Snowden Granted One-Year Asylum In Russia 411
New submitter kc9jud writes "The BBC is reporting that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia. According to his lawyer, Snowden has received the necessary papers to leave the transit zone at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, and the airport press office is reporting that Snowden left the airport at 14:00 local time (10:00 GMT). A tweet from Wikileaks indicates that Snowden has been granted temporary asylum and may stay in the Russian Federation for up to one year."
Reader Cenan adds links to coverage at CNN, and other readers have pointed out versions of the story at Reuters and CBS.
They called our bluff! (Score:5, Insightful)
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/07/25/2135207/us-lawmakers-want-sanctions-on-any-country-taking-in-snowden
^_^
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
Attorney Bruce Fein quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"There may be a time where it would be constructive to try and meet and ... resolve this in a way that honors due process and the highest principles of fairness and civilization,"
Seems resolved to me. What remains to be sorted out:
* who is accountable for all of the laws broken by the NSA
* what programs they still have in place which are illegal
* when these illegal programs will be terminated
Let's not forget, if the NSA/US had followed the letter of the law, Snowden's claims would have been pointless.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
He would be thrown incommunicado into a U.S. prison and never let out again if he ever came back here. We all know his trial would just be a show trial.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it definitly is not.
And that is why it is so sad to see that the nation that just can't stop telling how free and great they are comes of looking worse than the Russians.
The Russians might just do it to simply piss off the US, but a trully free and just country should not have any problems winning this PR battle.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
That is because the Democratic party is vastly different from your dearly beloved Republican party.
I can tell, because in addition to the end of secret courts and the rest of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo closed, we left Iraq on the Bush timetable, and drone strikes have ceased.
Or did you think the Republicans were going to pass socialized health-care?
You mean like the Medicare Part D that was passed by a Republican House, Senate, and President? You are right, that would never happen.
Otherwise, it goes a bit too far, but is a pretty solid troll.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:1, Insightful)
You know why the left hates the libertarians? Because the libertarians are everything that the left wing used to be before they sacrificed their ideals to the alter of political correctness. Now they can't even be tolerant. Behold his hate.
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Back then many of us were naive enough to believe the U.S. propaganda. But that didn't make it true, even then. Looking back, I realize that most of the "U.S. is so free, Soviet Union is so repressive" canards that I grew up on were mostly bullshit. The U.S. was never nearly so free or noble as it pretended, even in its heyday. All these post-911 revelations have done is just highlighted the hypocrisy.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:3, Insightful)
By insisting that they be able to pay people whatever the market will bear rather than a living wage, libertarians are insisting that they should be able to keep slaves.
Behold the left-wing argument, complete with no substance yet full of appeal-to-emotion bullshit like "living wage" and "slavery."
This is an appeal to people to hate the Libertarians. More hate from the left, and ironically the one thing this man didn't quote from the person he replied to was about the intolerance and hate of the left-wing.
Exactly.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if Snowden likes those countries anymore than you, however if you want to get away from the US government it isn't a bad move to go to those coutnries least likely to turn you over....
As for Latin America.... compared to the US just about any country could be called 'leftist'. For me (as I am not an American) that doesn't necesseraly mean a bad thing.
Especially since most of those 'leftist' regimes have been democraticly chosen and have replaced US backed rightwing dictators.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
You are deeply wrong and your understanding of privacy is very one dimensional.
Consider walking somewhere in New York city. You will be 'seen' by potentially thousands of people but noticed by none. Ask them 5 minutes later and show them a picture of you and you'll get no useful information. Yet you were in 'public' and were seen many times over. That is the privacy of being lost in a crowd that you can have even in a public space.
That privacy can be violated by following a specific person or (in the case of the NSA) by following everyone such that later you can know where the person came from and where they went.
I run a router in the internet. yes, I can see your IP headers. I could see yoiur email headers but I don't look. I know not who you are and I don't bother to do reverse lookups on the IP addresses. I don't care. I don't store that information. I don't care about it. You have the privacy of being anonymous in a crowd.
Ask me tomorrow if I saw any packets going to 192.168.201.192 and I won't be able to tell you one way or another.
