

Ask HN: What proof is there that Snowden is safe? - joewee

I don&#x27;t trust anything Assange has to say. Besides Assange&#x27;s tweets, what proof is there that Snowden isn&#x27;t been held in Russia and that he is safe?
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weinzierl
Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, publicly said that Snowden isn't held
in Russia.

    
    
       Putin said Snowden remained in Sheremetyevo airport's  
       transit area and vowed that Moscow would not extradite 
       the whistleblower to the US. He also insisted that 
       Russia's security services had no contact with Snowden, 
       a claim greeted with suspicion.
    

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/25/edward-
snowden-m...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/25/edward-snowden-
moscow-vladimir-putin)

We haven't received a sign of life from Snowden for six days now, we don't
know for sure if he is safe.

~~~
tptacek
Oh, well, if Vladimir Putin says everything's OK.

Good read: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-
Unlikely/dp/15944...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face-
Unlikely/dp/1594486514)

~~~
aptwebapps
Hey, GWB looked deep into his eyes. If he trusts him, I trust him.

------
runjake
I'm curious about why don't you trust anything Assange has to say? What
generated this explicit distrust? Media reports? Former acquaintances?

Personally, I'm more inclined to distrust any media reports & criticism of
Assange, because their sources tend to have some sort of ulterior motive
(fame, smear, counter-intel).

The best smear campaigns happen when you have recruited former insiders. It's
more believable and the population likes juicy details.

And to answer your question, Wikileaks has a staff member accompanying
Snowden, so they probably have a clear idea of the situation.

------
junto
If I was Snowden I would try to quietly disappear and let everyone think I was
still in the airport for months or years.

I had a crazy idea the other day that we find as many Snowden doppelgängers as
possible. We all fly to Moscow and give him our passports. We then all wait in
the airport an allotted time until Snowden is safe somewhere else and then all
report that our passports have been misplaced and apply for temporary new ones
to return home.

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sktrdie
Does anyone know if this Twitter account is actually his?
[https://twitter.com/EJosephSnowden](https://twitter.com/EJosephSnowden)

If that's the case, then that is pretty good proof that he's doing ok, and can
also connect to the internet :-)

However, scrolling down his Twitter timeline, it seems that there's a lot of
auto-generated tweets. Not sure.

~~~
aggie
Greenwald says it's fake.

[https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/344333485550485504](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/344333485550485504)

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jeena
I assume the russians have him until he gives them all the information he
still has which has not been leaked to the media yet.

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daledavies
I'm not 100% up on exactly every aspect of this, but why would Assange lie?

~~~
joewee
Not saying he is lying, but it seems like he is misrepresenting how much
control or influence wikileaks has in being able to protect Snowden.

------
joewee
[http://news.yahoo.com/trapped-transit-orwellian-moscow-
airpo...](http://news.yahoo.com/trapped-transit-orwellian-moscow-airport-
hotel-152338275.html)

------
verroq
Has anyone in the airport actually seen him in the transit area?

~~~
joewee
The only person who says they might have seen him said he was surrounded by
people that look like FSB. See the foreignpolicy article.

~~~
verroq
Only one?

~~~
joewee
Well, the whole thing baffles me. Why haven't Greenwald or Assange provided
evidence of his safety?

Assange making claims that he had safe passage to Ecuador only to have that
discredited calls into question anything he has said about his safety up until
this point.

