Post: #1

According to this BBC story, he's trying to broker a deal to get his kid back in the good ol' USA on the condition he not be held before trial (hahaha), subjected to a gag order (hahahaha) and gets to pick where he's tried (good luck with that).

What I want to know is: why is this his dad's focus? The way I see it, Edward Snowden has two choice:

1). Stay abroad, be an international man of mystery and bask in the attention of foreign women. Two places he can stay are Russia and Venezuela. This is punishment?

2). Come home. Get treated like Bradley Manning by the gov't and Charles Manson by the Obamabot media. If he's lucky he'll get out of prison someday when he's 50 and his "prize" and be an American woman.

Dad needs to be telling him to choose #1 and helping him set up a life far, far away from the USSA (not a typo). Of of the problems with Baby Boomers is that they think it's still America circa 1972. But we've gone from being a county where the reporters who uncovered Nixon's foibles were given awards yet the reporter who broke the Snowden is being lambasted by the media, which is essentially now a fourth branch of gov't.

Snowden's dad's failure to see Red Pill realities makes him Beta of the Year in my opinion. If his son comes back, I predict Bradley Manning's fate or worse.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23100746

Post: #2

His father is an idiot. If he really knew what was up he would know that his son would never see the light of day if he comes back to the USA. They would definitely throw the book, kitchen sink or whatever at his ass.

Post: #3

I have no respect for a man who even intimates selling out his own son. The fact that he may politically disagree with revealing the NSA's surveillance program or with Wikileaks or whatever is irrelevant.

Now granted he is apparently laboring under the delusion he's doing him a favor, and that the federal government will actually follow the rule of law in this case (which makes one wonder what rock he's been hiding under all these years), but he's still publicly speaking against what Edward Snowden potentially sacrificed his life for.

Post: #4

The guy was a career Coast Guard officer. Now, the Coast Guard does some naval training, but it's basically a law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.

Like a lot of guys who are career LE or military, his self-image is bound up with that of the United States. To him, the USA represented the good guys - you know, freedom and justice. It's hard to let that go.

It is a shame he's doing this, because as a retired military guy he could have instant cred if he backed up his son.

Post: #5

(06-28-2013 11:30 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  1). Stay abroad, be an international man of mystery and bask in the attention of foreign women. Two places he can stay are Russia and Venezuela. This is punishment?

You paint a very rosy picture of his future prospects in those places. I doubt it will match reality. He is going to have to watch his back for the rest of his life and wonder when he will end up being a bargaining chip to be traded back to the US.

I'm no political expert, but it seems to me there is a strong possibility he will end up being involved in some political trade and sent back to the US eventually.

The US government is going to do whatever it takes to get him back. If he just floats away to some foreign country to live as "an international man of mystery and bask in the attention of foreign women" it will open the gates for many others with sensitive information to do the same. Our government is going to try their damnedest to make sure this doesn't happen.

If photos start to surface of him in clubs with sexy Russian women on his arm, dozens upon dozens of these CIA/NSA computer betas are going to start dreaming about following in Snowden's footsteps.

Post: #6

(06-29-2013 05:06 AM)RioNomad Wrote:  

(06-28-2013 11:30 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  1). Stay abroad, be an international man of mystery and bask in the attention of foreign women. Two places he can stay are Russia and Venezuela. This is punishment?

You paint a very rosy picture of his future prospects in those places. I doubt it will match reality. He is going to have to watch his back for the rest of his life and wonder when he will end up being a bargaining chip to be traded back to the US.

I'm no political expert, but it seems to me there is a strong possibility he will end up being involved in some political trade and sent back to the US eventually.

The US government is going to do whatever it takes to get him back. If he just floats away to some foreign country to live as "an international man of mystery and bask in the attention of foreign women" it will open the gates for many others with sensitive information to do the same. Our government is going to try their damnedest to make sure this doesn't happen.

If photos start to surface of him in clubs with sexy Russian women on his arm, dozens upon dozens of these CIA/NSA computer betas are going to start dreaming about following in Snowden's footsteps.

