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Snowden appeals to 15 countries for political asylum

159 points by simonbrown 13y ago

jgrahamc 13y ago
About an hour ago Glenn Greenwald tweeted this (https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/351730381478821888 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/351730381478821888): "NOTE: Snowden's leak is basically done. It's newspapers - not Snowden - deciding what gets disclosed and in what sequence." If that's true then Putin's condition that Snowden stop is easily met, or impossible to meet depending on how you read it.
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  I suspect Putin's ego is a bit too big to be defied on a technicality. I think that will be a problem.
  - pavs 13y ago
    Seriously, I would probably take Putin over Obama any-day, at-least he doesn't pretend to be a nice guy.
    - orblivion 13y ago
      I'm not sure, I feel like Obama pretends to be a nice guy because he sortof has to be a nice guy in the US. He couldn't get away with poisoning a journalist. Correct me if I'm wrong.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        He could probably get away with poisoning a journalist, but probably not in such a... dramatic and obvious... way. That polonium poisoning was astounding, it just screams "So fucking what."
        VladRussian2 13y ago
        >it just screams "So fucking what." In my reading it wasn't the main motif, it was a way to kill in the way that nobody would even question who did it, while not having to publicly claim responsibility.
        coldtea 13y ago
        Or it screams: "I'm sending a message now to anybody else doing the same thing".
      - betterunix 13y ago
        Poison, probably not. Give them a choice between prison or paying millions to defend against a federal prosecution, on the other hand... Yeah, I suppose being poisoned is worse. Talk about a rock and a hard place though.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        >He couldn't get away with poisoning a journalist. Well, no, but then again, he wouldn't even have to know. The system is quite extended. If someone, say a Hastings guy, makes too many waves, he could, say, die in a car crash. Or if some Garry Webb guy discovers something too bad, somebody can make some calls, and have 13 reporters investigating him (a fellow journalist) instead of his claims. And if they eventually prove to be true, 10 years later, and are even admitted by officials, who cares then?
    - gojomo 13y ago
      ...at least he doesn't pretend to be a nice guy. Putin does pretend to be lots of other things: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/vladimir-putin-action-man/100147/ http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/vladimir-putin-ac... And he reportedly stole a superbowl ring in 2005: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on-football/22429359/patriots-owner-robert-kraft-vladimir-putin-stole-my-super-bowl-ring http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on-football/22429359/p...
      - corresation 13y ago
        The Superbowl ring thing was quite clearly a misunderstanding: It is exceedingly odd to present jewelry to someone in such a context just for them to look at (especially to the president of Russia for a national football league in the US, as if he would be awestruck). Yet presenting jewelry to heads of state (which aren't personally kept, generally, but instead are showcased in national archives), is common. So Kraft was really silly to present the ring like that, and you can't hold that against Putin.
        MartinCron 13y ago
        The Super Bowl ring story falls nicely in the category of a story that's far too good to bother to fact check.
        sharkweek 13y ago
        It really got... cinematic. The whole tie-in with Aaron Hernandez (the NFL player recently arrested for murder) being some major revenge conspiracy was just too good. I chose to just believe it all for shits and giggles
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Actually Putin is a well beloved leader in his country, and does very well at elections (BS memes aside). He's just less popular with tech urbanised youth, an insignificant minority in Russia, but quite vocal in the intertubes. Yes, there is corruption in Russia (not that it doesn't happen in every country, it's just than in Russia it's old style as opposed to the modern western style (from Enron to Maddof to trillion dollars bailouts for golden boys). Actually it's more or less the same in Italy, not nobody gives a damn about Italy, because the mob are good with foreign interests, and the US is not competing with Italy for resources anyway. What's important is that he didn't sell the Russian assets to foreign interests and fuck his own people, like the much beloved to the West Yeltsin did. Foreign interests that would like to be able to grab Russian resources and do as they please in the country have sponsored many a BS campaigns against him, from the classic old "Voice of America" style to modern "NGO" style, to blowing out of proportion BS political opponents that get 1/5 of the votes, if that. Like covering US elections by focusing on some third party fringe candidate. But that's for the Russians. For everybody else, the even more important thing is: Russia doesn't mess with other countries outside their neighbourhood.
      - redthrowaway 13y ago
        Yeltsin did sell off all of Russia's assets to the oligarchs, yes. He did so at the behest of the US, and it was wrong and stupid. But Putin is nowhere near as rosy as you portray him. Being a nationalist who pines for the days of Stalin may play well in a Russia leery of Western democracy after getting tag teamed by Russia and the US during and after the collapse of the USSR and enduring the poverty and famine that ensued, but it doesn't make you good. Co-opting the Russian Orthodox church into a neo-czarist Church of Putin is hardly the mark of a good leader, either. Nor, for that matter, does murdering people who speak against you. >Russia doesn't mess with other countries outside their neighbourhood. Tell that to Georgia. Tell that to the people being murdered and oppressed in Russian client states like Syria and Iran, or Libya before them.