So sorry, but as much as I would like to believe the Democrats are still fundamentally different from the neocons, I'm having a hard time buying it. I wish they were. I hoped they were.At this point, an old-school Republican like Eisenhower better reflects the will of a liberal than the current Democratic party. (I said Better, not necessarily well)
I'd like to see more actions against little brother (the corporate version of big brother) and big brother. I would like to see REAL healthcare reform, not an insurance mandate originally authored by the Republican opposition. I'd like to see the corruption swept out and abominations like NSA, TSA, DHS, and DEA disbanded.
Signed, a disgruntled left leaning libertarian.
Help me out. (Score:2, Insightful)
What illegal activity has Snowden actually revealed? The leaked slides I've read so far indicate the NSA are:
Can someone please calmly and rationally clarify or illuminate evidence which suggests or proves the NSA are doing anything nefarious (e.g., hacking into personal computers, tapping databases containing private information, installing key loggers) with their alleged spying activities?
The excitement and emotion around this issue are running high, generating noise that drowns out sane analysis. If I go onto a crowded street and speak loudly, I can't complain if others overhear. Likewise, if I send information across a public network that's not encrypted, I can't complain if it gets intercepted. Nor can I bemoan the loss of privacy if I put private information in the hands of a third party that I don't trust.
Privacy only exists when protected. Lock it away, encrypt it, or take some measure to safeguard anything you consider sensitive. Otherwise, consider anything you put out in the open fair game for others to use.
Just because you don't like the law... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, which programs were illegal and which laws were broken? I'm sure you missed the news that these laws were written and passed by the House and Senate, funded by same, and just recently re-affirmed in the House.
See, that's the thing about "laws" - they're written by the legislature and confirmed by the executive branch. Unless and until the judicial branch finds them to be technically inadequate or violating the constitution, they ARE the law. It's how a representative democracy works. Or would you rather have a dictatorship, a monarchy? Perhaps you hold up Russia as a shining light of transparency, liberty, and justice?
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, I'm just going to note here that the bill to strip the NSA of these powers was supported by more democrats that republicans -- but the split was by no means a party-line vote. Here, left-right is not a good identifier. I
I'm definitely on the side that thinks the NSA program amounts to a general warrant, and is therefore unconstitutional no matter what FISA says about it.
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.
4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
-GiH
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
This is such bullshit. He went to these places because from a practical standpoint, they aren't yet America's goatse doll.
The only way political dissent can survive, is if there are safe places to go to and dissent. The US can house dissenters from China, and vice versa. But if the entire world was completely friendly to the US, the space for corruption becomes enormously vast while the space for dissent becomes non-existent.
One thing the Snowden incident has made clear to me, was why people have feared a One World Government. I've never been partial to that perspective, and I've certainly insulted the "black helicopter" types. My perspective was shaped ... go ahead and laugh ... by Star Trek. The Federation of Planets being a benevolent organization allowing people to maximize their potential. On a smaller scale, a Federation of Nations on a single planet could operate the same way. So in my younger years, I was a big fan of globalization seeing it as a way to such a Federation of Nations.
What I failed to take into consideration however, was that politicians don't act from moral and ethical considerations, like those in Star Trek would. So instead of providing a world in which people are free to self-actualize, a One World Government would almost certainly be a repressive, brutal, corrupt, jobs-destroying threat to liberal values.
You know what -- why don't you take this canard about Snowden going to China and Russia, and shove up your goatse hole, and as a good authoritarian, ask your bossman for more.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is why this great justice system of yours has worked out great for those in Guantanamo Bay?
As for him bein a traitor in your opinion: history books will judge different about him.
Re:CIA's next move (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't the CIA shoot him?
Because everyone would see right through that, and it would cause a major international incident. Discrediting is so much more effective, and much less risky. When the head of the IMF starts challenging the primacy of the U.S. dollar [guardian.co.uk] for example, you don't assassinate him. Way too messy and risky. Instead, you arrange [washingtonpost.com] for something a little more subtle, but just as effective.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
The major problem we have is the third party doctrine, which says you lose 4th amendment protection when you share info with a 3d party because you then have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
But that isn't really true. People share info with 3d parties all the time and expect and demand that information be kept confidential. It really is impossible to participate in the modern world without engaging in such transactions. But the Supreme Court has just gone off the rails on the notion that once you do this, you have no expectation of privacy.
