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The big question is what Russia has to gain from this. Is it just to troll the US?
Perhaps you weren't alive or old enough to pay attention back when Russia ballet dancers/athletes/et. al. would come to the U. S. for the Russian Nutcracker Ballet tour, then ask for asylum. Or maybe your country-that-is-not-the-US didn't make a big deal of it, but it would be all over the news about how some ballet performer seeks asylum from The Evil Empire(tm). Of course the person would seek asylum in the U. S., The World's Choice for Freedom(R).

And now Russia has a chance to turn those tables on the U. S.? I'm kind of disappointed that it took them this long to execute the obvious play.

It’s an easy PR win. The US behaves like a petulant child, and Russia can come off like the benevolent country protecting freedom. That seems like an extremely easy decision to make.
Never thought I'd need to lecture HN about Occam's Razor: Permanent residency is a status for foreign citizens, who have been residing in the country permanently i.e. living there for a long time (e.g. 7 years) and might stay indefinitely. Rather than applying for a visa renewal every year, it saves time and money to grant those people a permanent residency.
It costs them nothing, yeah just PR.

I doubt there's anything they 'get' from permanent residency vs not. Beyond PR, I doubt they've been waiting to get whatever they want from him up until today ;)

Whatever discussions with him they wanted to have likely concluded LONG ago.

I know almost no one on HN wants to hear anything bad about Snowden, but Greenwald has stated that Snowden has leaked some information out of self preservation. We can't rule out the fact that Snowden has given information to the Russian government.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150704033557/https://twitter.c...

By granting Snowden asylum, Russia paints the USA as anti-free speech and pro-surveillance.
By giving asylum to near #1 target of US establishment they can prove to all kind of corrupt politicians, dictators (or just plain military criminals and terrorists) who serve Russia interests that they able to protect them from US too.
Presumably it applies a floor on what your life will be like if you whistleblow (or betray, depending on views) against the US, thereby encouraging more such actions.

Just part of normal spycraft then.

The more unfaltering facts uncovered about US the better for Russia. They also like to point to US to justify actions within the country: COPM is justified by NSA surveillance. They see Snowden as their guy and protect him.
It basically costs them nothing. It is a thumb in the eye of supposed freedom of the press/whistleblowers protected/good guys mythos of the USA. Here we have the supposed "bad guys, enemy of Team USA" housing a citizen and giving him sanctuary because all he tried to do was let the truth be known about unConstitutional activities and violations of the TLA government departments.
Russia has everything to gain from a divided us, because a divided us is less capable of opposing Russia. Classic divide and conquer.
that kind of trolling is called diplomacy. US will refrain from talking officially in international venues about freedom of speech in russia, for fear of being embarassed by this story.
Yes
They are signalling that they are willing to protect future leakers of embarrassing information.
What do they get out of protecting political dissidents from unfair persecution in their home country? I don't know, why not ask America from the 1900's?
Snowden is "Exhibit A" for how the US is hypocritical about opposition to surveillance states. Any time the US wants to try to shame Russia at the UN Security Council, Putin can just put a picture of their newest Moscovite up on the projector.
I'd think this isn't just a PR move, but his technical knowledge would probably be an asset to Russia, or any country for that matter. He'd be the perfect candidate to create a thriving startup, increase Russia's GDP, and create thousands of jobs. Or assist Russia's government in identifying threats from foreign cyber-spying.

What country wouldn't want highly skilled and knowledgeable people in STEM to immigrate, thrive, and boost the country's economy? Oh right, the US.

If granted a pardon by the current or future US president, is there any chance that Russia will not let him return home?
Considering that this is mostly about Russia doing a victory lap, I don't think so.

If they tried to keep him there it would kind of spoil the whole thing and tip the lie of their supposed benevolence.

Much better for the PR to let him go and wish him luck. Probably even have a send off ceremony, give him some kind of medal?

Russia doesn't prevent it's citizens from traveling. What prevents it's citizens from traveling is getting a VISA to the destination country. This is granted through the local Embassy or Consolidate of destination country requiring a VISA.

Permanent residency is not citizenship. Granting Permanent Residency will give him some sort of stability knowing he will not have to renew his status every year (or so) and be able to participate more fully in Russian society (ex: Employment, services, travel, Pension, etc).

Edward Snowden will always be a US Citizen in the eyes of the USA unless he takes steps to renounce his citizenship.