        fierycatnet 13y ago
        Those silly Georgians who decided to have a little genocide in South Osetia, they are so represed by scumbag Russia.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  I thought the reason that we had seen only a few of the PRISM slides was because Snowden was being cautious rather than cavalier. It strikes me that this way the media can be blamed for any negative public opinions about Snowden on the basis that they gave out too much or too little information. On a some-what-related note, I wonder if this is going to be a rerun of the Wikileaks state department cables, where a Guardian reporter 'unknowingly' gave away the password to the encrypted 'insurance' cache. I still wonder whether that whole thing wasn't track 2 diplomacy masquerading as espionage theater.
  - sneak 13y ago
    Snowden asked The Guardian to run the whole deck, IIRC. They consulted with people (US Govt, maybe?) and released just 4 slides. Later, WaPo ran some more slides, showing more codenames and data collection info (such as NUCLEON's phone call content collection). This, too, has a redaction box on it which was confirmed as _redacted by the paper_. These journalists are not trying to jam their dick in the beehive - they're just doing their job of running this story. They're not in the business of publishing classified data for the sake of publishing classified data. The goal here is to give you the relevant data and a bit of context/narrative supported by appropriate facts, not just to pastebin a bunch of files up on the web— though in the case of these Snowden leaks, the net effect would be very close to the same.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      Well according to Assange (and choosing Russia Today as a source that's been sympathetic to him), there's more stuff coming from the Snowden channel, even though it's out of Snowden's hands. http://rt.com/news/assange-snowden-revelations-continue-459/ http://rt.com/news/assange-snowden-revelations-continue-459/ and also (vie Reuters) http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/07/01/snowden-russia.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/07/01/snowden-rus... So it appears that Greenwald and Snowden are saying two different things.
hindsightbias 13y ago
Well played, Mr. Putin
jbattle 13y ago
Not sure how many layers of paranoiac overanalysis I'm applying here, but letting Snowden fall into the clutches of Russian intelligence may be a far better deterrent to future leakers than a 'clean' prosecution and imprisonment here in the US.
- greyman 13y ago
  Why? They will take his data, as the Chinese did, and then what else would they do?
  - JonFish85 13y ago
    Once Russia has what they need from him, they probably don't care what happens to him. Ship him back to the US, probably--that way they can try to patch things up diplomatically, and I imagine they have whatever they could squeeze out of him, intelligence-wise.
    - hga 13y ago
      Depends on their belief in how my they've learned from him that we haven't independently figured out, normally you don't do that to make the counterintelligence game harder, e.g. does the US know all the methods he used to get his data? Plus if they want any future "defectors", as we called them in the bad old days, to come to them they've got to appear to treat him well.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      If we assume "etting Snowden fall into the clutches of Russian intelligence may be a far better deterrent to future leakers than a 'clean' prosecution and imprisonment here in the US", then surely if the Russians are capable of thinking long-term then treating Snowden nicely is in their best interest (why would they want to play into discouraging future American leaks?).
    - vetinari 13y ago
      Why would they ship him back? That would be just a weakness. They can afford to keep him.
llomlup 13y ago
If Russia grants him an asylum, nothing will stop US media from screaming 'traitor', since, he, well, "fled" to Russia.
- mokash 13y ago
  Right, FLED. He is fleeing the USA because the government are after him because he revealed their corruption. Sure, the media could spin it but people already know.
  - JonFish85 13y ago
    Well if we're going to spin a narrative, allow me to spin a different one just as reality-based as yours. He took a job to get a clearance, worked there for a few months to get access to sensitive information, dumped it to the internet before he had to take a lie detector test and took off to avoid any consequences of his actions. And wow, what are the odds, he ended up in a country with a recent history of espionage with the USA (I'm sure we do it too, I'm just pointing out that it's an interesting choice).
    - recursive 13y ago
      I doubt Snowden is experiencing a consequence-free existence right now. He's avoiding the consequences of his actions in the same way that I eat to avoid the consequences of hunger.
    - iamaporkchop 13y ago
      He'd been employed by the NSA and CIA since 2006, and had top-secret clearance by 2009. Presumably this obviates the theory of "worked there for a few months to get access to sensitive information".
      - Kylekramer 13y ago
        Snowden himself made a similar claim minus the clearance part: "My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he told the Post on June 12. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.” http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/exclusive-snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/exclusive... Of course, this is trusting that the South China Morning Post is faithfully reporting what he said in the interview.