If that theory was really the case, people wouldn't freak out when their email accounts get hacked and people snoop on their mail. People wouldn't go to jail for doing that. People would walk down the street handing out their credit card to everyone they meet. People wouldn't make their facebook pages private ... on and on.
There needs to be legislation that destroys this 3d party doctrine exception to the 4th amendment. The underpinning of all these NSA programs, is that piece of warped Supreme Court logic.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:2, Insightful)
No they are not and shame on your for suggesting it. Not all work is worth a living wage. Not everyone needs to earn a living wage either, millions of teenagers live with their parents, and don't need to be earning a living wage, for example. If someone is willing to do work for a given wage there is not reason to stop them, none.
If you need a living wage and can't earn it doing what you are doing, you need to do some other kind of work, or you know get yourself a bus ticket and go someplace where living costs less.
You don't have some god given right to live in NYC and support yourself serving coffee.
Cut the crap, stop calling people slavers, and try some self reliance.
Re:Gone (Score:5, Insightful)
The Russians might just do it to simply piss off the US, but a trully free and just country should not have any problems winning this PR battle.
You're trolling, right? You want to have a conversation with Gary Kasparov or Nadezhda Tolokonnikova about whether they agree with your assessment?
I mean Im not trying to excuse our faults by saying "look at theirs", but to say that we're worse than a country that hasnt had a real election in years, that imprisons people for "premeditated hooliganism" (shades of the Soviet "wrecking" charge) and blasphemy, and detains and beats people for attending said show trials.... it staggers the imagination.
Why dont you run a little experiment to see which country is "winning the PR battle". Go to Russia and start a protest against Putin, making sure to insult him in the process. Do the same here against Obama. See how each country responds... but I might recommend the US experiment first, otherwise you will be stuck in a Russian prison and will be unable to complete the test.
Re:Just because you don't like the law... (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1930 India was still under Britsh rule and it was forbidden to produce your own salt. This was the law.
Some indian guy thought this law was morally and ethically wrong and marched to the sea and produced his own salt.
Back then types like you when all nuts with 'He broke the law!'.
Today very few would argue that what Ghandi did was wrong.
Is the case against Snowden exactly the same? No, if only because the most brilliant part of Ghandi's actions were its shear simplicity.
But it does show that breaking the Law, no matter who wrote it, is not by definition the wrong thing to do.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you seriously believe this or am I biting on a troll. He did this for his ego? His life is over. What ever happens down the road he went from being an unknown analyst in a quasi-secret agency, living in a great location with a girlfriend and supportive family to a wanted man with a target on his back. He now gets to live in airports or secretive homes where his travel is limited. He can't work, he may be able to live in a country where he'll go back to being a nobody with little to show for his actions. He will never be able to enter the Country of his birth again (unless pardoned), potentially never see his family again. He will never get rid of the taint of the word "traitor" attached to his name, even if pardoned....and you say he did this for and because of his ego?
You are a tool.
What Snowden did was expose the actions of an agency that had no scruples in stomping on the Constitution. He also exposed the true colors of our Congress by their lack of even indignation at the NSA for not only subverting the 4th, but also out-right lying to them. If you want to talk about ego, how about the guy who sits in front of Congress and says "Hey everybody, I AM the NSA and we don't lie". Correction, that's not only ego, that is contempt.
While I would not give Mr. Snowden a parade, I would not call him a traitor. He was an average citizen who, upon discovering laws were being violated, made a decision to take a courageous, life altering act. I would not trust the USA to provide a fair trial or fair treatment to this man for nothing resembling reasonable is coming out of Washington DC these days.
Re:Seriously? I mean seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
No you and parent still don't get it.
And your selective quoting is a big hint.
I never said that Russia looks better as a whole. (Re-read those first five words again, better yet do it a few tims).
