you talk about china? of course people in china want to leave. and, lets be honest, they have NO IDEA what the hell the US is really about. even when they move here, they stay together and don't mix (its true even though you may not like this fact) and after 5 years here, they will still not really know what the US is truly about. its a romantic view of what the marketing wants you to believe. it used to be true decades ago, but now, I would not suggest coming here.

now, lets talk europe. if you are in europe, you are already in a modern free society. why ruin that and come to the US?

seriously. the US has nothing over europe if you are already in europe and not used to living in the US. europe has jobs, good lifestyle, freedom, etc. I'm not seeing a good reason to give that up and move here.

I'm in my 50's and spent all my life in the US. I have traveled abroad (unlike most americans) and I do know what I'm talking about. I am not planning on leaving, but I can still see that for newcomers, it would not be a great place and where you are is probably already better than what you will FIND here once you get here.

the storybook is a lie. it was great marketing, but its still a lie. don't come here expecting the land of opportunity. unless you are already rich, white, christian and well connected.

no, I agree with jeremiah.

we have failed. we are a failure. some may not see it, but we will implode sooner or later and then, all hell will break loose.

there is NO plan for sustainability, here. we keep spending on wars and hostility and yet we let 'home repairs' go undone. for decades, now, we have done this.

we are the country of 'dumbing down'; we have the worst healthcare system in the world; we let people go homeless if they lose their jobs and can't find a new one quickly enough; we have crime rates that are astronomical; we have half of the country thinking the world is a few thousand years old and that half also denies science whenver possible.

we are no shining example of what a good country is, anymore. our politics are a mess, our spies are ruining WORLD WIDE security for everyone and we are the main cause of this kind of escalation.

don't even get me started on the work environment here. very little maternity leave, no paternity leave, a recent push for no sick time or vacation time (they lump it all together) and we also have the shortest amount of vacation time compared to all the modern countries. our corporations work the workers to death and then dispose of them, IF you can even GET a job in the US (h1b, yes! born here, sorry.)

there are many good things about the US, don't get me wrong. but if you are not already 'stuck' here, I would certainly NOT entertain coming here, moving here, doing business here and certainly not becoming a citizen here!

(of course, I expect to be added to some watchlist given my comments here. and that's yet another reason to avoid the US. you can't trust the US anymore. we don't even follow our own laws uniformly. if you are rich, you have all you want; if you are not rich, then a 2nd set of laws will apply to you).

don't. just don't. we used to be great. maybe we will again in the future, but right now, its a disaster here.

what's to be gained by having US citizenship, when you both are living in europe?

I am born and raised (and living) in the US, but if I was not born here or already a citizen, I'm not sure I see any real benefit to being part of the US. my view has changed a lot over the last 20 years (world events and all), and so I'm not sure that being 'prisoner of uncle sam' (our version of POMMY, lol) yields a positive benefit anymore.

enjoy your life over there. in fact, I would not even travel here if you don't have to.

I'm pretty sure that the next time I fly across int'l borders, if I even bring any electronic devices with me (I'll probably mail them, in fact) - the ones I would bring would be dummy devices. ones I could afford to lose and ones with 'happy happy, joy joy' bullshit on it.

you want to see my login? ok. here you go. that's A login. and as far as you know, its 'my' login. can I go now? thanks. have a nice day. ossifer.

(sheesh. freedom to travel securely with your private papers is a long-gone idea. thank god we can still encrypt our devices and mail them physically or just transfer files around online).

I see lots of business travelers taking their laptops with them on flights. does no one seem to be annoyed that you are put into a tough situation if you have corporate info on there, your login is NOT supposed to EVER be given out to anyone and yet the country you are entrying is forcing you to compromise your company's security. I wonder if you worked for a big enough company, if they would go to bat for you, if you got stuck at a border and refused to let them break into your corp laptop?

I wanted to do some john belushi'ing of my money, but I wasn't sure if I should use pollen or dark sunglasses.