tippytop 13y ago
According to this article [1], with Ecuador wavering, Snowden as applied for asylum to 15 different countries, Russia among them. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-applies-for-asylum-in-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-appl...
pointillistic 13y ago
your cynical remarks are unbecoming of this situation
- pc86 13y ago
  Whose? You didn't reply to anyone.
lmgftp 13y ago
If he's willing to give away state secrets (I know we have objections to their content sometimes, but they are state secrets), he should also be willing to face trial in the U.S. in civilian court. Running across the ocean is possibly the most cowardly thing, and only further cements his future legacy as a "traitor". Unfortunately one narcissist cannot decide the policy of a nation, and Mr. Snowden has made a mistake in attempting to do so via leaks of classified and top secret information. It's... Traitorous.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mikeash 13y ago
  People keep saying this but I don't get it. Why should he be willing to face trial, exactly? What's so bad about running when you're sure you'll be punished for doing what you think is right?
  - pc86 13y ago
    Because rather than making an argument against Mr. Snowden on its merits, they get to just dismiss him as a coward and a traitor. It's the same basic reason why most arguments on the internet devolve into ad hominems and profanity. I'm not making a judgment either way (although I probably have in my earlier comment history), it's just easier for some people to say "Whatever, he's a traitor and a coward" rather than actually think about why he did what he did, what his motivation(s) were/are, and if they ultimately think the ends justify the means.
    - john_b 13y ago
      Bradley Manning is rotting away in some military jail and the average American still thinks he's a traitor. If powerful interests want to spin your story a particular way, they will spin your story. Snowden at least has a voice while he's on the run. He may be persecuted, but he's not silenced.
      - 13y ago
lgomezma 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in a plane to Venezuela, after all Maduro is in Russia at the moment.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  Except that post Chavez I think the Venezuelan's are less inclined to keep provoking the US vs spending time fixing things at home.
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  It'd be quite interesting if he flew there with the President of Venezuela on his way back from Russia.
  - lgomezma 13y ago
    They actually said that Snowden was free to leave as long as he could buy a ticket. You can't buy a ticket from an airline without a passport but a private diplomatic airplane is another thing...
digitalengineer 13y ago
What a time we live in when asking for your constitutional rights is too much to ask... "...would return voluntarily to the US if there were "ironclad assurances that his constitutional rights would be honored"."
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Nobody said it would be too much to ask, but you don't have a constitutional right to released on bail (judges have always decided that on a case-by-case basis) or to decide which court your case will be heard in (I presume Snowden is hoping to have a trial take place within the 9th circuit based on his residence in Hawaii, given the relatively libertarian bent of the 9th Circuit appeals court). All defendants have the right to make requests for such things...through filing motions in court. Snowden is asking (strictly speaking, his father is asking on his behalf) for extrajudicial guarantees that are not mentioned in the constitution or available to normal defendants.
  - olefoo 13y ago
    Without having the letter from Snowden's father in front of us, we can't say exactly what is being asked for; but the fact that the United States of America has been labeled a 'country of concern' by multiple international bodies monitoring human rights violations[1] for it's treatment of Bradley Manning means that Snowden's family may rationally be concerned that Snowden would be subjected to prejudicial treatment whilst in pre-trial detention. Most especially the holding of individuals in solitary confinement throughout the US penal system is currently the subject of international concern [2] as a method of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. Especially in regards to the treatment of whistleblowers; which brings in the question of the right of the citizenry at large to be informed of the deeds of the government. [3] The fact that the United States has been so willing to violate it's own stated principles of justice, not merely in the case of accused terrorists in the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay; but also domestically. Means that Snowden's father would be justified in asking for public guarantees of treatment that should be accorded to an accused defendant as a matter of course. If I were negotiating Snowden's surrender I can think of a number of guarantees that I would demand of the US Justice department. They would start with a complete ban on solitary confinement, a guaranteed right of access by his legal team, counselors, internation human rights observers and selected media contacts. I would also ensure that he was guaranteed the right to choose his wardrobe for all public appearances and might even ask for public video feeds of the public areas where he is held in confinement so that the world could see he was being treated with utmost fairness. This country has never quite lived up to it's idealized image of itself; but the fact that any rational person would today fear torture at the hands of the US government if they are held in detention should give us all pause. 1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-must-not-hunt-down-whistleblower-edward-snowden-2013-06-24 https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-must-not-hunt-down-whist... 2. http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights-human-rights-national-security/rights-groups-government-allow-un-torture http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights-human-rights-natio... 3. http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37133/en/usa-must-respect-international-standards-on-protection-of-whistleblowers http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37133/en/usa...
