Edward Snowden identified as source of NSA leaks

[Deleted]

It's almost certainly NOT only about freeing the people. If it were, we'd be in Syria right now, and North Korea. It's also about how easily the regime change can be accomplished and how the new regime will affect things for us in the future. Global energy stability is a factor. Regional power balance is a factor. Whether or not the leaders of the country support subversive groups is a factor. Whether or not the leader is abusing human rights is a factor. I don't like it when people reduce the whole story down to "Well you just attack countries for their resources," when the whole resource thing may have been a non-factor or a minor factor or a major factor in the whole mix of hundreds of factors that made the decision.

You're perfectly right, and I could use the point for my side of the debate as well. Freedom of the people is just one factor in the discussion. And judging by the way human life is taken into consideration when money is in the way, I wouldn't say it's that much of a big factor.

[Skroe]

That's funny, considering they were heavily involved in his press conference today.

They weren't. There was one guy from the Duma there.

One guy.

What about the rest of what I wrote friend?

[Naxere]

They weren't. There was one guy from the Duma there.

One guy.

What about the rest of what I wrote friend?

Sources for your claims, then maybe I'll consider it rather than taking your word for it (in regards to the rest of what you wrote involving G20).

[Skroe]

Sources for your claims, then maybe I'll consider it rather than taking your word for it (in regards to the rest of what you wrote involving G20).

I would be glad too.
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2228805

Not the first I read about it, but the most recent, and from a Russian source at that.

Here is the translation (from: http://www.worldmeets.us/kommersant0...l#.UeBf1kH_kUB)

Presence of Edward Snowden could scuttle Obama visit to Moscow

The prolonged stay in Russia of American intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden threatens to aggravate relations with the United States. A source close to the U.S. State Department has made clear that Barack Obama could cancel his trip to Moscow planned for early September if by then the former NSA employee is still in Russia. However the Kremlin has assured Kommersant that the White House has not presented it with any ultimatum, and that preparations for the summit are going forward.

Snowden's presence in Moscow is making things all the more awkward for Russian authorities. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram to his American counterpart, in which he congratulated him on the national holiday of Independence Day, and stressed his intention to meet with him in Moscow prior to the G20 summit in St. Petersburg. President Obama is due to spend September 3-4 in the capital. Citing informed sources, The New York Times reported that the U.S. president “is unlikely to visit Moscow if Mr. Snowden is still holed up at Sheremetyevo Airport.”

Kommersant's State Department source confirmed that certain arrangements were in place, explaining that the Department is in touch with Russian authorities through diplomatic channels. According to him, Washington has left open the question of Obama's participation in the September summit, not ruling out the possibility that Vice President Joe Biden might travel to St Petersburg instead.

However, U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan assured Kommersant that “President Obama intends to visit Russia in September,” albeit without specifying whether this referred only to the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, or to the meeting with Putin in Moscow as well.

A Kommersant source close to the U.S. administration elaborated: Obama's visit to Moscow would certainly be cancelled if Russia were to grant Edward Snowden asylum. However, that scenario is unlikely. The fugitive himself abandoned the notion of remaining in Russia after Vladimir Putin suddenly announced that in order to remain, he would have to cease his anti-American activity. At the same time, Russia hasn't agreed to U.S. demands that it deport the fugitive to a third country, where he could be handed over to the Americans. According to Kommersant, (July 4), Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had the request put to him by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Kommersant, “the Kremlin knows nothing about this (White House ultimatum)." As he sees it, the work being carried out in preparation for Obama's visit to Russia testifies to the contrary. “We are in constant touch with our American colleagues, endeavoring to make this meeting as big an event as possible” he said.

“The situation is crystal clear. Russia is not responsible for the fact that Mr. Snowden is unable to leave the transit zone,” added Mr. Peskov. On this matter, Kommersant's source at the Kremlin pointed out “in the context of Putin's announcement on an asylum deal for Snowden, an ultimatum would seriously complicate relations between the two countries, and through no fault of the Russian Federation.”

Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee, Alexey Pushkov, stated that, “Russia bears no responsibility for the Snowden situation. ... He flew into Moscow on his own initiative,” reminded the deputy, adding that there was “no reason” to extradite the fugitive to the United States, as his actions “could absolutely be interpreted as those of a human rights activist.” At the same time, the politician admitted that, “the Snowden situation does put an additional strain on the already troubled relationship with Washington. ... Of course it would be better if this were resolved before Obama's visit to Moscow. ... but whether or not this will happen remains to be seen.”

On Friday, Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro declared his readiness to grant Snowden asylum, explaining that he intends to “offer humanitarian asylum to the young American Edward Snowden so that he can come and live here, away from the persecution of American imperialism.” Following this, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also stated that his country would receive Snowden “with pleasure,” provided that “circumstances permit.” On Saturday Bolivian President Evo Morales made a similar offer, promising to grant asylum to the former NSA employee if he should request it.

According to Kommersant's State Department source, in the course of their recent visit to Moscow for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, the Venezuelan and Bolivian leaders discussed the fate of Edward Snowden with the Russian leadership. However, the State Department refuses to confirm this officially. Recall that Vladimir Putin said, “The quicker Mr. Snowden chooses an end point to his stay here, the better it will be both for us and for him.”

