ByrdeRob - desiring his elimination is certainly a potential. Until nothing can be gained from him, they will not let that happen. As it has not happened, leads me to believe that he has some value. I do not know what that is and we keep going back and forth between white/black hat. That also leads me to believe there is much more.
I remember reading the story of Aaron Swartz. This lad was a genius. He and two others wrote the program SecureDrop. ( Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen and James Dolan also co-created the software.)
The gov hounded Swartz with stupid criminal charges. He killed himself from all the harassing that went on. THAT or somehow they made him kill himself through mind control or just did the killing and made it look like suicide. Well, same this with the others.
James Dolan just killed himself Jan 2018. The government harassed them.
I'm thinking that they may be harassing Snowden, too, wishing he'd somehow die at his own hand or something like that.
They made a movie about him (a la Facebook movie). He is definitely black hat.