NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is stuck in Russia, only being able to reach out to the world by video link. The same goes for Wikileaks Julian Assange, in limbo at Ecuadors embassy in London. Journalist and web activist Barret Brown spends his time in custody, waiting to be sentenced after looking too close into outsourcing of US national security matters.
This is in a way better for the US government than just throwing people in jail.
If you compare this to the case of whistleblower Chelsea Manning–her 35 year prison sentence for exposing the truth is clearly a stain on US reputation.
It’s more convenient for government to corner trouble makers elsewhere in the world or to constrain their actions with seemingly endless legal proceedings. It might not silence them–but it will hamper their work seriously. And you can (normally) do this without enraging human rights activists, hacktivists, the media and the general public too much.
It all bears a chilling resemblance to the way the Soviets treated many of their dissidents during the Cold War.
/ HAX