&gt; Still a Donald Trump in USA is far better and very less dangerous as compared to the tyrants like Mao or Stalin or Castro, because USA has many good checks and balances in place.<p>How do you think Hoover stayed in place that long? You can pull a great many things without needing to disappear people at four in the morning.<p>&gt; The important point to note here is that the intellectuals (Snowden and his supporters) who are targeting USA both at national and international level were silent about the extremely intrusive surveillance and other atrocities inflicted by the tyrants like Putin (at whose place Snowden may be currently enjoying his reward) and are still silent.<p>Snowden was not a public figure before. And you really think a life of exile in Russia is some kind of reward?<p>That said, I think Snowden is against global surveillance in general, but:<p>a) I can totally understand that you want to tread carefully in this kind of situation. You don&#x27;t think he has already given up enough? What would you do in his situation?<p>b) While Putin is certainly more willing to suppress political opponents, I doubt the Russian surveillance network is even remotely in the same league as the NSA<p>c) Snowden is no doubt a lot more qualified to speak about Western surveillance than he is about Russian or Chinese efforts