You're right. I deliberately made that seem cute when it might not be. But let's put it this way: if he stays abroad, he can possibly have a few good years and have some good times. If he comes home, I think he will immediately go into solitary confinement like Manning and won't see the light of day for decades.

I'd go for the first option because there is always a chance some gov't will grant him asylum.

Post: #7

Agreed. He's pretty much fucked. I feel sorry for the guy. IMO, he did the right thing. He's more of a patriot than a traitor, that is for sure.

Post: #8

Agree with RioNomad, but the mainstream media + US gov is vilifying him even though it seems like he took precautions not to leak military secrets.

Unfortunately, I think this guy will get caught at some point.

Post: #9

His father sounds like a bitch. OR

his father has been blackmailed since NSA has everything on his dad and is being forced to tell thie kid to come back home

Post: #10

It's a very feminine response. The father wants his son back with him, without stopping to consider whether that's likely to actually help his son. It sounds like love, but is actually a lot closer to solipsism. At base, the father is thinking of himself first and foremost. Expected from an emotional distraught mother, but it's very unbecoming of a father.

It's like a girl telling you to permanently leave your job and home to live with her. It sounds nice of her. But what happens when you have no way to support yourself? When she loses her attraction because you became unemployed or poor? Won't be her problem once she kicks you out.

(06-29-2013 05:06 AM)RioNomad Wrote:  If photos start to surface of him in clubs with sexy Russian women on his arm, dozens upon dozens of these CIA/NSA computer betas are going to start dreaming about following in Snowden's footsteps.

Haha.

The military industrial complex has this near infinite loop, where everyone follows orders or gets thrown out. In a sense, everyone is responsible but none individually so... except the President. The whole industry is people sucking up to the guy directly above. So if the highest guy sets a different tone, it reverberates throughout the entire complex. The whole complex rises and falls on the word of the President.

The President might get blow back, sure. But on this issue, if he changed course, he'd have the support of the Press and most leftists. You couldn't say that about say, the military's initiative to fight alleged sexual assault, or women in combat. Right now the left is divided between two views on the matter: civil libertarians and tribal zealots. The former want Obama to roll back government surveillance, while his tribal supporters back Obama whatever he does. The moment Obama changes, they change.

I'd be curious as the views of others, if they think it's different than I've described. That's just my working understanding of it.

Post: #11

(06-29-2013 03:17 PM)basilransom Wrote:  The President might get blow back, sure. But on this issue, if he changed course, he'd have the support of the Press and most leftists. You couldn't say that about say, the military's initiative to fight alleged sexual assault, or women in combat. Right now the left is divided between two views on the matter: civil libertarians and tribal zealots. The former want Obama to roll back government surveillance, while his tribal supporters back Obama whatever he does. The moment Obama changes, they change.

Only there's no incentive for Obama to change course. For buttbuddy marriage and women in combat you have non-issues that get the idiots riled up, so there's no benefit to fighting those issues when everyone obviously wants to put those little rainbow equal signs on their facebooks or their pokeymons or whatever.

Spying on people is a different can of worms altogether. We don't see people rioting in the streets over this, and rather than being a non-issue it's an actual element of power possessed by the government that they don't want to give up. So the only course of action for Obama is going to be maintaining the new status quo of government power while waiting for the peons to get distracted by a new scandal.

Post: #12

The father has manned up and is backing his son now. He's got a good Constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein with him.

Post: #13

I would have gone to Venezuela without thinking about it a second.

Being Gringo and still having the blessing of Maduro, is like a door wide open to the possibly best women on earth..

But yea Russia isnt that bad either, except that its very cold in winter.

Post: #14

The Dad is an idiot. Well meaning, perhaps, but living in the delusion that America is like it was back in the good-ol' days.
The government is using the dad to get at Snowden. Classic emotional blackmail.

Which just goes to show how clueless they are. If the government is dealing with a guy who was prepared to give up everything, do they really think he's going to feel obligated to cooperate with dear ol' dad and try to come back to the US?

All the government cares about is finding out how much Snowden knew and released, and then throwing him in a dungeon for the rest of his life.

