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Russia Considers Sending Snowden Back To US As a 'Gift' To Trump (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: U.S. intelligence has collected information that Russia is considering turning over Edward Snowden as a "gift" to President Donald Trump -- who has called the NSA leaker a "spy" and a "traitor" who deserves to be executed. That's according to a senior U.S. official who has analyzed a series of highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations and who says a Snowden handover is one of various ploys to "curry favor" with Trump. A second source in the intelligence community confirms the intelligence about the Russian conversations and notes it has been gathered since the inauguration. Snowden's ACLU lawyer, Ben Wizner, told NBC News they are unaware of any plans that would send him back to the United States. "Team Snowden has received no such signals and has no new reason for concern," Wizner said. Former deputy national security adviser Juan Zarate urged the Trump administration to be cautious in accepting any Snowden offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House had no comment, but the Justice Department told NBC News it would welcome the return of Snowden, who currently faces federal charges that carry a minimum of 30 years in prison. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said talk about returning Snowden is "nonsense." If he were returned to American soil, Snowden -- a divisive figure in America who is seen by some as a hero and others as treasonous -- would face an administration that has condemned him in the strongest terms.
But at least your tech jobs will be protected by Trump's H-1B visa clampdown, right? Hope you can sleep well at night.
"Da, tvarish Trump, we are through with him now. Is for your amusement now."
snowden can buy us lunch then happy hour.
That said, I should add that the USA isn't like those other countries that do things outside the law.
Snowden should rest assured that all will be just fine.
I must add that sources like these remind me of events leading to how USA handled matters related to Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction."
We all know how that went, don't we?
Made up, accurate, or exaggerated intelligence information leaked to a "news" organization with known political ties. The senior analyst doesn't belong on the job.
Obama wanted him prosecuted as well.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
From your lips to God's ear.
But we'd better grab Soros junior, too. He's as bad as his father.
I think Snowden should be released with no charges once he's back here.
If Russia is planning on handing Snowden over, I highly doubt that they would give him the opportunity to flee.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Need I say more?
This was so obvious even before the enthronement ceremony that I'm shocked even Slashdot regards it as news. (I'm being told you Americans prefer the obscure terminology "inauguration" for some silly reason?)
Snowden was merely a target of opportunity that Putin seized upon to embarrass that Obama fellow. Apparently still regarded him as some sort of worthy adversary or some such. Now that America's democracy has been hoisted upon its own petards, Snowden has certainly outlived his usefulness.
Then again, perhaps Putin shouldn't count too heavily on his buddy-buddy relationship? I'm believing the reports of #PresidentTweety's increasingly erratic behavior. Maybe he'll go nuts and trigger the 25th even before he has a REAL presidential crisis? Snowden might be a more valuable chip if saved for Pence?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Dude sealed his own fate when he let himself be seduced by Putin. You know - the guy that murders journalists and political opponents.
Putin will give up Snowden when he's no longer useful. Giving him back to the US is sure to cause a whole shitstorm of controversy and political chaos, which is Russia's end-game anyway. Dropping Snowden back in Trump's lap along with some sweet words will further push the notion that Trump is in Russia's pocket and will undermine his administration.
Keep in mind that Trump getting elected was the failure. All that happens now is consequences.
You realise those same security services protected your country and the entire Western world during the Cold War, don't you? Personally I happen to think they went too far but the fact of the matter is we've had signals intelligence since World War I and its saved our bacon many times since then. The only thing that's changed is the source of the signals. I would be very circumspect at applauding a traitor willing to spill the country's secrets to the media like that. I'm sure both he and the Guardian journalists involved thought they were in a Bourne film. Shame their left-wing rag is losing £90m a year.
This doesn't pass the smell test.
One thing that the Russians (and, for that matter, the Americans) understand well is protecting people who turn to their side. If the Russians send Snowden back, it will be a long time before they get another actual defector* to come out of the cold.
