I'm an American Citizen born and raised. Someone please give this man asylum already.

@Vitaly_Kiselev "Usually main target of such operation is to drive attention from something more important." "Thing is this story is promoted by papers owned by same guys who play and talk and meet with NSA top guys each day." Totally agree with you Vitaly, but does not make sense to me in this case. Too simple. With Snowden there is a before and an after, may be not for everybody, and maybe not for you. But being worldwide published that the US government, their intelligence services and the corporations are spying every single persons communications in the entire world - that is big. And what is also big for me is that very few people seem to care about it. They don't give a flying fuck on it. "I have nothing to hide", famous dangerous opinions of people Jacob Appelbaum talks about. Don't forget the Nazis.

Interesting idea as a Decoy but I don't believe that for one second. The US did not want this stuff becoming mainstream, or did many other involved parties like Google. The average guy from the media has just got that he leaked some stuff from work that everyone already knew. The guy is 100% genuine.

One of the versions I have is that he was decoy to have some reason to start currency and trade fees war. As he really very much liked to get into two non random countries :-)

And this will definitely change their view and behaviour about dealing with communications systems.

No, not a bit.

As for "huge shock", it was just fully controllable bullshit with no real data provided. Even materials were made and designed for complete idiots sitting before TVs.

Tor Browser, email, search engines etc. encrypted phones are still bloody expensive

LOL. Just for example - most Tor nodes are specially monitored, many are owned by NSA and similar guys :-)

Constant usage of encryption in email, VPN and similar things will bring you to special watch list with almost 99% probability.

@Vitaly_Kiselev If this is true Vitaly, I dont understand whats so funny about it. I thought these people at least are trying to create something different. But may be its just the time to go back to ordinary mail and drums communication. You could encrypt your next hack in an afrocuban 6/8 drumcode with a sweet Wolga melody played on a Nokton MFT trumpet.

The Dictionary of the Global War on You (GWOY) Definitions for a New Age

The Global War on You (GWOY): This term, not yet in the language, is designed to replace a post-9/11 Bush administration name, the Global War on Terror (GWOT), sometimes also called World War IV by neocons. GWOT was famously retired by President Obama and his top officials, turning the ongoing global war being fought on distant battlefields and in the shadows into a nameless war. That may, however, change. You are, after all, being called to the colors in a war on... you. Congratulations, son or daughter, Uncle Sam wants you (even if not in the way he used to in your grandparents’ day). You, after all, are the central figure in and the key to GWOY and the basis upon which the new global security state will continue to be built.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175720/

that the facts couldn't be ignored by major media, hard as major media is trying to turn the whole thing into amateur psychology babble, the same way it did with Bradley Manning.

Thing is major media have exactly same interestes most of the time.

Another decoy theory is that Snowden is just global elite toy, used to slap US slightly and show them their place.

You can make many absolutely probably theories, but only his owners know real one.

The claim that the whole thing is an orchestrated diversion -- as opposed to an incidental one -- strikes this reader as, well, far more improbable than the claim that Snowden is exactly who he says he is.

You can't even imagine how much orchestrated things can looks like random ones.

I can't see any conspiracy in this - he felt compelled to release this information in the public interest, for better or for worse. My coworker said today that she thought he was getting paid for it, and was rather incensed with my position about his motive being honorable - basically as a privacy-rights defender.

We both agreed that he's pretty much screwed though - his biggest crime was taking classified information from the defense apparatus of the state.. it could be completely harmless, but parading it in front of the public attacks the authority of the state.. remember there are millions of Americans that have access to classified information, which is a great way to keep whistleblowers quiet. When they see Snowden chased all over the world and finding no friends anywhere most will choose to keep their mouths shut.

Anyway I don't expect it do do much policy-wise.. people just don't really care, and probably assume it's for homeland security and doesn't apply to them.. that is probably the case, but it's certainly at risk of being corrupted in the future

I can't see any conspiracy in this - he felt compelled to release this information in the public interest, for better or for worse.

Thing is that that in this case he behaved very strange. As he contacted newspapers and media corporations in such a way that everyone knew about him, all details for months. And all such outlets have certain policies about natinal security, so this information become known to NSA in seconds.

As I said, information were presented in the form that can be consumed by average person having few minutes before TV. And this information, at best, can be called light slap.

The "global elite slapping the US and showing them their place" suggest the the "global elite" lost control and there is a government FOR the people in charge? Does not compute.

Nope, it does not mean that anyone lost or gained control. Just different groups have different interests.

This story somewhat reminds me of the case of Christopher Boyce (see the movie "Falcon and the Snowman" if you're not familiar with him). The differences are he hasn't sold his information (as far as we know) and he managed to flee the country. Now the US can bully, threaten and bribe world nations. I wonder what deal Old Man Biden cut with Ecuador?? I say leave the guy alone. As Vitaliy suggests, any government that is "shocked" by the so-called "revelation" that we're spying on them is either naive, grandstanding for PR, or both!

Well looks, like slowly is coming out what was obvious: more and more intelligence services are involved in spying everybody. Thats why the EU also is not really protesting against anything. They just stand by foot to the US - violating human rights. The most pervers thing is to pretend, this is protection about terrorists. Its all about global control. Resources. Power. Yesterday Obama killed another 17 people in Pakistan with his evil drones - violating human rights - who is the terrorist? Who wouldn't stand up and fight against this evil power to revenge a terrorist killing of his whole family? This is an undeclared war against the people on world scale.