I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Hero isn't a title for life. His willingness to fuck his own life up to reveal NSA secrets to the world was heroic. Him staying in Russia with everything they've done more recently is decidedly less so.
We want to judge him by absolute categories like morals and convictions. And that's unfair because nobody is that pristinely moral all the time. I get that after his 007-like escape to Hong Kong, he would choose the easier way out now. If that means tacitly approving of Russia's illegal attack on their neighbor then so be it. I think his morals compelled him to release the surveillance secret to the world. And the experience has sufficiently dulled any moral urges. Combine that with a limited list of choices of where else to go. A true superhuman hero would not want to stay where he once sought asylum if that country was itself responsible for hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum elsewhere. As I said, hero isn't a title for life.
As I recall he was heading somewhere else, but the US revoked his passport while he happened to be catching a connecting flight in Russia and so he ended up taking refuge there instead.
I think that him staying in Russia is more because that if he get out he will be arrested and deported. The guy reveal an overreaching conspiracy by the US to spy on their allies and the allies choose the side of the US
He stayed in Russia because he is safe from US extradition. If the US was able to extradite him, they would assassinate him.
If the US was able to extradite him, they wouldn't need to assassinate him. From the government pov, assassinations are for people you can't lock away forever.
They wouldn’t assassinate him today. They’d just throw him in jail for life.
After all, they’re now doing in the open what he caught them doing in secret, and there have been no repercussions. So that means they no longer have a reason to shut him up, and they definitely don’t want to martyr him.
i totally agree with you that if he was in a position to actively oppose Russian imperialism and aggressions him not doing so does show his complicity in those crimes. but i’m not sure how much he is an actor in his life right now or he is being acted upon. i would imagine him living in a disgustingly claustrophobic golden cage with his family and their privileges and wellbeing being hung open him as if a Damocles Sword.