* Snowden is not a defector.
I feel confident in my hunch that president Trump isn't versed in ancient literature, so I hope someone reminds him of Virgil's quote:
"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts"
Anything Russia offers up as a gift should be viewed with some strong skepticism. Back during the late cold war, there was an excessive amount of anti-soviet paranoia. Now, it seems that there isn't enough...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You realise those same security services protected your country
It's fine to have a national intelligence service.
It's not fine to turn it inward on its own population, Stasi style.
It's not fine to use "parallel construction" and have the government lie about the nature of evidence it presents against people.
The NSA violated the highest law of the land on a vast scale, as a matter of policy, and thus has lost its legitimacy as a public institution. That fact needed to be made clear to the people.
the guy that murders journalists and political opponents
He does that himself? At least in the US, the president has some aides to do the daily dirty work.
Dude sealed his own fate when he let himself be seduced by Putin. You know - the guy that murders journalists and political opponents.
Hmmmm.
Seduced by Putin? or...
Here's a place that'll have me with no extradition treaty with the US.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The Gaurdian loses a lot less then news corp, they lost over $400 million Australian this year.
Funny how you RWNJ call a balaced source a left wing rag becaiuse it doesnt lie and pander to your desire for alternative facts.
The traitore are the cowards of the right, who have allowed our freedoms to be taken away by their fascist heroes, when you are more likely to die falling out of bed than by terrorism. Gutless loudmouthed trash.
Already been confirmed as fake news. Look where it is coming from. His residency has already been extended to the year 2020. And spokespeople for Russia have already stated "Nonsense"
you have to understand, russia is not yet as wealthy as the US.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
If they do this, it wouldn't be to "curry favor" with Trump, it would be a move to further destabilize the US. As a result of multiple factors (including Russian interference) we have a the most unpopular president in a century who is extremely divisive. Returning Snowden would be a move to stoke those flames and cause more unrest. There are many reasons for doing this but ultimately, a less stable US is better for their own nation.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You're looking at Snowden, but there will be a quid-pro-quo deal, in exchange Trump will lift sanctions against Russia as fake reward for sending over Snowden. The real purpose here is to have an excuse to lift sanctions for Trump to sell to the GOP, not for Snowden.
Once again, please be clear here, Trump did a deal with Putin and it's worth more to Putin that Trump blocking Cyber security bills, attacking NATO, and removing the military from the National Security Council. Putin will get trade sanctions lifted and everything else besides in exchange Trump will get hacking help in the next election.
Can I remind you of some of my other predictions.... namely 6 eyes, Russia added to 5 eyes on excuse of fighting ISIS? Or Iran attacked to force them over to Russia, giving Russia effective control of the region.... that one is also in progress.
I have found that the American thing to do is to pretend to care about your fellow man while possessing no such interest, which is why disabled people are treated so bad, and I am unAmerican for pointing it out.
Are you actually calling committing industrial espionage against allies protecting them?
Anyways it looks like the Russians have made a great comeback in the cold war and now have their puppet in the Presidency along with the pro-Russian party in the other branches. I guess it's OK with you as long as it's the authoritarian Fascists instead of the authoritarian Commies.
Me, I plain old don't like authoritarians and my freedom has been threatened more by the right, who would gladly throw me in jail for a joint, which has, in my life, been personified by the USA and their democracy of giving a choice between Pepsi and Coke, or, this crook or the other crook.
As for Snowden, I'm not aware of any amendments to the US Constitution that override the 1st, which didn't come with any exceptions for Congress to pass laws to illegalize speech, not even for national security and being an amendment, overrides earlier parts of the Constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Considering the ends of "things", breaking things sounds good.
Under the Constitution only books have rights... or imaginary creatures or something-something... Rats!
I don't know, considering the characteristics of the fictional character billed "The Greatest American Hero".