I think that's unknowable / up to the whims of Russia.
Publicly Russia treated Snowden just as any (high-level) refugee, there is no value in keeping him in the country, and he himself didn't reveal any discomfort staying there. So there is no reason to believe they would interfere with his decisions.

In fact, if they granted him citizenship, then they might prevent him from traveling because he would become their responsibility in case he gets arrested abroad.

Really really happy and glad to see this news, I hope Snowden lives a better life in there! Kudos to you, our hero!
Agreed although in the last thing I heard from Edward Snowden he was on the Joe Rogan podcast and sounded pretty unhappy with his general living situation in Russia.
I'm glad you are willing him a better life, but don't really expect it is even possible. No. Especially for a Snowden's kind of person. It's more like a prison with free walks. You should make your govt to pardon him and clear from all charges.
I'm happy for Snowden, he seems like a decent person willing to take a stand for what is right and face all the negative outcomes from exposing crimes within an organisation.
Kind of weird to say he "faced all the negative outcomes" when he fled the US to avoid the most major of the potential negative outcomes.
I seriously hope that the President gives Snowden a pardon even it as a dick move on his way out.

His releases were far less dangerous than Manning but I think his problem is no compelling story to distract from his actions and he did step on a lot of toes. Toes that deserved to be stomped.

I upvoted you because you merely posted your opinion, with which I agree. His actions did result in loss of trust in the US from foreign governments and people but I think his main intent was to alert the American people to what their government is doing. I consider him a patriot and my only regret is that he was trapped in Russia though I'm not sure his plans to travel to South America would have panned out.
> His releases were far less dangerous than Manning

Manning wasn't pardoned, though.

Manning was granted clemency based largely on how the military treated her in detention.

Something to be thankful. I am sure he would rather come home; but I don't see the that changing with Biden as he hasn't said anything.
Ed, Just don't stay for TEA.

Look forward to your return.

Just a PR stunt to give something else to talk about after the botched Navalny assasination. Changing topics. So Putin may look like a good guy.
I'm still disappointed that no country in Europe would give him asylum.
Bless him for telling us what had been suspect for so many years.

There is no illusion of privacy anymore, even if a company jams ads down your throat.

If things need to be private, you need to be taking extreme precautions.

The Greatest Country On Earth™ has its citizens flee to the Empire Of Evil™ just so they can speak a simple truth without being imprisoned or called a traitor. The incompetent bureaucrats in charge of Snowden's prosecution made him a martyr instead. Those people are massive fuckups even at playing bad guys and you trust them to operate an Orwellian surveillance and suppression system? Good luck with that.
Happy for Snowden, but I hope that if Biden wins, he'd pardon Snowden - following Obama's footsteps in commuting Chelsea Manning. Although it might be harder since Biden to the Right of Obama, and given how hawkish, war-mongering, neo-libs have cozied up to Biden, and commuting Snowden isn't really possible since he has never been tried in court.
Is it still popular opinion that he seeked asylum in Russia?

I feel most people don’t realize that he was on transit to Ecuador when the Russians told him passport had apparently been expired. He never planned to stay there.

You have to wonder about the impact his revelations had on the Russian agents operating against the United States. At minimum, permanent residency is a nice way to say "Thank you".
Due to the extent of mil intelligence docs stolen, and since the domestic programs deployed were lawful at the time, whistleblower is a disingenuious title for Mr. Snowden.

Putting aside domestic disclosures, it's difficult to see how the scope of stolen materials merits praise or euphemistic titles. Snowden is a fugitive. As it pertains to the majority of what was stolen, he is not a whistleblower, but a thief.

Had Snowden simply revealed unconstitutional domestic mass surveillance programs, perhaps he could be pigeonholed as a whistleblower.

Please make a list of all foreign investors in the NSA. Then make a list of foreign investors in American big tech companies. Consider the possibility that the traitor Snowden went rogue in Switzerland, and planned a ruse to wind up in Russia from, at least, 2012. A trained spy has the ability to fabricate a detailed, plausible cover story, and this typically comprises the majority of preparation for such an operation.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how Snowden could fancy himself as a patriot when he leaked the blueprints to our global surveillance operations. This is pure gaslighting, since nobody wants unnecessary mouth breathers. It's the ultimate leveraging of civil liberties to support internal strife and division between our institutions and the civilians served by those institutions.

Russia keeps Edward Snowden around primarily to support Active Measures. There'a a cognitive dissonance going on, one that particularly appeals to tech idealists, an idealism that most of us geeky civilians possess to some degree. What would Russia do if the roles were reversed, in terms of controlled propaganda, and retribution?