staunch 13y ago
Do we know whether or not Snowden is being held captive and/or being coerced by The Russians?
JoeCoo7 13y ago
He has NOT asked Russia for asylum. http://rt.com/news/edward-service-immigration-russian-493/ http://rt.com/news/edward-service-immigration-russian-493/
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  FTA: Information in the foreign media which states that Snowden asked for asylum “is not true,” Zalina Kornilova, head of FMS press service, told RT. However, Kim Shevchenko, a consul at Sheremetyevo airport, said that Snowden did apply for asylum in Russia.
fusiongyro 13y ago
Anybody know which 15 countries?
- jabiko 13y ago
  No. According to http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-putin-snowden-russia-20130701,0,4270240.story http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-putin-sn...: The official didn't name the countries, but said that Russia was among them.
  - fusiongyro 13y ago
    Thanks. I guess this isn't news so much as the promise that news is happening somewhere.
    - jabiko 13y ago
      Wikileaks has now published the list of countries: http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html The requests were made to a number of countries including the Republic of Austria, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Finland, the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of India, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swiss Confederation and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
- codenapper 13y ago
  According to http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html he applied for asylum in the following 21 countries: - Austria - Bolivia - Brazil - China - Cuba - Finland - France - Germany - India - Italy - Ireland - Netherlands - Nicaragua - Norway - Poland - Russia - Spain - Switzerland - Venezuela - Ecuador - Iceland
dnautics 13y ago
He should appeal to the US for political asylum, for completeness.
hooande 13y ago
From what I understand Snowden's father is very eager to get him back to the US. As long as he has "iron clad assurances of his constitutional rights", which is kind of silly. This is an incredibly high profile case and the Justice Dept doesn't want to win this one by cheating. They take pride in their work as investigators and prosecutors, they will want this case to be nice and fair. Despite what the movies have lead use to believe we aren't going to send Jason Bourne to assassinate him in the snow. Snowden is a very interesting case. On one hand, he seems to have an idealistic view of his actions. He sincerely believes that he did the right thing. On the other hand, he now has what most 29 yr olds would give anything for: international fame. The world is tracking his every move, people are starting to venerate him...I kind of trust that his motives were pure but this is one hell of a side benefit. Does anyone remember when Kanye West looked into the camera and said "George Bush does not care about black people"? I think that he and Snowden are linked because they both felt very strongly about an issue, but couldn't or didn't pursue recourse through the proper channels. Anyone who saw Kanye's face before he made his statement could see the brew of fear and nervousness inside of him, because deep down he knew that his next action probably wasn't the right thing to do. I would guess that Snowden went through similar emotions. He absolutely had to do what he thought was right, but inside he knew that there was probably a better way. Snowden isn't an agent of espionage or a traitor. He is a criminal, he clearly broke the law. The perceived Constitutionality of the NSA programs is irrelevant. The Constitution itself says clearly who is in charge of interpreting the Constitution. He doesn't get a pass based on his beliefs or because of our beliefs. I hope he comes home and faces a trial. If he gets an OJ level superstar legal team he has a good chance of being found not guilty. If he loses he's facing around 10 yrs in a lower security prison. The show trial and national debate he'll spark will probably be more than worth it.
- wissler 13y ago
  I think you should ask some 29 year olds if they'd like that kind of fame. I think the vast majority would say: No Way.
- andrewljohnson 13y ago
  "The perceived Constitutionality of the NSA programs is irrelevant." This is incorrect. If the NSA programs are found to be unconstitutional by the courts, Snowden will have to be regarded as a whistleblower. If he is a whistleblower, then he is not a criminal. The very problem here is that a good number of us Americans, and a great many more non-Americans, regard secret surveillance as both an affront to the 4th amendment of the US Constitution, and the basic human right to freedom. Secrecy is simply anathema to democracy.
antihero 13y ago
For what reason did he not enter Ecuador before leaking the information?
ramblerman 13y ago
"On the other hand, Mr Snowden, we understand, has travelled there without a valid passport and legal papers." -- Obama We understand, really?? This double talk really makes me sick, they took his passport away, at least call a spade a spade.