The two sources are both from the US intelligence -- the same intelligence community that sold us the debunked "Russia hacked the US election" story. The same intelligence community that The Intercept reports as being increasingly powerful political actors and manipulators in the US, and that The Intercept reported as having an interest in undermining the democratically-elected Trump administration, and by extension the democratic process itself.
All the other parties involved -- the US government, the Russian government, Edward Snowden & friends -- deny the story.
There are no other sources other than the US intelligence, and they have a recent history of lying for political reasons. They're not credible sources. Plainly, it's bullshit.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
So you slept through Constitutional Law.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Never been there. That's an odd place to take the conversation. Maybe something that should be taught in K-12 in America but isn't.
... should be taught in K-12 in America but isn't.
Citation, please.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
For the fact that Constitutional law isn't taught in America K-12? Either you are not an American or are way out of touch with reality. American schools barely touch on matters of law.
Would much rather see him stuck in Russia forever than in a jail cell.
I just hope they freeze Snowden in carbonite and ship him by bounty hunter.
Actually, I retract my challenge. I'm 71 years old and I don't see any evidence of quality education in America (at least by any Americans).
Either you are not an American or are way out of touch with reality.
Or maybe I'm referencing my generation.
I concede your point.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
It's a drug called "Gundam Wing": http://www.oocities.org/televi...
That makes me think that maybe lawless meant something different when (if?) there was a time when many/most people knew much about law. Under the definition as I understand it not being lawless merely means that people try not to break whatever laws that may exist. Under that alternative definition, it seems the world is largely lawless at the moment. What comes of that...
To clarify, the alternative definition being the one in the world where many/most know the law somewhat.
But to the point of this addendum: I have long stopped caring and have conceded that I am a criminal. In the reality we find ourselves in, in order to be free, I believe that it is necessary to be a criminal. I also find it helps to be aware of that situation. I don't know how to rectify it.
Last I heard America took him for awhile then threw him back. https://www.bing.com/search?q=...
I meant to start the copy after the sentence fragment that got included that referenced Gundams. Slashdot needs to fix its Unicode support. (among other things)
Well if they stop, it will be more assuredly 8 instead of 4.
Did it ever occur to you, oh pea brained little oik, that the reason terrorist acts are relatively rare is because the security services are busy 24/7 trying to prevent attacks?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? The constitution says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Do you believe that we should be willing to shred our basic law in order to protect against terrorists? The NSA appears to have systematically ignored the constitution. The necessity of which to protect against terrorists is not obvious, the amount it helped is not really known generally, and the dangers to our future when such vast information gathering is in the hands of people we should not trust too thoroughly is also unqualifiable.
What makes you unpersuasive is your certainty that you have the answer to these concerns. Yes, I've considered your perspective. Maybe you should give credit to the idea that there are other perspectives that warrant more consideration than your exasperated "good grief" suggests you've given them.
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
I'm not for the regressive left; many on the left, like me, are quite concerned about their antics. It is possible to hold this idea and still think the antics on the right are more regressive or dangerous to freedom.
Reality is a slackware box running on a 386 tucked away in god's sock drawer.
So, what? So has everyone else. The law doesn't mean anything anymore.
He wasn't trying to go to Russia, he got stuck there. It was an accident.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As well you should. The day that children's cartoons don't contain anything worthy of quoting is the day we raise dumb kids. This has already happened quite a bit, but I haven't found the Gundam series I have watched to blame.
Entertainment is the only thing to be taken seriously.
Twitter is unbecoming of the office, but Trump didn't initiate presidential tweeting.
anonymous intelligence sources in the media is always manipulation.
Snowden == Ultra Ball.
It's been on the todo list since 1999. They might get round to it by 2099.
"US intelligence" .. hahahaha
He wasn't trying to go to Russia, he got stuck there. It was an accident.
More to the point, we stuck him there. After his travel documents were revoked, he couldn't go anywhere else. He is precisely where we apparently wanted him.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and the games they play.
