Indonesian Politicians Plan To Quiz Snowden Following Visit By Russians

cold fjord writes "Yahoo reports, 'Indonesian politicians plan to quiz former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in Russia about revelations Australia tapped the phone of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The move came as Indonesian protesters again laid siege to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, burning images of Tony Abbott, throwing eggs and calling for a hard line against Australia. More than 1600 police were deployed to the Australian and US embassies and at several other potential targets in the capital after reports that hardline group the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) planned to hold the rallies ... Indonesian media reported MPs had 'permission' from Moscow to go to Russia to meet with Snowden ... The Jakarta Post said a delegation of Russian politicians was in Indonesia this week to discuss the Australian phone tapping revelations. Indonesia also launched an investigation into local telecommunications companies to see what role they may have played.'"

Comments

Douches

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

All these aggrieved politicians who wouldn't have anything to talk about were it not for Snowden, but not a single one of them is talking about offering him asylum.

Indonesia's got its problems (seems to be on the 2-steps forward, 1-step back path to social modernity) but it is hard to think of a better place to live your life in exile than Bali. Beats the hell out of those russian winters.

Re:Quiz?

[BlueStrat]

Given Snowden's background, it doesn't seem he has issues with divulging information. As part of fleeing to Russia, I'm certain he understood that he would have many conversations with many interesting people. I hardly think any sort of "working over" will be necessary in this case.

You are probably right.

Except that the shear bulk of the information might make it so he is not entirely familiar with everything released. If he only glanced at the documents before collecting them or collected them because they were with other documents he found interesting, it could be a situation where he literally doesn't know much outside of a reporter he gave the information to divulging it to the world.

But that is just a guess on my part. Perhaps he has already mentioned that he knows more which is why the meeting is taking place at all. If this is the case, I guess you would be right.

More than likely the case. He's probably more familiar with things he was actually involved with, but it's doubtful he's had time to educate himself on the details of every program and initiative for which he released data.

However.

Even if Snowden has no intimate details for Indonesian officials, they would likely, even knowing it was pointless intelligence-wise, make a big production as they've done out of "interviewing" Snowden simply for international and domestic-Indonesian propaganda and political PR purposes.

This whole dog-and-pony show gives Australia, and by extension the US government, a serious, and *deserved*, black eye internationally.

The US government has grown so powerful that it has become a threat to both the domestic and international population. They've got their "guns" pointed at everyone...citizens, foreigners, allies, enemies, journalists, and whistle-blowers all over the world.

So, why is shrinking the federal government and taking away some of the powers it has given itself a bad idea, again?

This isn't about political Party or ideology, simply basic human nature and the way groups of humans interact and behave. If you've got a large enough government apparatus to operate an entitlement society the size of the US, it's going to become corrupt and abuse that power, and it's not like corrupt power-abusers would care about abusing foreigners any more than citizens.

Once the apparatus of government grows large enough, no amount of oversight or checks-and-balances will be able to contain it's growth in scope, power, and level of corruption. There are now secret courts FFS! There's simply too much wealth being spent and too many people in too many agencies, bureaus, departments, offices, etc etc etc, to watch. At this point, any instrument of oversight will be "captured" and become a further enabler and provide "cover". Witness the "Deep Horizon" BP oil spill incident.

Strat