Snowden arrived in Moscow in June 2013. That was almost a year before the Crimea annexation, and Russia could still try to sell itself to radical leftists who admired Snowden as the lesser evil, compared with the Big Brother U.S. Putin talked a lot about Snowden showing obvious delight for thumbing his nose at the U.S., which had tried to intercept the whistle-blower. He described Snowden as a "weird guy," an idealist, who was safe in Russia even though he had no secrets to pass on. [...]
Snowden appeared to play along. In 2014, he took part in Putin's carefully stage-managed and scripted annual call-in show, asking the Russian leader whether Russia intercepted, stored and analyzed its citizens' electronic communications. Putin said Russia used advanced technology to fight terrorism. "But we do not allow ourselves to use it on a mass scale, in an uncontrolled way," he added. "I hope, I very much hope, that we never will."
Snowden defended what appeared to be a softball question in a column for The Guardian, saying that he had "sworn no allegiance" to Russia and that he would fight total surveillance everywhere. The Guardian article helped him maintain credibility among Western radicals. [...]
The Yarovaya package is harsher than any electronic surveillance legislation in the U.S., because the Russian measures openly tell citizens that their communications will be monitored pretty much at the discretion of the intelligence services. It embodies all the abuses that Snowden has opposed.
Three years is enough time to understand Russian politics a little better, and Snowden appears to be interested in more than his professional area. On Wednesday, he tweeted about the recent news that Russia's last remaining big independent pollster, the Levada Center, has been designated a "foreign agent," along with some of Russia's strongest human rights organizations, for accepting foreign research grants.
No comments:
Post a Comment