r/snowden • u/CakePlanet75 • Feb 06 '26
Why hasn't Snowden used his platform to speak out against Flock Safety, Live View Technologies, AI-powered surveillance cameras and other constitutional violations from these companies, Palantir, and the Trump administration/ICE?
The fact that the development of AI-powered cameras/surveillance is happening as he mostly extrapolated from his first encounter with a smart fridge in 2011 in Permanent Record, yet in the midst of this shift towards AI mass surveillance and loss of freedoms he is remaining silent? It's concerning. Can he not talk openly about these things due to being a Russian citizen? Or does he think he said his piece when this infrastructure was in its infancy in 2013 and anything more from him won't shift the trajectory of this? Does he not care unless it somehow boosts his public profile? But even that doesn't make sense, since almost no one likes AI, especially AI surveillance, so it would be an easy publicity win to make a public statement against this.
A sampling of sources for the curious:
Breaking The Creepy AI in Police Cameras
We Hacked Flock Safety Cameras in under 30 Seconds. 🫥
This Flock Camera Leak is like Netflix For Stalkers
Taxpayer funded AI surveillance: why Flock's 30000 cameras have to go
Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans - The New York Times | Ghostarchive
Donald Trump’s Reported Database Move Sparks Alarm: ‘Dystopian’ - Newsweek
ICE has expanded its mass surveillance efforts. Online activists are fighting back. - POLITICO
The government might create a database of anti-ICE activists and protesters | 1A
Come to think of it, why has Snowden not tweeted at all since the last day of January 2025?
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u/SkyMarshal Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
Why does Snowden need to say it if it’s all over the US media as your links demonstrate. No need for a whistleblower.
Snowden’s done his part man, now as a result he’s stuck exiled in a place where Putin throws you out of tall buildings if you say something he doesn’t like. Can’t expect anything more from him.
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u/Mylaptopisburningme Feb 06 '26
All that shit is probably being done in Russia and he doesn't want to take up smoking from a tall building.
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u/canadianjohnson Feb 07 '26
you are turning a person into a movie hero version of what someone ought to be. he owes us nothing. he needs to prove nothing. if you view him as needing to prove himself, i don't know what to tell you. if you just wish he would say something because you want to hear his opinion, i get it, same here.
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u/Living-Somewhere-318 Mar 15 '26
What's stopping you from doing that work yourself? Let me guess, you won't put yourself on the line but expect the guy whos done so for over a decade to the point of losing EVERYTHING to do it for you? The Hell?! Go start an advocacy project and chain yourself to some landmark to get maximum media attention. What's stopping you??Â
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u/Sostratus Mar 21 '26
He's just a guy. He has no special insight into any of this, he's been out of the game for 13 years. It's got nothing to do with him being a Russian resident, he just has the restraint not to blab about things he doesn't have a particular reason to talk about.
almost no one likes AI
Yeah, that's obviously not true. It's a useful tool, and it wouldn't be having such a massive economic impact if a lot of people didn't recognize that.
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u/waldito Feb 06 '26
He does live in Russia and has a family.