this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
884 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
60294 readers
3023 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I can see how nobody blew the whistle, leave his cushy job, prepare for 3-5 years of juristical drama exposing your name and image only to spend the rest of your live living in check notes… Russia.
Obligatory reminder that Snowden intended to go to Ecuador and only got stuck in Russia because that's where he was when the US revoked his passport.
Another reminder that France, Spain, and Italy forced the Bolivian president's plane to land in Austria because they thought Snowden was on it.
I knew a guy--Ola Bini--that fled the US, and emigrated to Ecuador, because he was afraid that he was going to be targeted by the US gov't. I think he made it less than two years in Ecuador before he was arrested for 'hacking' Ecuador gov't computers; he was jailed during the entire judicial process, almost a decade, before all the charges were dropped, and he was released and deported to Sweden. Best guess is that despite not having a extradition treaty with the US, the US still put a ton of pressure on Ecuador to detain him. (Maybe he actually committed crimes? IDK, it's possible, but all charges being dropped after all that time in jail without a trial seems iffy. )
Point is, there aren't a lot of places you can go if the US wants to fuck your life. Russia and China are the best options, and both are not great.