159 points by simonbrown 13y ago

About an hour ago Glenn Greenwald tweeted this (https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/351730381478821888 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/351730381478821888): "NOTE: Snowden's leak is basically done. It's newspapers - not Snowden - deciding what gets disclosed and in what sequence." If that's true then Putin's condition that Snowden stop is easily met, or impossible to meet depending on how you read it.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
I suspect Putin's ego is a bit too big to be defied on a technicality. I think that will be a problem.
- pavs 13y ago
  Seriously, I would probably take Putin over Obama any-day, at-least he doesn't pretend to be a nice guy.
  - orblivion 13y ago
    I'm not sure, I feel like Obama pretends to be a nice guy because he sortof has to be a nice guy in the US. He couldn't get away with poisoning a journalist. Correct me if I'm wrong.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      He could probably get away with poisoning a journalist, but probably not in such a... dramatic and obvious... way. That polonium poisoning was astounding, it just screams "So fucking what."
      - VladRussian2 13y ago
        >it just screams "So fucking what." In my reading it wasn't the main motif, it was a way to kill in the way that nobody would even question who did it, while not having to publicly claim responsibility.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Or it screams: "I'm sending a message now to anybody else doing the same thing".
    - betterunix 13y ago
      Poison, probably not. Give them a choice between prison or paying millions to defend against a federal prosecution, on the other hand... Yeah, I suppose being poisoned is worse. Talk about a rock and a hard place though.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >He couldn't get away with poisoning a journalist. Well, no, but then again, he wouldn't even have to know. The system is quite extended. If someone, say a Hastings guy, makes too many waves, he could, say, die in a car crash. Or if some Garry Webb guy discovers something too bad, somebody can make some calls, and have 13 reporters investigating him (a fellow journalist) instead of his claims. And if they eventually prove to be true, 10 years later, and are even admitted by officials, who cares then?
  - gojomo 13y ago
    ...at least he doesn't pretend to be a nice guy. Putin does pretend to be lots of other things: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/vladimir-putin-action-man/100147/ http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/09/vladimir-putin-ac... And he reportedly stole a superbowl ring in 2005: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on-football/22429359/patriots-owner-robert-kraft-vladimir-putin-stole-my-super-bowl-ring http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on-football/22429359/p...
    - corresation 13y ago
      The Superbowl ring thing was quite clearly a misunderstanding: It is exceedingly odd to present jewelry to someone in such a context just for them to look at (especially to the president of Russia for a national football league in the US, as if he would be awestruck). Yet presenting jewelry to heads of state (which aren't personally kept, generally, but instead are showcased in national archives), is common. So Kraft was really silly to present the ring like that, and you can't hold that against Putin.
      - MartinCron 13y ago
        The Super Bowl ring story falls nicely in the category of a story that's far too good to bother to fact check.
        sharkweek 13y ago
        It really got... cinematic. The whole tie-in with Aaron Hernandez (the NFL player recently arrested for murder) being some major revenge conspiracy was just too good. I chose to just believe it all for shits and giggles
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Actually Putin is a well beloved leader in his country, and does very well at elections (BS memes aside). He's just less popular with tech urbanised youth, an insignificant minority in Russia, but quite vocal in the intertubes. Yes, there is corruption in Russia (not that it doesn't happen in every country, it's just than in Russia it's old style as opposed to the modern western style (from Enron to Maddof to trillion dollars bailouts for golden boys). Actually it's more or less the same in Italy, not nobody gives a damn about Italy, because the mob are good with foreign interests, and the US is not competing with Italy for resources anyway. What's important is that he didn't sell the Russian assets to foreign interests and fuck his own people, like the much beloved to the West Yeltsin did. Foreign interests that would like to be able to grab Russian resources and do as they please in the country have sponsored many a BS campaigns against him, from the classic old "Voice of America" style to modern "NGO" style, to blowing out of proportion BS political opponents that get 1/5 of the votes, if that. Like covering US elections by focusing on some third party fringe candidate. But that's for the Russians. For everybody else, the even more important thing is: Russia doesn't mess with other countries outside their neighbourhood.
    - redthrowaway 13y ago
      Yeltsin did sell off all of Russia's assets to the oligarchs, yes. He did so at the behest of the US, and it was wrong and stupid. But Putin is nowhere near as rosy as you portray him. Being a nationalist who pines for the days of Stalin may play well in a Russia leery of Western democracy after getting tag teamed by Russia and the US during and after the collapse of the USSR and enduring the poverty and famine that ensued, but it doesn't make you good. Co-opting the Russian Orthodox church into a neo-czarist Church of Putin is hardly the mark of a good leader, either. Nor, for that matter, does murdering people who speak against you. >Russia doesn't mess with other countries outside their neighbourhood. Tell that to Georgia. Tell that to the people being murdered and oppressed in Russian client states like Syria and Iran, or Libya before them.
      - fierycatnet 13y ago
        Those silly Georgians who decided to have a little genocide in South Osetia, they are so represed by scumbag Russia.
anigbrowl 13y ago
I thought the reason that we had seen only a few of the PRISM slides was because Snowden was being cautious rather than cavalier. It strikes me that this way the media can be blamed for any negative public opinions about Snowden on the basis that they gave out too much or too little information. On a some-what-related note, I wonder if this is going to be a rerun of the Wikileaks state department cables, where a Guardian reporter 'unknowingly' gave away the password to the encrypted 'insurance' cache. I still wonder whether that whole thing wasn't track 2 diplomacy masquerading as espionage theater.
- sneak 13y ago
  Snowden asked The Guardian to run the whole deck, IIRC. They consulted with people (US Govt, maybe?) and released just 4 slides. Later, WaPo ran some more slides, showing more codenames and data collection info (such as NUCLEON's phone call content collection). This, too, has a redaction box on it which was confirmed as _redacted by the paper_. These journalists are not trying to jam their dick in the beehive - they're just doing their job of running this story. They're not in the business of publishing classified data for the sake of publishing classified data. The goal here is to give you the relevant data and a bit of context/narrative supported by appropriate facts, not just to pastebin a bunch of files up on the web— though in the case of these Snowden leaks, the net effect would be very close to the same.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Well according to Assange (and choosing Russia Today as a source that's been sympathetic to him), there's more stuff coming from the Snowden channel, even though it's out of Snowden's hands. http://rt.com/news/assange-snowden-revelations-continue-459/ http://rt.com/news/assange-snowden-revelations-continue-459/ and also (vie Reuters) http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/07/01/snowden-russia.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/07/01/snowden-rus... So it appears that Greenwald and Snowden are saying two different things.

