Featured on The Drudge Report today and I'm sure many people are hating on that he's living in a 'great' place. Especially the neocons that think he should be 6 feet under.
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden wants his critics to know that living is Russia is "great" and that, despite reports to the contrary, he doesn't need alcohol to enjoy his time there.
"Mike Hayden, former NSA, CIA director ... was talking about how I was—everybody in Russia is miserable," Snowden told journalist James Bamford, according to a transcript of an interview released Thursday. "And I'm going to end up miserable and I'm going to be a drunk and I'm never going to do anything. I don't drink. I've never been drunk in my life. And they talk about Russia like it's the worst place on earth. Russia's great."
Snowden's interview, which contained no new revelations about government spying, took place last June in a Moscow hotel room and will air soon on PBS. The discussion largely focused on U.S. cyber capabilities, but Snowden's favorable comments toward Russia are likely to again irk many of his critics, some of whom have suggested he has been sharing U.S. secrets with the Russian government.
This is not the first time Snowden has appeared to speak approvingly of the increasingly pugilistic country, which spent the better part of the past year chilling its relations with the U.S. after invading part of Ukraine. Last spring Snowden made a surprise appearance at an annual telecast with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ask if the country engaged in mass surveillance of its citizens.
The query gave Putin a chance to refute the suggestion without further challenge, giving the exchange the markings of choreographed propaganda. Snowden later defended the question as an attempt to challenge Putin on surveillance matters.
In the new interview, Snowden also spoke at length about the U.S. being poorly equipped to handle cyberattacks from foreign governments or from sophisticated hackers due to the intelligence community prioritizing offensive capabilities at the expense—and sometimes detriment—of defensive schemes.
More...
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/edward-snowden-living-in-russia-is-great-20150108The article itself is non-news. He has it well in Russia, good for him. He is not drinking, great, a man after my own heart!
What I find interesting in this article, is the compulsory appearance of anti-Russian propaganda, designed to sledgehammer into the minds of the Western readers the image of Russia as a new designated foe. I highlighted those passages above, which appear quite unobtrusively in the overall text.
Last thing first: I don't know it that exchange was choreographed, and I don't really care. The important bit was Putin's response, which in a way is a public binding statement, that Russia will not do indiscriminate mass-surveliance, especially without court orders. Oh, and Putin is known for unscripted Q&A sessions and grillings, so I won't be surprised if it was not choreographed.
Then... If my memory serves me well (and it does
), it was US/EU that "spent the better part of the past year chilling its relations with" Russia, pushing it out of international organisations, freezing dialogue venues, subjecting it to massive onslaught of propaganda and vilification.
The vague "invading part of Ukraine" is an outright lie. No one invaded anything. In Crimea people simply disagreed with the coup d'etat that happened in Kiev, got fed up with the demeaning treatment of the past 25+ years so the people of Crimea said that they have "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." (
For those wondering where that came from). And the above equally applies to Novorossia.
