I wouldn't call it speculation. If Snowden didn't understand that he's too valuable a target for any country with a halfway functioning intelligence service, he's naiveté must be completely unbounded.
Intelligence services spend YEARS and FORTUNES trying to recruit and develop sources like Snowden. To have one drop in your lap? With detailed knowledge of the most secret org of your primary geopolitical adversary?
C'MON MAN.
You do understand that people sometimes are killed to get this kind of information, right?
Yet another article focused on the man instead of the issue.
The U.S.'s obsession with celebrity gossip fodder makes it far too easy for news outlets to focus on the low-hanging fruit, the story that more closely aligns with an already-determined narrative. If Snowden's story was published as a TV drama right now, you could hear the selling points: "Fugitive on the run from the state!" "Spy intrigue!" "Hero or villain?" "Man or legend?"
...None of that has to do with the issue that that Snowden exposed, the inherent secrecy of the court system that allows it to happen, and efforts to reverse what a large portion of the American public views to be unconstitutional/undemocratic behavior by a country that lectures the opposite to other nations.
There are so many interesting and important issues to unpack in this whole ordeal. I wish we could trust the media to unravel these complex issues instead of spoon-feeding us the easy story. We ingest our own ignorance as a result.
I'm trying to find the article, but reporters apparently showed photos of Snowden to passengers disembarking from the original HK flight and no one could confirm they saw him on that flight.
I guess, though, that Putin would know if Snowden was in the airport area or not and would not lie about it.
Why wouldn't he lie about it? It's a free chance to screw with the US, and if/when the truth comes out at most he can say he was misinformed, and give a bit of a chuckle.
I'm not saying he is lying, but there's no good reason to assume he isn't.
When you go to airport security, you have to show a boarding pass and ID with your name. However, doing so doesn't alert the airline that you are there. Also, you aren't required to show ID once you pass security.
It's quite possible to enter the airport with one boarding pass and have a separate pass with a completely different name on it. I would hazard to guess that he booked a flight under his name to Russia as a diversion while he actually boarded a flight under a different name to a different country.
There has been no confirmation that he was on the flight from HK to Russia, no confirmation that he is in the airport, and he never boarded his flight to Havana.
At mos, it's the press being distracted from the content of the allegations. But it's a fairly uncontroversial observation that Snowden would be someone that a variety of foreign intelligence services would at least be interested in talking to.
No, but what does that have to do with whether or not this article is a smear (which is the context of my comment, where the person I was responding to thought the article was a smear).
Intelligence services spend YEARS and FORTUNES trying to recruit and develop sources like Snowden. To have one drop in your lap? With detailed knowledge of the most secret org of your primary geopolitical adversary?
C'MON MAN.
You do understand that people sometimes are killed to get this kind of information, right?