hindsightbias 13y ago

Well played, Mr. Putin

jbattle 13y ago

Not sure how many layers of paranoiac overanalysis I'm applying here, but letting Snowden fall into the clutches of Russian intelligence may be a far better deterrent to future leakers than a 'clean' prosecution and imprisonment here in the US.

greyman 13y ago
Why? They will take his data, as the Chinese did, and then what else would they do?
- JonFish85 13y ago
  Once Russia has what they need from him, they probably don't care what happens to him. Ship him back to the US, probably--that way they can try to patch things up diplomatically, and I imagine they have whatever they could squeeze out of him, intelligence-wise.
  - hga 13y ago
    Depends on their belief in how my they've learned from him that we haven't independently figured out, normally you don't do that to make the counterintelligence game harder, e.g. does the US know all the methods he used to get his data? Plus if they want any future "defectors", as we called them in the bad old days, to come to them they've got to appear to treat him well.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    If we assume "etting Snowden fall into the clutches of Russian intelligence may be a far better deterrent to future leakers than a 'clean' prosecution and imprisonment here in the US", then surely if the Russians are capable of thinking long-term then treating Snowden nicely is in their best interest (why would they want to play into discouraging future American leaks?).
  - vetinari 13y ago
    Why would they ship him back? That would be just a weakness. They can afford to keep him.

llomlup 13y ago

If Russia grants him an asylum, nothing will stop US media from screaming 'traitor', since, he, well, "fled" to Russia.

mokash 13y ago
Right, FLED. He is fleeing the USA because the government are after him because he revealed their corruption. Sure, the media could spin it but people already know.
- JonFish85 13y ago
  Well if we're going to spin a narrative, allow me to spin a different one just as reality-based as yours. He took a job to get a clearance, worked there for a few months to get access to sensitive information, dumped it to the internet before he had to take a lie detector test and took off to avoid any consequences of his actions. And wow, what are the odds, he ended up in a country with a recent history of espionage with the USA (I'm sure we do it too, I'm just pointing out that it's an interesting choice).
  - recursive 13y ago
    I doubt Snowden is experiencing a consequence-free existence right now. He's avoiding the consequences of his actions in the same way that I eat to avoid the consequences of hunger.
  - iamaporkchop 13y ago
    He'd been employed by the NSA and CIA since 2006, and had top-secret clearance by 2009. Presumably this obviates the theory of "worked there for a few months to get access to sensitive information".
    - Kylekramer 13y ago
      Snowden himself made a similar claim minus the clearance part: "My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” he told the Post on June 12. “That is why I accepted that position about three months ago.” http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/exclusive-snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/exclusive... Of course, this is trusting that the South China Morning Post is faithfully reporting what he said in the interview.

