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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

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.
- JonFish85 13y ago
  On the other hand, why wouldn't they hang onto him for a month or so, see if they can't extract information from him (not even talking about torture, there are much better ways of getting information from people), then ship him back to the USA or send him on his way someplace else. Long-term, he's served his purpose, no reason to spend a lot of money on him, especially if they want to smooth things over with the USA. And that's basically exactly what they're doing now: saying he can stick around until someone else claims him. Whether that's the USA convincing Russia to hand him over or some nation offering him asylum, Russia probably doesn't really care.
betterunix 13y ago
Ship him back? He knows a lot about secure IT systems in the USA. If they are smart, they will keep him around to advise their own signals intelligence / hacker people on how to penetrate US systems. Maybe feed him some propaganda, help to push him a bit further over the edge (this is a guy who was at one time a big believer in the NSA, after all).

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.

JonFish85 13y ago
On the other hand, why wouldn't they hang onto him for a month or so, see if they can't extract information from him (not even talking about torture, there are much better ways of getting information from people), then ship him back to the USA or send him on his way someplace else. Long-term, he's served his purpose, no reason to spend a lot of money on him, especially if they want to smooth things over with the USA. And that's basically exactly what they're doing now: saying he can stick around until someone else claims him. Whether that's the USA convincing Russia to hand him over or some nation offering him asylum, Russia probably doesn't really care.

betterunix 13y ago

Ship him back? He knows a lot about secure IT systems in the USA. If they are smart, they will keep him around to advise their own signals intelligence / hacker people on how to penetrate US systems. Maybe feed him some propaganda, help to push him a bit further over the edge (this is a guy who was at one time a big believer in the NSA, after all).