Yeah, just watched that report on BBC News here about Detroit. Looks like a war-zone: abandoned houses, offices, and factories. Burnt out shops. Shocking. I thought Oldham was a dump, but that's got anything over here beat.
As for Snowden - he's no traitor. If you work for a government that claims to stand for democracy, liberty, etc, and you find out that that government is doing anything underhand or unethical or illegal, then it's your duty to make those things known. To keep silent would be a crime.

All govm'nts spy on their citizens. What he did was release information in a way that endangered national security, and also made him a traitor because he did it in China/Russia, and because he was/is an agent and knows things.

Again, if he had taken a different path, he may not have been considered a traitor.

That doesn't make it right and that doesn't make pointing that out wrong.
How is your national security endangered by informing your citizens that your government is on the way to become a fascist police state, breaking the pillars your country stands on?
Of course he did it in a country where your government doesn't have access to him, otherwise he would immediately have been treated like your government treats people that point out their crimes. It doesn't matter at all where he is when he releases his information to a British newspaper, he could have been in Germany or in Timbuktu, only that in these two states the US government wouldn't have hesitated a minute to immediately arrest him and take care of him, like your government sadly nowadays has a history of.
Seriously? Anyone that knows a state secret is a traitor?
None of the arguments you delivered convince me to change my mind in this case: Snowden is whistleblower, not a traitor.

I am still astonished how you can say that you don't want to live under an oppressive regime again, but as soon as anyone stands up, gives up all he has and actively points out the oppression you shout: Traitor, kill him.
That seems quite inconsistent to me.

What government would that be? As far as we know H_TeX is not a US citizen and lives most of the time somewhere in Eastern Europe.

You are astonished? Why? How long have you been on LQ and been communicating with H_TeX here? Nothing here should be astonishing to anyone, quite frankly it has become very "ho hum here we go again".

I was under the impression that he nowadays lives in the USA. If that is wrong then of course I don't mean his government, I specifically mean the US government.

Still sometimes we see new sides of people.

He will probably deny it but the times he posts at indicates Europe rather than somewhere in the Americas.

This is true, I have seen some very good technical posts but in "General" nothing surprises me anymore.

I wrote a bigger reply but deleted it before I hit submit. Suffice to say I'm over the "everyone else is a bad guy out to do harm to the world" conspiracy theory. Just let him think what he wants, let him be sad and wonder why the world is like it is. Just let him wallow in his despair and let him keep looking over his shoulder. One day he might see a silver lining on a cloud but until then there are other people who are in far worse shape and need help.

It's the right and duty of every man to speak out and make a stand about wrongdoing, even if done by his own government. Especially if done by people that hold office and power. Period.

I'm not going to pretend that I know that I know everything about what he was speaking about, or whether the facts were right, but I will agree with his right to do it until the end of time. If anyone is injured by his speaking out then it comes down to government policy that put those people in a harmful situation in the first place.

Russia gave him Asylum. Some Americans want to move the G20 because of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23543807

He's lucky he got out before the fascist federal corp sent the "pest control unit" to poison him. There's only one reason they hired a high school drop-out like him in the first place... and only in an oppressive regime can you kill your own people in broad daylight and get away with it, like happened Sept. 11th 2001. I don't believe the crazy al-Qaeda conspiracy theories from war criminals running a global hate crime against Arabs. Science dictates the truth not the legal injustice system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qb114u7BQU (scientific proof part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL9xhazqQw8 (scientific proof part 2)

RIP Ted Gunderson (poisoned) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRaezLTU2a0
RIP Barry Jennings (poisoned) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdLo6qSpawc

Darn, I ran out of aluminum foil.

I, of course, am an American citizen, and I do not accept "carte blanche" the notion that he actually "endangered national security." (Even though I am not "from Missouri," Missouri is close-enough to my neighborhood for me to feel justified in saying: "Show Me.™"

Edward Snowden "revealed" a program that ... let's all be perfectly honest here ... every American/World citizen who pays the slightest bit of attention to the Internet already knew about. It has been public information for a very long time that the US Government has built a massive data center in the wastelands of Nevada ... a data center that just happens to be bristling with Internet connections. We also know about "map/reduce" and how Google works. It is, if I may bluntly say, perfectly obvious that "the capacity to do this" has very-long existed. Therefore, it is also "perfectly obvious" that Military Industrial contractors would have sold the US Government a ("Top Secret™", of course™ ...) multi-TRILLION DOLLAR contract "to do it."

They would need only one "justification": the dark and ominous-sounding utterance, "Nine-Wun-Wun."

Translation:

• If you don't approve this thing, we'll plaster your district with "Senator so-and-so WANTS 9/11 TO HAPPEN AGAIN!!!!!!" billboards! :eek:
• If you do, then 10% of the profits will be waiting for you as 'legislative enablement fees' in the Grand Cayman Islands.
• ... "gee, that was easy."

Unfortunately, as we all know in our profession, "real security is hard." Very hard. And the first thing that we do, in order to maximize security, is to be totally open about it. "There is no security in obscurity." Yet, this thing is the penultimate example of "obscurity": total secrecy. No public disclosure, hence no public discussion. An overwhelming profit motive ... not so much within the NSA Agency itself but rather within the legions of Military Industrialist contractors who supply that Agency. A profit-motive that has no incentive to care whether or not a program succeeds, so long as it is funded. ("Forever.")

So, yeah, we have a lot to be talking about here. Because, at the end of the day, we want to achieve "National Security," not to be fleeced. It is not only "reasonable," but "critical," to Be From Missouri™ about everything that is done "in the name of National Security." Hey, maybe the contractors are right! Nevertheless, we must challenge it; prove it. We are the ultimate stakeholders here ... millions of us ... not them. If we are not holding their irons to the most-uncomfortable fire, no one else will.

On this web site, we have an entire subdivision devoted to security. The principles that I am arguing here, I aver, are absolutely the same. (Just multiplied in importance billions of times.) If "John Public" does not constantly shove its collective nose into these proceedings, and demand accountability, John's objective of "true National Security" cannot, I aver, be assured. If the fat-cats are not incessantly haunted by the ever-present certainty that "hundreds of millions(!) of Johns and Janes are watching," then they will not uphold John's national interests. (Why? Because they're real-life greedy human "I've Got Mine!™" b*stards ... just like all of us would be if we could swap places with 'em.) :hattip:

(Yeah, yeah, yeah ... go ahead ... say it isn't so ... go ahead ... try.)

Darn, you must have run out of Haldol too. There's no global terrorist organization out to get you paranoid schizos. 9-11 was an inside job. :D LOL

EDIT: Oh and give my regards to Uncle Jed and Elly May. *insert banjo music here* hehehe

I knew he would never be caught, he's with them, just like Assange. He did what they told him. Now for the consequences, not on him, but on us.