Listen to what he is saying.
"Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.
It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.<p>I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
He seems at ease, laughing at things happening to him, he also seems well rested and composed. I hope people won't read this as a sign he is doing fine and that he feels light about this situation.<p>There's a very good chance one of his endeavours in the coming weeks goes absolutely wrong, and he ends up in some u.s. prison, and this video of his heavy speech in which tension is relieved by cheery laughter over the absurdness of being at this airport for so long could be the last thing we ever saw of him as a person.
He seems pretty relaxed. He & the young woman alongside him share laughs, when the airport's intercom plays during his meeting.<p>It's likely that if he's granted stay in Russia, his life will be pretty pleasant. As much as he (and we) love America, he had the strength to <i>stand up</i> to some shady characters hiding behind our flag.<p>People around the world respect him for this. The Russian people especially. Also, if you want my personal opinion, Russian women are some of the most beautiful in the world.
I hope he stays here in Russia. Yes, we as a country are far from the ideals he strives to protect, but it will be difficult to find such country elsewhere in the world. But I'm sure he will find Moscow a cool place to live at least for some period of time.
Apparently [1:36] Snowden really is at the Russian airport, unlike some have been speculating [0].<p>[0] <a href="http://world.time.com/2013/07/10/snowden-in-moscow-what-are-russian-authorities-doing-with-the-nsa-whistleblower/" rel="nofollow">http://world.time.com/2013/07/10/snowden-in-moscow-what-are-...</a>
As serious as all this is (very), and how much of a hero he is (great), I do still wish someone would buy him a horizontal striped red and white t-shirt and cap. He even _looks_ like Waldo.
Cool I guess, but why is the video so horribly filmed? Was filming not actually allowed or was the photographer just extremely lazy?<p>And a second, slightly off-topic question. The footage of Snowden is obviously news worthy and it would be fair use for channels like CNN to air it without asking lifenews.ru for permission. The semi-transparent watermarks are easy to remove with the right software. Would they be breaking any laws if they did that while still showing the red logo on the top of the screen?
Full audio recording of the meeting: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQSVurlAak" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQSVurlAak</a>
I'm torn on the national security implications of Snowden's disclosures and the creep factor, but what he did certainly have prompted an important conversation and it seems like he's been reasonably responsible with what he discloses. What a contrast with the Wikileaks diplomatic cable disclosures- blanket, sloppy, and in the end not that important (though it did make life harder for a lot of career diplomats.)<p>Again, I'm really torn on what Snowden did, and maybe I'm just one of the "naive sheep" cowering in fear from Them blahblahblah, but I really, really don't want any explosions slipping through as a result of it.
The main feeling I get from european entrepreneurs is that Snowden is a hero but here on hacker news if you read the comment it feels like the opposite. Is it that americans in support for Snowden is afraid to voice there opinion agains the government of fear of having there private life followed and investigated by NSA or have I missed something?