He told the truth about the US spying on it's citizens. I got nothing respect for him.

Seeing how little we actually did, I often wonder if he regrets coming forward.

Yes, he’s a hero And he shouldn’t be punished for calling out the he found. Hope he’s having a great day

What Snowden did was objectively good, and he did so at great personal cost, but you should be cautious about making any living person your hero. His politics seem to lean closer to libertarian nut-job than anything else, and it's very possible he will disappoint you in the future. Case in point, Glen Greenwald broke the Snowden leaks, and I considered him one of my heros for a time,.but these days he sounds more like Tucker Carlson than anyone else. The point is, admire heroic actions, but don't make people your heroes.

It's hard to say he's a hero, but, what he did was undoubtedly heroic.

Guy gave up his life to show Americans (and the world) the truth, and we as a society just ignored him.

Damn right he is. He risked his safety and his life (and still does) to make sure we all know more about how the feds are spying on their own citizens.

He's a true hero of the American People, that one, make no mistake.

Yes. Unequivocally.

Yes, 100 percent. The fact that he's in exile in Russia is because he cannot get a fair trial in the US. He was never a Russian asset, he's a whistleblower being unfairly persecuted

I think he blew up his life to reveal something the general public probably should be aware of, but ultimately didn't care about.

Idk if it was heroic, but it certainly was interesting how he released the info slowly to get catch the government in numerous lies attempting to downplay the truth of the matter. One of the Obama administration's biggest blights.

I consider him a true American patriot.

Nothing is more patriotic than wanting your country to do better.

Implementing drag net surveillance was a terrible decision, and exposing it was truly heroic.

Sadly, Snowden is now in the clutches of Russia who can and does use him as their pawn.

It is easy to say that this is where the EU should have stepped up and given him sanctuary, but that would have been less than ideal for him.

1. Europe and the US have close ties with police and law enforcement, while no EU nation would hand their own citizens over to the US, they would absolutely hand over a US citizen to the US if requested.
2. During the war on terror, Europe was complicit in plenty of illegal renditions of their own citizens to the CIA, they were then sent to illegal black sites and tortured, plenty of these persons have since been proven innocent.

Given the high profile of Snowden's leak, the US still want's him back, and back then even more so, had Snowden gone to the EU, he most likely would have been extradited, kidnapped or even assassinated.

By staying in Russia that was a far lower risk to him.

conservatives have a wierd obssesion of him being a"traitor" guess exposing conservative hypocrisy is traitorous.

His demand to return to the US and give himself in was if he got a public (non military) trial.

The government's offer under Obama was that the only guarantee they would provide was that he wouldn't be subject to torture.

Even if he had negligible effect on state level surveillance, the documents he shared provided some insanely valuable perspective into the capability and power of nation states in the cybersecurity space.

Anything the NSA is or was doing can also be applied to other major countries like China or Russia, and the capability + compute power has only grown in size since.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_disclosures

EDIT: Also in true American foreign interest memery, the top two most heavily surveilled states are Iran and Pakistan.

mixed but yes. the govt made an example of him and from the popular standpoint he was serving the people. he also helped GDPR so thats factored in. currently the police state is still winning.

I always thought he was. I always knew too that he's never going to get a fair trial and that he had to do what was necessary to avoid being extradited.

He did a huge favor for the american masses, who were obliviously unaware as to how much of an extent that they were being spied on and how their privacy was exploited. Anybody who still calls him a traitor to this day, besides the government anyways, are those who truly cannot grasp or refuse the reality this man unveiled to them.

I do see people and people like Luigi as true patriots. They have done things, that no American has the guts to pull off. The American populace, just largely takes the constant raping of their rights by their government and fear them. It should be the other way around.

Yes, and I wish him well. Be careful, if you're thinking of anything.

Fuck ya he is, the world needs more of him. Doing something for the greater good when greed and selfishness is not your primary motive 95% of the time makes you a hero in my book.

Nice try, NSA

Absolutely.

Yeah, I wish he didn't end up in Russia, but it's understandable.

I got in trouble in school for putting free Kevin stuff on my binders, backpack, etc

Hero? From the stance of exposing things that should have been public knowledge, absolutely.

Oh yes. It's a shame he didn't have the opportunity to leak the Epstein Files.

The embodiment of "not all heroes wear capes". Unless he did or does.