Russia-SOPA-Dope

[bigtree]

Washington Post ‏@washingtonpost 2m

Russia enacted its own SOPA the day it granted Snowden asylum http://wapo.st/17XQ9xo

Russia just enacted its own version of SOPA.

Russia recently passed a law that will block any Web site aiding copyright infringement (which might be as simple as a user linking to a place where pirated material is available) if it doesn’t respond within three days. Many Internet activists are calling it the “Russian SOPA” after the controversial anti-piracy legislation that failed in the United States after online outrage. It was enacted on Thursday, the same day Russia granted temporary asylum to Snowden.


read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/02/russia-enacted-its-own-sopa-the-day-it-granted-snowden-asylum/

[djean111]

1. Yes, Russia is a bad place and a bad place for Snowden.

It is just his only option available at this time, other than submitting to the tender and just mercies of the United States.
People keep crowing about bad Russian things as if being in Russia was Snowden's choice in the first place.
He is stuck until he can get to South America. Maybe Putin is deliberately blocking him from leaving.

[tridim]

3. Whose fault is it that he's in Russia?

Let me guess... Obama?

Snowden is fucked precisely because he fucked himself, and he put all his trust in Greenwald. He is stuck in Russia because he's a dumbass.

[djean111]

6. Actually, when I think of Snowden and the NSA I just think of the NSA as an ongoing breach

of privacy. I don't think about Obama at all. In any event, he seems a lame duck and not relevant at all to the problem.
I doubt the people running the NSA and CIA give a crap who is in office, really.
It was very strange to me how many people just assumed if one was against NSA spying on US citizens, that was a mark against Obama that Would Not Be Tolerated.
For myself, I have been admonished so many times that Obama's hands are tied that I don't think of him as being powerful enough to do anything but give speeches. Whatever.

Snowden is not complaining about being in Russia, nor is he crowing about it.
Any whistle-blower in America is fucked. Truth to power is not tolerated.

[bunnies]

4. He's free to go to any embassy he wants.

For example, Venezuela's, and officially apply for asylum there. He could then obtain travel documents which would allow him to leave. So... he's not "stuck" in Russia, as much as you'd like to think its so. And nobody forced him to go there in the first place. It was his choice.

[wandy]

7. IMHO, wow was that a BAD choice..................

Could he not have gotten where he wanted to go first. Then done his thing?
Or is that what he did?

[bunnies]

8. I wonder that too.

Why go to Russia at all? And where was he going from there? Do we even know what his intentions were before he got "stuck" at the airport? He's clearly content to stay there. That much is certain. Otherwise he'd be securing documents to travel to Venezuela or wherever.

Its possible that whats happened is exactly what he wanted. But its just a tad hypocritical, imho.

[wandy]

9. To be honest, that worries me..............

I have spent all my adult life in one aspect of IT or another. I have met some very brilliant people.
Some of them were "loose cannons". You just couldn't predict what they were going to do.
I think it might come from they are convinced that they can, and usually prove, to be able to take care of anything.
MacGyver. "I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out." To be honest I have a bit of that tendency myself.
It's not impossible that when he got to Russia he found out that theres more to hotwireing a car than twisting two wires together. You have to unlock the steering. Woops!
On the gripping hand, he might have known exactly what he was doing. That might not be a good thing.

I can say this. I do not think Mr. Snowden would have made it to the end of the first project were I running it.

Please understand this is not a Snowden rant. It is simply from my IT experience. We can substitute "Strawman" for Snowden.

[bigtree]

5. it's a lot more complicated than worrying about whether Russia's a frienemy

Choice or not, his sojourn in Russia puts him at the mercy of two governments which have every interest in sucking his brain dry and eating him alive.

This is a good article because it outlines many of the civil liberty assaults their government is waging; with only tentative resistance from the public there.

But, what a place for this fellow to end up.

[millennialmax]

2. With his technological background, maybe he can help implement it. eom

[Scurrilous]

10. The hero Snowden will be speaking out about this any day now...