Post: #15

Edward Snowden has a job in Moscow, says lawyer

Four months after arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong, Edward Snowden has found a job, a lawyer for the ex-NSA contractor said on Thursday.

“On Friday November 1, Edward Snowden will begin working in one of the biggest Russian companies,” Anatoly Kucherena, Mr Snowden’s Russian lawyer, told Russian newswire Interfax. “His job will be to provide support and develop one of Russia’s biggest websites.”

Mr Kucherena did not say which internet company Mr Snowden would be working at or what his salary would be. The lawyer could not be immediately reached by the Financial Times.

Representatives for Yandex and Mail.ru, two of Russia’s biggest internet sites, said they had not hired Mr Snowden. A representative for Russia’s main social networking site Vkontakte declined to comment.

In August Pavel Durov, Vkontakte’s maverick founder, publicly invited Mr Snowden to join Vkontakte’s team. “We invite Edward to St Petersburg and would be happy if he decides to join our star team of programmers at Vkontakte,” Mr Durov wrote on his personal Vkontakte page. “It may be interesting for him to work on securing the personal information of our millions of users.”

Mr Snowden, who leaked documents detailing US mass surveillance programmes, arrived in Moscow on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23 with a ticket to travel onward to Havana. He never boarded the second flight and ultimately received temporary asylum from Russia on August 1, allowing him to leave Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after a stay of more than five weeks in the terminal’s transit zone.

He has been given temporary asylum for an initial period of one year but after that his asylum may be extended indefinitely.

Since leaving the airport, Mr Snowden has maintained a low public profile. He has twice been photographed by a Russian tabloid: once, shopping for groceries at a suburban hypermarket, and another time on a Moscow river cruise near a cathedral close to the Kremlin.
Mr Snowden’s father Lon in October travelled to visit his son and said he had adjusted to life in Moscow.

“He’s comfortable. He’s happy. And he’s absolutely committed to what he has done,” the elder Mr Snowden told reporters upon his return to New York.


http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a5c13c14-...z2jbrnNwu3

Post: #16

the guy is under immense pressure, and who knows they could be threatening to kill his son via black ops if he doesn't convince the son to come back.

You think they're playing fair?! Letting people know what they're really doing? No fucking way.
They might be threatening the father's wife or other kids if there are any.

These guys are totally amoral---if they weren't, Snowden wouldn't have had to out them about their listening to every phone call every American makes. It's so outrageous, people are just too beaten down to think there's any hope of changing it.

Post: #17

(06-28-2013 11:30 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  According to this BBC story, he's trying to broker a deal to get his kid back in the good ol' USA on the condition he not be held before trial (hahaha), subjected to a gag order (hahahaha) and gets to pick where he's tried (good luck with that).

What I want to know is: why is this his dad's focus? The way I see it, Edward Snowden has two choice:

1). Stay abroad, be an international man of mystery and bask in the attention of foreign women. Two places he can stay are Russia and Venezuela. This is punishment?

2). Come home. Get treated like Bradley Manning by the gov't and Charles Manson by the Obamabot media. If he's lucky he'll get out of prison someday when he's 50 and his "prize" and be an American woman.

Dad needs to be telling him to choose #1 and helping him set up a life far, far away from the USSA (not a typo). Of of the problems with Baby Boomers is that they think it's still America circa 1972. But we've gone from being a county where the reporters who uncovered Nixon's foibles were given awards yet the reporter who broke the Snowden is being lambasted by the media, which is essentially now a fourth branch of gov't.

Snowden's dad's failure to see Red Pill realities makes him Beta of the Year in my opinion. If his son comes back, I predict Bradley Manning's fate or worse.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23100746

Yeah unless you get a rand paul type as President who would allow him to come back and view what he did as patriotic instead of anti american he better stay in Russia. That said you guys say it like its an easy thing to do.

Away from all your family and friends, russian tv, russian food, etc. You get homesick after a while want to come back to what your familiar with, people who love you, etc.

Obviously given the choice of prison or possibly death or staying in Russia obviously everyone would stay in Russia but still not easy