hard drives with all his information into China; one expert said that
the best practice is to take nothing into China except a clean, empty
hard drive. Why? Because
anything can be copied—and likely will be—while you’re out for a Coke and a
burger.
And
speaking of China—OK, Hong Kong—Snowden arrived, stayed in a fancy hotel, and
then was running out of money. Hunh? Couldn’t he have stayed somewhere else?
And why Hong Kong, since China does have an extradition policy with the US?
Look, if I
were Snowden, I might have done this: look for a country that has no
extradition to the US, but does have a decent way of life, and a good record on
civil liberties. Load up as much cash as I could, buy a ticket, fly to the
country, immediately request amnesty, and sit tight while I did so. Once I’m
in, I’d start talking.
Oh, and
speaking of civil liberties—I went onto Amnesty International’s website, just
to check out the Russian Federation’s track record on human rights; the site
reminded me that the Federation had just passed,
by something like 441 to 0, a draconian bill against gay people. In Russia, you
can’t even talk gay issues without getting thrown in the jug.
So this
guy—who apparently thinks he is John
Galt—ends up in Russia, and is considering places like Cuba, Venezuela, or
Bolivia? I read
the Times today, reporting from Havana, and guess what? None of their sources
would give their last name. These countries make the United States look like a
bastion of liberty.
So now
Snowden is in Russia, looking for a job. Guess what? He’s got one. He’ll be
“working” for the Russian intelligence agency, who will expect him to deliver.
And no—no programming but all the information he has about the NSA. And if he
doesn’t?
Don’t think
it’ll be a pink slip.
Somehow,
this guy has ended up in deep shit. I applaud him for speaking out, but how
could a bright guy botch it so badly?