tippytop 13y ago

According to this article [1], with Ecuador wavering, Snowden as applied for asylum to 15 different countries, Russia among them. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-applies-for-asylum-in-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/world/europe/snowden-appl...

pointillistic 13y ago

your cynical remarks are unbecoming of this situation

pc86 13y ago
Whose? You didn't reply to anyone.

lmgftp 13y ago

If he's willing to give away state secrets (I know we have objections to their content sometimes, but they are state secrets), he should also be willing to face trial in the U.S. in civilian court. Running across the ocean is possibly the most cowardly thing, and only further cements his future legacy as a "traitor". Unfortunately one narcissist cannot decide the policy of a nation, and Mr. Snowden has made a mistake in attempting to do so via leaks of classified and top secret information. It's... Traitorous.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 13y ago
People keep saying this but I don't get it. Why should he be willing to face trial, exactly? What's so bad about running when you're sure you'll be punished for doing what you think is right?
- pc86 13y ago
  Because rather than making an argument against Mr. Snowden on its merits, they get to just dismiss him as a coward and a traitor. It's the same basic reason why most arguments on the internet devolve into ad hominems and profanity. I'm not making a judgment either way (although I probably have in my earlier comment history), it's just easier for some people to say "Whatever, he's a traitor and a coward" rather than actually think about why he did what he did, what his motivation(s) were/are, and if they ultimately think the ends justify the means.
  - john_b 13y ago
    Bradley Manning is rotting away in some military jail and the average American still thinks he's a traitor. If powerful interests want to spin your story a particular way, they will spin your story. Snowden at least has a voice while he's on the run. He may be persecuted, but he's not silenced.
    - 13y ago

lgomezma 13y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in a plane to Venezuela, after all Maduro is in Russia at the moment.

jusben1369 13y ago
Except that post Chavez I think the Venezuelan's are less inclined to keep provoking the US vs spending time fixing things at home.
jlgaddis 13y ago
It'd be quite interesting if he flew there with the President of Venezuela on his way back from Russia.
- lgomezma 13y ago
  They actually said that Snowden was free to leave as long as he could buy a ticket. You can't buy a ticket from an airline without a passport but a private diplomatic airplane is another thing...

digitalengineer 13y ago

What a time we live in when asking for your constitutional rights is too much to ask... "...would return voluntarily to the US if there were "ironclad assurances that his constitutional rights would be honored"."

anigbrowl 13y ago
Nobody said it would be too much to ask, but you don't have a constitutional right to released on bail (judges have always decided that on a case-by-case basis) or to decide which court your case will be heard in (I presume Snowden is hoping to have a trial take place within the 9th circuit based on his residence in Hawaii, given the relatively libertarian bent of the 9th Circuit appeals court). All defendants have the right to make requests for such things...through filing motions in court. Snowden is asking (strictly speaking, his father is asking on his behalf) for extrajudicial guarantees that are not mentioned in the constitution or available to normal defendants.
- olefoo 13y ago
  Without having the letter from Snowden's father in front of us, we can't say exactly what is being asked for; but the fact that the United States of America has been labeled a 'country of concern' by multiple international bodies monitoring human rights violations[1] for it's treatment of Bradley Manning means that Snowden's family may rationally be concerned that Snowden would be subjected to prejudicial treatment whilst in pre-trial detention. Most especially the holding of individuals in solitary confinement throughout the US penal system is currently the subject of international concern [2] as a method of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. Especially in regards to the treatment of whistleblowers; which brings in the question of the right of the citizenry at large to be informed of the deeds of the government. [3] The fact that the United States has been so willing to violate it's own stated principles of justice, not merely in the case of accused terrorists in the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay; but also domestically. Means that Snowden's father would be justified in asking for public guarantees of treatment that should be accorded to an accused defendant as a matter of course. If I were negotiating Snowden's surrender I can think of a number of guarantees that I would demand of the US Justice department. They would start with a complete ban on solitary confinement, a guaranteed right of access by his legal team, counselors, internation human rights observers and selected media contacts. I would also ensure that he was guaranteed the right to choose his wardrobe for all public appearances and might even ask for public video feeds of the public areas where he is held in confinement so that the world could see he was being treated with utmost fairness. This country has never quite lived up to it's idealized image of itself; but the fact that any rational person would today fear torture at the hands of the US government if they are held in detention should give us all pause. 1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-must-not-hunt-down-whistleblower-edward-snowden-2013-06-24 https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-must-not-hunt-down-whist... 2. http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights-human-rights-national-security/rights-groups-government-allow-un-torture http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights-human-rights-natio... 3. http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37133/en/usa-must-respect-international-standards-on-protection-of-whistleblowers http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/37133/en/usa...

staunch 13y ago

Do we know whether or not Snowden is being held captive and/or being coerced by The Russians?

