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The biggest hurdle at this point is, what does any European government have to gain from granting Snowden asylum? He was already granted asylum in Russia, so h

The biggest hurdle at this point is, what does any European government have to gain from granting Snowden asylum? He was already granted asylum in Russia, so he's presumably safe at the moment. I'm sure it'd be nicer to live in France than Russia, but that's no reason for France to spend political capital on Snowden. If a European government was staunchly against government surveillance overreach, maybe they could do it as a statement in support of their values. But why worsen diplomacy with the US (and the Five Eyes nations) when you don't have to? Any country against out-of-control gov't surveillance can simply mind their own affairs in that spirit without getting involved with the Snowden issue.

java-man 7y ago
Somehow this comment triggered the image of Chamberlain waving the paper in front of the crowds in 1938 [0]. I know, my country is far from being Germany at that time, but we do have a very colorful character at the top, exhibiting somewhat similar tendencies. Think of the chances a "country against out-of-control gov't surveillance" has against the power of a certain three letter agencies that get an order to pressure the said country. Think of [1] [2] https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/munich-agreement-appeasement-crisis-chamberlain-hitler/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/munich-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...
hollerith 7y ago
>The biggest hurdle at this point is, what does any European government have to gain from granting Snowden asylum? Preventing the Russians from extracting information from Snowden that they haven't extracted already.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Why would France care about this? Unless Snowy had secrets about their country, why would anyone care? That's a lot of political capital spent with little return. Plus, Snowden already blabbed about what the US was doing, why should they think that he hasn't already spilled the beans about other countries?

java-man 7y ago

Somehow this comment triggered the image of Chamberlain waving the paper in front of the crowds in 1938 [0]. I know, my country is far from being Germany at that time, but we do have a very colorful character at the top, exhibiting somewhat similar tendencies. Think of the chances a "country against out-of-control gov't surveillance" has against the power of a certain three letter agencies that get an order to pressure the said country. Think of [1] [2] https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/munich-agreement-appeasement-crisis-chamberlain-hitler/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/munich-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...

hollerith 7y ago

>The biggest hurdle at this point is, what does any European government have to gain from granting Snowden asylum? Preventing the Russians from extracting information from Snowden that they haven't extracted already.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
Why would France care about this? Unless Snowy had secrets about their country, why would anyone care? That's a lot of political capital spent with little return. Plus, Snowden already blabbed about what the US was doing, why should they think that he hasn't already spilled the beans about other countries?