Interesting assertion. How about some evidence to support it? Obscuring disagreement with the government to avoid punishment is different from cheating for gain.

As far as I know, every communist country had oppressive secret police that engaged in many forms of repression. It is a practical necessity of the system. Not so capitalism, so if you want to attribute the cheating to the Stasi and repression it is related to the communist / capitalist divide.

Lets pick a specific day: April 1, 1940

On that day Bletchley Park was reading the "email" of the German government, having broken the Enigma code - a fragile achievement that could fairly easily be foiled, perhaps permanently .... if the Germans knew about it. As a result of breaking that code, and keeping it secret that it had broken the code, the rights of the German government and people were trampled. The trampling of the rights of the German government and people in that fashion meant that Britain would not be starved into submission by submarine warfare, and ultimately the Allies would win the war. That meant that the trampling of the rights, including the right to live, of the people of Western and Eastern Europe by the then Nazi German government would come to an end.

Beyond that, the ability of the UK and US to read Enigma type machine encrypted messages carried over into the Cold War (which at various points nearly flared into a shooting war, including nuclear war) and played a role in helping the West obtain the intelligence necessary to defeat Soviet Communism which killed far more people than the Nazis did.

So, would-be traitor, is that still a good day for treason for you, knowing that Britain would likely have been starved into submission in WW2, the Nazis might have held on, and Soviet Communism might have lived on indefinitely? Many millions more would have been killed, several genocides would likely have been completed, we might still be faced by both Nazi and Soviet regimes, but nobody would be trampling on the rights of the German people by reading their encrypted mail. But I take it you're OK with that since it is "any day," right?

Just curious.

Isn't there an April 1st coming next year? And the year after that? What battles might be lost then?

So, who will be auditing Snowden's code? I wouldn't even consider using anything he wrote without independent third party audits .... lots of audits of the code, design, algorithms, everything. And no binaries that he builds.

Imagine the evasive power of the dual or triple functionality achieved by some of the Obfuscated C content entries combined with the subtle designs of Russian government cryptographers. No threat there, no sir.

Prove it. Prove that their actions are unconstitutional. It is often claimed, but the proof never seems to come. Where is the final court decision that says so? Where is the final court decision that says the Congress, the Executive branch, and all prior court decisions are wrong? Or is it "proved" by assertion only, proof by rhetoric?

As is common on Slashdot your histrionics are popular, but it is pure demagoguery. Who are these "millions" whose "well being" you claim are at risk? Hmmm? Who? How is their “well being” at risk?

And what freedom is in danger of not “surviving?”

Your entire post is rubbish and it is a mark of how rare thoughtful moderation is that it is so high.

Quoting the news is trolling? I think somebody doesn't understand moderation.

Since it sounds like he really hasn't been in touch with her it looks more like he dumped his girlfriend. Why hasn't he invited his girlfriend to Russia?
He has stated that the only reason he took his "cushy job" was to steal classified documents:
      Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence
Snowden couldn't be found in the airport for long stretches of time. Perhaps he was resting in a Russian supplied suite?
The simple truth is we know next to nothing about Snowden's living conditions in Russia, other than he is being protected by the FSB, who has no doubt had many chats with him, and his spokesman is on the FSB's public committee and a friend of Putin.

You'd have a great point if there was any reason we could trust Snowden, a man who lied to friends, family, girlfriend, coworkers and the government to steal top secret documents and flee the country. The fact that he as leaked top secret documents doesn't make him trustworthy.

Obviously.

Now can you pretend that George Washington was a spymaster that ran a spy ring that spied on both the British and other colonists, and that Benjamin Franklin opened the mail of other colonists for intelligence purposes to aid the war effort? Well, you don't have to pretend, they actually did it.

You seem to "know" a lot of things that aren't true.

The gathering of phone metadata by NSA may be disagreeable, but it isn't a "general warrant." Since a court is supervising it and Congress has authorized it, you seem to be on weak ground as to what is constitutional. I disagree with you since you are making a variety of fundamental errors, including the suggestion that I would rather be living in North Korea.

I'm still waiting for this list of "fundamental freedoms" that have been lost.

You should look into the history of privacy in the Constitution. It is just one more thing you don't have a good handle on.

The Right of Privacy

Hmmm, looks like a (-1 inconvenient question) mod.

Let's look at what I wrote:

No moon or cheese there, and you have no answer for it, hence the name calling by you. Ta ta.

And you'd be wrong. Pay up. (Donate to charity of your choice.)

Civil rights prosecutions or lawsuits often take place against private individuals or organizations.

So you don't have an argument? Just call names? Typical.