Russia Plans To Extend Edward Snowden's Asylum

mendax writes "The New York Times reports, 'Russia plans to extend its offer of asylum to Edward J. Snowden beyond August, a Russian lawmaker said Friday at the World Economic Forum ... The lawmaker, Aleksei K. Pushkov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's lower house of Parliament, hinted during a panel discussion that the extension of temporary refugee status for Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, might be indefinite. "He will not be sent out of Russia," Mr. Pushkov said. "It will be up to Snowden."'" Snowden said yesterday that going back to the U.S. is not an option because of the country's poor whistleblower protections "which through a failure in law did not cover national security contractors like [him]." He added, "This is especially frustrating, because it means there’s no chance to have a fair trial, and no way I can come home and make my case to a jury."

Comments

Your regularly-scheduled Snowden story

[Sarten-X]

Just in case you'd forgotten that Snowden still exists, here's Slashdot to stir up all that nice outrage.

good points / bad points

[lophophore]

Snowden's revelations about the NSA spying on American Citizens should earn him immunity from prosecution as a whistleblower. That was a valuable and risky thing he did.

However, his revelations about NSA spying outside the USA have caused severe and lasting damage to the USA's reputation, and to the USA's ability to collect intelligence that it needs to defend it's interests, **including national security interests**. That was a dangerous and over-the-top thing he did -- it **is** treason, and the severity of that (IMHO) outweighs any potential immunity he might have deserved from the above.

Snowden dropped a tactical nuke when he could have used a stick of dynamite. This indicates to me that his goal was to bury the NSA, not to reform it. In my opinion, this moves him from hero to traitor, and he needs to answer for this.

I think he is relatively safe if he stays in Russia. "Relatively". Should he leave there, he should prepare to be dragged into a van with a canvas sack over his head -- the subject of an "extraordinary rendition." (This is of course illegal. I don't condone it, but I do expect it.) He's barely safe in Russia, and probably not safe anywhere else. He made his own bed, now he gets to sleep in it.

I fully expect this post to get down-moderated into oblivion.