How about instead of stumbling about intellectually like a mob intent on hating the NSA, we set a few things straight:<p>* This is not indicative of Russia as a collective endorsing or supporting Snowden. One man residing in Russia, a Russian national, offered Snowden a job relevant to his experience. This article says nothing about the public perception of Snowden in Russia. Anything else is supposition. All he has is asylum and a job. Both things can be granted by a huge minority of people in government, of which we do not yet understand their obscured motivations and agendas.<p>* I don't think we should be praising Russia for this - let's remember Russia is the place where homosexuality is almost scathingly rejected, human rights violations are normal, and freedom of the press is in effect...except when it's not. Yes, they gave Snowden asylum. I wonder <i>what</i> they could gain from that aside from just being a bunch of good guys...come on. This says nothing about the Russian people understanding America's problems, and they are certainly not an ideal to strive towards (nothing against Russians as a people, but a lot of their laws are deplorable by modern standards).<p>* I wouldn't trust the job, and I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't want any solid association with anyone, high-roller or not, who could be leveraged against me. This is paranoid, but whatever is uncertain about the NSA scandal, it's certain the government (or members thereof) is probably desperate to retrieve Snowden.<p>* Again, as I have said <i>repeatedly</i> since this all came out - don't let your outrage at the (vastly exaggerated) NSA scandal prevent you from seeing the truth - as a government agency, the NSA is largely beneficial to our country, and we shouldn't seek to disband it. Rather, we should correct its abuses and continue forward. I clearly see the black and white "us and them" mentality being tosses around with the NSA, Russia, Snowden and the U.S. government in the comment threads here and it's misinformed.