JoeCoo7 13y ago

He has NOT asked Russia for asylum. http://rt.com/news/edward-service-immigration-russian-493/ http://rt.com/news/edward-service-immigration-russian-493/

anigbrowl 13y ago
FTA: Information in the foreign media which states that Snowden asked for asylum “is not true,” Zalina Kornilova, head of FMS press service, told RT. However, Kim Shevchenko, a consul at Sheremetyevo airport, said that Snowden did apply for asylum in Russia.

fusiongyro 13y ago

Anybody know which 15 countries?

jabiko 13y ago
No. According to http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-putin-snowden-russia-20130701,0,4270240.story http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-putin-sn...: The official didn't name the countries, but said that Russia was among them.
- fusiongyro 13y ago
  Thanks. I guess this isn't news so much as the promise that news is happening somewhere.
  - jabiko 13y ago
    Wikileaks has now published the list of countries: http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html The requests were made to a number of countries including the Republic of Austria, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Finland, the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of India, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swiss Confederation and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
codenapper 13y ago
According to http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html he applied for asylum in the following 21 countries: - Austria - Bolivia - Brazil - China - Cuba - Finland - France - Germany - India - Italy - Ireland - Netherlands - Nicaragua - Norway - Poland - Russia - Spain - Switzerland - Venezuela - Ecuador - Iceland

dnautics 13y ago

He should appeal to the US for political asylum, for completeness.

hooande 13y ago

From what I understand Snowden's father is very eager to get him back to the US. As long as he has "iron clad assurances of his constitutional rights", which is kind of silly. This is an incredibly high profile case and the Justice Dept doesn't want to win this one by cheating. They take pride in their work as investigators and prosecutors, they will want this case to be nice and fair. Despite what the movies have lead use to believe we aren't going to send Jason Bourne to assassinate him in the snow. Snowden is a very interesting case. On one hand, he seems to have an idealistic view of his actions. He sincerely believes that he did the right thing. On the other hand, he now has what most 29 yr olds would give anything for: international fame. The world is tracking his every move, people are starting to venerate him...I kind of trust that his motives were pure but this is one hell of a side benefit. Does anyone remember when Kanye West looked into the camera and said "George Bush does not care about black people"? I think that he and Snowden are linked because they both felt very strongly about an issue, but couldn't or didn't pursue recourse through the proper channels. Anyone who saw Kanye's face before he made his statement could see the brew of fear and nervousness inside of him, because deep down he knew that his next action probably wasn't the right thing to do. I would guess that Snowden went through similar emotions. He absolutely had to do what he thought was right, but inside he knew that there was probably a better way. Snowden isn't an agent of espionage or a traitor. He is a criminal, he clearly broke the law. The perceived Constitutionality of the NSA programs is irrelevant. The Constitution itself says clearly who is in charge of interpreting the Constitution. He doesn't get a pass based on his beliefs or because of our beliefs. I hope he comes home and faces a trial. If he gets an OJ level superstar legal team he has a good chance of being found not guilty. If he loses he's facing around 10 yrs in a lower security prison. The show trial and national debate he'll spark will probably be more than worth it.

wissler 13y ago
I think you should ask some 29 year olds if they'd like that kind of fame. I think the vast majority would say: No Way.
andrewljohnson 13y ago
"The perceived Constitutionality of the NSA programs is irrelevant." This is incorrect. If the NSA programs are found to be unconstitutional by the courts, Snowden will have to be regarded as a whistleblower. If he is a whistleblower, then he is not a criminal. The very problem here is that a good number of us Americans, and a great many more non-Americans, regard secret surveillance as both an affront to the 4th amendment of the US Constitution, and the basic human right to freedom. Secrecy is simply anathema to democracy.

antihero 13y ago

For what reason did he not enter Ecuador before leaking the information?

ramblerman 13y ago

"On the other hand, Mr Snowden, we understand, has travelled there without a valid passport and legal papers." -- Obama We understand, really?? This double talk really makes me sick, they took his passport away, at least call a spade a spade.