(yeah, right; 'why not both?')

interesting. I have not seen this but I heard about it.

a few years ago, I had an onsite interview (full day, quite exhausting) at nvidia and it was for a group that was doing the networking stuff for this whole architecture. they pitched the idea of network streaming from their own hosted supercomputer mainframes to users 'thin consoles'. lots of questions were asked of me about networking and optimization and even more about c++ corner cases (stuff that I rarely run into, but I guess they love 'gotcha!' programming questions, sigh).

I never got the job. it did look interesting, but they went with someone else.

maybe I don't feel so bad, if they really did botch the thing up. maybe they needed networking people more than they realized. of course, it was all young kids at the interview table and, of course, they 'know everything' (nvidia people do have a problem with ego; that came across pretty loud and clear during the interview).

perhaps they'll get it right in some followon product. its not a simple problem to solve, to be honest, but they sure do have enough money and manpower to throw at almost any problem.

that's just a pen name.

real name is pussy galore.

I was recently watching 'moscow on the hudson' and thinking to myself, wow, we have not exactly switched sides, but we have become much more like the old dreaded russia than we ever thought we'd become.

If the DOJ makes a promise in a legal contract, it will have to follow that contract.

no one who has been paying attention the last few decades will believe this.

the US does not even follow its own laws. lets start with that quaint old paper, the constitution. its against the C to spy on citizens without cause. yet, they do it, they are bold about it and they show no signs of changing. each day, they break major laws doing this.

that should be enough for you to mistrust the government and how it applies its laws.

its a salad bar situation; they pick and choose what favors them and only follow what gives them the edge.

the US is a has-been. world-wide, we are a laughing stock. I HATE THAT, as I was born and raised here, but I do realize that we've lost all credibility and it will be a very long time coming before it returns.

like other have guessed, he's very likely NOT seriously thinking of returning.

but, there may be something to be gained by ACTING like you are willing to return, to see what deals the gov is willing to make.

all info you get is useful. whatever they disclose, could be useful, now or later.

I'm 99% sure he has no plans to return. he's smart and there's something else he's got in mind, out of this. dollars to borscht, I would bet on it.

fwiw, do you think any of the 5 eyes (uk, oz, etc) would give him a fair trial?

no such luck!

any time you piss off the spymasters this much, you won't usually live very long, or have a good life. he ran for his life, very literally.

there cannot be a fair trail because you insulted the king and the king is very very mad at you.

to be fair, the women I've met from russia and ukraine were amazing knock-out beauties!

for some reason, I get a lot of 'you might know this person' on linked-in and they often are women from ukraine (more so than russia, for some reason). 95 times out of a 100, they are model-quality in their looks.

so, being in that region of the world could have its good points... ;)

shill detected!

"damage he did"...

you just gave youself away. the US did damage. he just reported it!

another one for the old killfile. thanks for IDing yourself as a stupid government shill.

we can clearly see who is being paid to write dissenting posts, here. its not hard.

he knew enough to be well aware of the fact that the government will not play fair, no matter what.

the fact that you THINK the gov would play fair speaks badly about you. or, exposes your agenda as a shill.

well, another shill to add to my 'sponsored morons' list. welcome!

I'm thinking that the US is simply wearing him down. they can wait, they have time. but he's living in a kind of prison right now, anyway. his freedom is highly restricted. plus, well, russia is a shit-hole. who in their right mind would want to STAY there if you've known and grown up with better?

still, I would never trust this 'agreement'. the US has a hard-on for fucking him over and there will be NO fair trail, you can bet on that.

the US makes up its own rules and it would take an extremely lucky person to walk out of such a situation alive, in one piece and not be always watching over your shoulder.

his life is mostly over, as it is. really sad to have to say that, but living in the US will always be a 'look over your shoulder' kind of life. he will be hunted the rest of his life, if not by government thugs, then by CITIZEN thugs who think they are being 'patriotic' (dammit!).

there is no good move for him. I wish him the best, he's my ultimate hero, but I don't see this ending well at all ;(