When committing espionage...

[cthulu2016]

The idea is to give secret information from nation X to nation Y without X knowing about it.

The information is way more valuable if X doesn't know Y has it.

Something like a design for a bomb is useful in and of itself, yet would still be something a nation would want exclusively if feasible. Intel about how nation X conducts intel is not like a bomb plan. It is very, very, very much something you want to know without everyone knowing, and without everyone knowing you know it.

For instance, the WWII Enigma code had to be gotten in a way that Germany did not know we had it. The idea was not to put Germany to the expense and hassle of changing their codes. It was that they would keep using the same code that we had. Same reason the old-time spies would always photograph documents with that little classic spy-camera. So they could put the documents back in the file cabinet. So nobody would know their contents had gotten away. (If you thought it was because he would be searched leaving the building... woudn't the searchers find the camera? Aha!)

And when your agent has a bunch of stuff on a thumb drive that the USA doesn't even know he has you do not say, "Good work comrade. Now drop it off at the Washington Post. We'll read it there."

Anyone who thinks that Snowden was a Chinese spy at the time that he dumped documents to the Washington Post and the Guardian is just not thinking very hard.

Seriously... China requested that their agent tell secrets he had gotten for China to the entire world... like, in the newspaper.

Because China has no mail service? No embassies? China is not on Gmail?

I make no assumptions about Snowden's stability or wits but I know that he was not a fucking Chinese spy, and so does everyone else. The claim is made for the shear fun of saying ridiculous things.

As to whether he was played by China in some way subsequently... beats me. Sure... it's a theory if one wants a theory.

But the whole Manchurian Hipster thing is chump-bait.

[flamingdem]

1. Not that he was a spy, but he arrived with offerings and was

prepared to make a devils bargain for his hipster beliefs.

I suspect he was over his head. He might have been dumb enough to think HK was separate from Big Daddy.

He might have believed that he had true support there, but his laptops were tapped no doubt.

A juicy plum like that doesn't get by the likes of China.

Not with their level of competitiveness and desperation and hubris.

So, not a spy but an enabler of Chinese interests to save his own hide (and gain fame, prestige, more polldancers
whatever drives a 29 year old to do what he did)

[cui bono]

5. He offered them info?

And how do you know his laptops were tapped no doubt? I just read the vague "belief" of two intelligence officers who said they believed the Chinese had drained his laptops, you have a source that says it actually happened?

[OilemFirchen]

2. You can count me as among those who never bought the Chinese Agent theory.

And add me to the new group who believes he suffers from a Napoleon complex. Throw the Civil Libertarian cum Journalistic Sensation Glenn Greenwald on to the heap as well.

[okaawhatever]

3. You're ignoring a few things. First, it may have been that Snowden was about to be caught. There

were a few suggestions of that in the beginning. Another possible explanation is that he wasn't going to be kept past the 90 day training phase.
You state, "Seriously...China requested that their agent tell secrets he had gotten for China to the entire world...like, in the newspaper." Snowden didn't reveal anything we had on China in the press. he claims to have taken thousands of pages of documents. The couple of programs he revealed to Greenwald and WaPo are only a few pages. Those programs had been reported before. Additionally, a computer is not like a file cabinet, in that, you can't put the papers back the way they were before and nobody notice. They leave trails on their hard drives.
Also, some of the biggest harm came to Obama during his negotiation with China over hacking at the Palm Desert summit. Obama finally had solid evidence of China's hacking, it's ties to the gov't, location of buildings where the hacking had originated, so on. That was the reason Obama had finally named China publicly as a state sponsor of cyber terrorism and cyber theft. The info was expected to be used to force China to stop (ha ha that never happens) or engage certain measures to prevent, track, etc. All of that went up in smoke when Snowden advertised his papers. It also greatly detracted from the summit itself. As a matter of fact, Snowden completely ignored all the Chinese incidents of hacking, as if they never do anything wrong. Look at who was shown favorably with Snowden's leaks. China and Russia. Who was made to look bad? Western powers. Snowden revealed hacking in London at the G-20 conference, but completely ignored the fact that the East had been caught doing it before.
Your theory that he isn't an agent for China because China would have wanted to keep him there and not let everyone know he was an agent only holds water if he could have continued to operate without the knowledge of his employers or the gov't. We don't know that. Also, his revealing his identity helped China significantly. China has a 2.2 billion dollar judgment through the courts from just one company they stole info from and tried to crash the company. I can't even begin to imagine what Obama had on them.
Whether Snowden was an agent is unknown, but your explanation for his not being one is over simplistic and fails to account for known info.

[John2]

8. You could

have summed this all up. You are mad at Snowden because he is a snitch. He couldn't keep a secret. Now you want revenge. You win some and you lose some. It just doesn't pay to lie.

[ljm2002]

4. "Manchurian Hipster"...

...that's a keeper!

Oh and I agree with your post too.

K&R

[JDPriestly]

6. Thanks.

[jmowreader]

7. How much experience with live spies do you have?

There are a LOT of reasons someone might become a spy. One big reason is revenge, which if he was about to get caught or was going to get fired before his probationary period was over would be a pretty good guess as to Snowden's motivation.

I think you've seen Men in Black. Remember the little speech Tommy Lee Jones made while chewing Will Smith's ass over displaying his alien gun? "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!" (Yeah, I looked it up and copied/pasted.) Think of the governments as the men in black. They KNOW every other country in the world is spying on them; this is why government radios have scramblers on them. But the citizens don't know about it. Now they do, and they're pissed. At us.

[sibelian]

9. Yes, it's insanely stupid.

However, several seem to have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

[bemildred]

10. Correct. That is WHY all this folly was kept secret.

Because if people knew about it they would make "adjustments" to prevent it. As they are now no doubt doing. So the whole project might as well just be thrown out.