General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSnowden refused to meet with Ponomarev??
The Russian lawmaker kicked out of the country speaks out about Putin, Snowden, and a Russian collapseIn President Vladimir Putin's quest to amass more power, the Russian government has become increasingly corrupt and ever more dangerous for critics and political activists.
Case in point the suspicious murder of Putin opponent Boris Nemtsov as he walked home across a busy bridge in Moscow almost two weeks ago.
We recently sat down with Ilya Ponomarev a representative in the lower house of the Russian parliament who has been barred from Russia for his opposition to Putin and got his take on what's going on in Russia.
Ponomarev believes that the people who killed Nemtsov were affiliated with one of Russia's state security forces, and he says Nemtsov's murder was meant as a "message to Russian elites ... and a message to the West."
BI: Russia is obviously a surveillance state. That being said, America has its own conundrums: NSA phone tapping, Edward Snowden, CIA torture tapes. How is the United States different from Russia in this regard?
IP: I think that there are excesses that exist in all societies. I won't say it's normal to have them, but it's natural to have them. I'm watching very closely ... what Snowden has done. I don't know him personally. I wanted to talk to him, but all of the security people didn't allow me to. But I think that he took the wrong approach to a very right thing which he was doing. Just the implementation was wrong. There was a clear platform to what he was doing, although of course that there were some mistakes made.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ilya-ponomarev-interview-2015-3#ixzz3U1G8UbVq
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And just who *ARE* the "security people" controlling access to Snowden, I wonder?
stone space
(6,498 posts)Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Snowden can tell his security people who to let through...If someone else controls these security people, who is it?
stone space
(6,498 posts)But doing both simultaneously in the same OP seems a little odd to me.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Somehow I doubt that.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)But I think you already knew that.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)that means Snowden wanted to meet with a Russian dissident (for the first time) and his security prevented it? Is that where you're going with this?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,445 posts)It means the dissident wanted to meet Snowden, but the security people stopped him.
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