As for the sentence you qouted: it also contained the words 'IN THIS CASE' which you conveniently left out.
To make it a little bit easier for those who still don't get it:
-Russia bad
-Russia looking better than US in regard to Snowden.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
Democrats /= Left, Republicans /= Right. Parties are not constants - they are groups of people and their ideologies shift over time. The Republicans of the 50s and 60s were consumed by the southern democrats, there has been a complete flip in party politics over the last one-hundred years.
Wrong! It has not been a flip, it's been a take over. There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team that plays on people's desire to still believe a left-right paradigm exists.
All you have to do to validate my claims is to look at politician's records. Obama promised hope and change, and is a Democrat. Name something pertinent that was done differently than Bush. Go ahead and look, but outside of lies and fabrications you won't find anything. The Patriot act was strengthened, not dismantled. Gitmo was not closed, it's still used to torture people. A Presidential "Hit List" was made public, if the guy was anti-war it would not exist or would not have required a whistle blower. War in the middle east has been extended, not ended (Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc...). Surveillance has increased and the executive branch has attacked whistle blowers on a massive scale. I could go on, but believe I have shown my point to be more than valid.
The people in power are currently doing everything possible to keep you from looking at them. They push atheism vs. religion, ethnic hatred, gay vs. straight, and Dem. vs. Rep through a media monopoly which has not been bound to tell you a single truth for nearly a decade. If you don't believe that, compare the AP and what's on corporate owned media to independent reports anywhere in the world. They don't match usually, and on the odd chance that the AP publishes something in a light unfavorable to the people in power you will be inundated with celebrity news on corporate owned media instead of the pertinent "news".
I get that it is easier and more comforting to believe that things are not so bad, but that belief does not change reality. We must demand truthfulness in news and demand that the monopolies are broken up or the masses will never see any truths that are relevant to society. At the same time, we need to follow Socrates' demand and get rid of the political class which is keeping people in the proverbial cave.
Re:In Soviet Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't want to see this for what it is. There is no need for Deep Throat, or Snowden, or Binney when everything is on the up and up. Whistle blowing isn't from foreign interests trying to harm us. They are patriotic actions that love this country for what it should be. When Putin is pointing out the irony about a US congratulating itself for not wanting to kill the whistle blower who is being persecuted for telling the truth, and it is lost on the bulk of Americans we have a problem. We have lost our way.
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a liberal and even I find myself in agreement with this principle to an extent. Some jobs are really only meant as a stepping stone for high schoolers to get experience, or college kids to get beer money. At least that was true in the past, certainly when I was getting my first job in the mid-80s.
The problem though, is that our job base is shedding its real jobs at an amazing rate. When real jobs are rare, and most employment is comprised of this "learning wheels" work, then it becomes important to ensure that if these are the jobs that are going to replace real economic activity, that they pay something people can live on.
And his worst fear comes true (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't EVER be a freedom-loving libertarian (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at America from a distance, it appears that it has a one party system with two factions - the Democrat and the Republican factions. The name of the party? The Business Party. The sole purpose is to distract the citizens of the USA away from what really matters. Included in the most accurate definition of "fascism" is a description of how corporate interests write the laws, provide the "politicians", and set the government agenda. The country has been taken over and is run by power-hungry monied-elites (a cleptocracy, me-thinks). It's from this perspective that I completely agree with the attached comment:
Wrong! It has not been a flip, it's been a take over. There is no longer a left or right, or Democrat and Republican. It's one team that plays on people's desire to still believe a left-right paradigm exists.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it would not be obvious. Just take a look at Guantanamo as an example of how our American Justice can be abused. Once in custody he could be labeled an enemy combatant and hauled off to some dark hole. He is not a soldier in the US Military, thus us not even provided the limited protections Manning received and look how he was treated.
You are naive to think that the Justice department would allow any public trial to take place. Were Mr. Snowden to return to this country, he may not die (right away), but he will be buried. So far he has not lied about his stated facts, he has limited release to general programs, not specific items, and he has attempted to remind our politicians that they took an oath to defend the Constitution. What I am seeing right now are rats defending their piece of cheese.