Let's put this story out there and see if we can get him to panic and / or introduce some suspicion to his relationship with the Russian government.
If I were Team Snowden, I would respond with dusting off another, yet to be released, bombshell about what potentially illegal activities the NSA has been up to.
The rule on presidential gifts says that if the gift is worth more than something like $300, it has to go into the National Archive.
Boy... I hope that they poke some air holes in the box that they store him in.
It's fine to have a national intelligence service.
It's not fine to turn it inward on its own population, Stasi style.
It's not fine to use "parallel construction" and have the government lie about the nature of evidence it presents against people.
The NSA violated the highest law of the land on a vast scale, as a matter of policy, and thus has lost its legitimacy as a public institution. That fact needed to be made clear to the people.
Yes, yes, yes! NSA internal-US shenanigans are Stasi-style. "Parallel Construction" is a crime. The NSA should be gutted, abandoned, and a new organization with the actual, core task be re-created. And not populated by ex-NSA management.
I'd mod up, but this thread is closed for mods, but I just wanted to emphasize your concise statement.
He wasn't trying to go to Russia, he got stuck there. It was an accident.
More to the point, we stuck him there. After his travel documents were revoked, he couldn't go anywhere else. He is precisely where we apparently wanted him.
EXACTLY. The US took away any other options for him, and effectively pushed him into having to choose Russia, a non-extradition country.
What Snowden does there, I have no idea. Nor do I care – because the US forced him to go there. It is bad for US security, almost undoubtedly, but the US government created the stupid situation, and we US citizens might pay some price for it, thanks to our own government's departmental overreach for power.
The checks and balances are not working. But how do we reform them?
Keep him. He is a traitor and it is better that he lives his life in Russia, China, or north Korea. In fact, Russia, if u are really done with him, send him to north korea or Somalia.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Edward being handed over to the US authorities. I think it would cause the third Russian revolution, a kind of Storming of the Bastille.
Russian society gave to the world such great [real] freedom thinkers as Mikhail Bakunin, who has got quite a few followers nowadays.
Snowden wasn't "seduced" by anyone, he was put on the DIE SOON list by Obama, and faced with that, you go to the only place that the Americans can't - and that just happens to be Russia ... where would you go?
I'll certainly go to hell if any of the major religious theories are on target, but if that's the case, I'm sure I'll know a fair number of the people there.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The checks and balances are not working. But how do we reform them?
The American public has to care. If the public doesn't care, nothing can be done.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Epic fail there Fraggy, the security services have always been trying to prevent terrorism, and are quick to report their successes, few though they are.
You know how you beat terrorism? By not allowing yourself to be scared, only the most pathetic cowards are scared of something that is less likely than dying falling out of bed, or being struck by lightning.
The stupid oik is you man, in fact cowadly stupid oik seems appropriate.
This is quite the most hilariously stupid sentence I've read on slashdot all week. And that's up against some pretty stiff competition.
The immediate goal of terrorism is terror, which means that it fails as a strategy if it doesn't scare anyone. It's an attempt to leverage a little power into a lot of influence. If the target population isn't scared, terrorism fails, and is less likely to be used.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
More to the point, we stuck him there. After his travel documents were revoked, he couldn't go anywhere else.
This is something I do not understand. Passports and such are just rules. Governments break their own rules all the time. Why wouldn't they be able to break a rule about documents? Who would enforce the rule?
For example, let's say Iceland wanted to offer Snowden sanctuary or whatever. Why would they necessarily care if America has revoked Snowden's travel documents? Those are not Icelandic documents. Iceland could let him in just as easily as Russia did.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Some of us are not as gutless and pathetic as you. Ive never once bern scared of terrorism, given its vanishingly small threat.
It seems gutlless oik describes you well.
Exactlyl terrorism is ised by governments to extend their powers outrageously, andvpeople like gutless Fraggy cheer them along.