Email exchange between Edward Snowden and former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey
It's always interesting to me that as a new statement from Snowden to the press comes out, most comments on Hacker News take him totally at his word, and assume that his interpretation of events and policy is by far the interpretation most likely to be true. Because I was already past Snowden's current age and current experience level in living in other countries by the time Snowden was born, I see a lot of holes and a lot of callow bravado in much of what he is saying. I hope he is correct that the information that he claims to have extracted from NSA servers cannot be extracted from him against his will, but I don't assume that to be true in the absence of evidence. That's an extraordinary claim, so it requires extraordinary evidence. Some aspects of Snowden's story do NOT look like a thoughtful plan to defend freedom and fair play around the world, but rather a haphazard rash move by Snowden to see what he can get away with. The high degree of cooperation many countries appear to be giving the United States so far in efforts to have Snowden return to the United States for legal proceedings suggests that quite a few experienced national leaders with very different constituencies to represent agree that there is more harm in Snowden being on the loose than in his standing trial to weigh his claims against United States law.<p>P.S. Remember, I was one of the rather few HN members to go out in public to protest the NSA on Restore the Fourth evening here in the United States. I can be appalled by some of what I read about the NSA without agreeing that Snowden is taking the best approach to doing something about that.