“He now has a choice” Duma member Alexey Pushkov told Kommersant, commenting on the offers from Latin American leaders. Meanwhile Snowden cannot simply head off to those countries that are prepared to receive him. There are no direct flights between Moscow and Caracas, La Paz, or Managua. The flight would have to make a stopover, most likely in Havana - and even this would not be easy.

Last week, the aircraft of the Bolivian president was forced to make an emergency landing in Vienna, after a number of European countries forbade him from crossing their airspace over suspicions that Snowden was aboard his plane. In Vienna, the president's plane was searched and then allowed to leave, the fugitive not having been found. In the opinion of Latin American leaders, this “provocation” was organized on orders of the United States. Mr. Pushkov gave no response when asked by Kommersant how exactly Edward Snowden was to make his way to his final destination, remarking only that “there are questions that, today, we have no answers to.”

[Laize]

Well... YOU may think that. But you're just a guy. But legally, no. It's not. Working for a spy agency and then leaking classified data and then fleeing the country does not qualify as a political crime under the vast majority of legal opinioning that has gone on with respect to the case.

He didn't work for a spy agency. He worked for Booz-Allen Hamilton, a contracting agency. There is a difference.

Aside from that, a "political crime" is any crime which prejudices the interests of the state, which this most certainly did. He didn't do it for money and he certainly hasn't materially benefitted in any way from it.

I want to refer to you to this quote from the Head of GlobalSecurity.org on this very issue.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/12/us/sno...ons/index.html

Why on Earth would CNN talk to this guy? Do you even know what GlobalSecurity.org is? Did you look at the site? It's a news aggregator. At least that's what you'd call it if you were generous. If you were me, you'd call it a site with more ads than content. It looks like you may have inadvertently stumbled upon yet another CNN misstep.

The gentleman in question you're referring to isn't even qualified to talk about this... he's a space policy expert. Why couldn't they have gotten one of their, I don't know, actual foreign policy analysts? (Trick question, if they have any, I can't find them).

Put another way, the UDHR "privacy" argument is legal quackery. The opinion you hold with respect to it is not the one that will save Snowden from jail.

International law doesn't apply in domestic courts. News at 11? The International Court is in The Hague, not the US. And it's completely unsurprising that the US justice system would abide by international law when we have shown many times in the past how little we care for it when it doesn't suit our purposes.

Oh brother this is a whole other thread. Start with this........
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20626960

Like, you trying to prove Magnitsky's guilt as a round about way to somehow confirm Russia as a country where the persecuted find hope and sanctuary is so laughable, so beyond the pale... like... I'm sitting here just stunned at what I read from you.

I can admit to not knowing much about the Magnitsky affair, but I know plenty about Snowden's. The fact is that everyone knows Russia has faced a significant amount of corruption since the fall of the USSR. I would never claim that they're a bastion of human rights (especially given their recent crusade against homosexuals... but I won't get into that because they still have the right to self govern). I can say that Snowden's opinion may, in his experience, be completely valid.

In my mind, Russia is harboring someone whom I (and half of American) deem to be a hero. Someone who's willing to put his freedom and home on the line to protect our civil rights. You can call him a traitor if you want. Were I him I would relish the title. The entire nation was founded by traitors who had determined the government no longer represented their interests.

Easy to forget that bit about American History. And before you put words in my mouth, no I am most certainly not placing Snowden alongside the Founding Fathers. I'm saying the moniker of "traitor" is synonymous with "hero" in the right context. In this case, the context is "The US is spying on, and violating the privacy of, everyone using secret courts with secret orders and secret interpretations of law which the SCOTUS refuses to review because the interpretation of the law 'needs to stay secret'." In my (and much of the country's) view, this is in clear violation of Article III of the US Constitution (Declaring the SCOTUS as supreme interpreter of law... period. Not "alongside the FISC") as well as the 4th Amendment (You can claim the programs are Constitutional, but SCOTUS hasn't reviewed them. Only the FISC has. Every attempt to get the SCOTUS to rule on the matter has been met with refusal to even hear the case.)

Which they can change their mind on the second he steps out of the airport, into the hands of Russian federal agents. We shall see won't we. Are you really going to bet Edward Snowden is more important to Putin than his economic relationship with the US? Sounds like a loser of a bet, pal.

Economic relationship with the US? All $40 billion of it? Careful, your ignorance is showing. Russia-US trade relations have been... frosty... to say the least. They have gone FAR out of their way to avoid letting the US have any sort of political leverage against them. Looks like they've succeeded. At best, Obama has the pending trade agreement to leverage... which is only in the negotiation stage.

When it comes to forcing Russia's hand, the US can only bluff.

I can't tell you how much your self-deluding comment here got a big belly laugh out of me. Like is this a joke? Are you kidding? Let me tell you something my friend, Americans have one concern and one concern only... for better or worse. Their wallets. Their economic security. In our republic of principle, people vote on how they feel about their jobs, their bills, their economic livlihood. Everything else is a very distant second. And if not one Wall Street Banker has gone to jail over the Financial Crisis and Americans have barely been moved to action about that, what are the odds they would about the abstract problem of NSA spying? And Snowden? Snowden is so abstract, so foreign, nobody will go out to the polls and vote for a new President on the basis of the NSA spying program. It is a story with no legs.

Because 2016 is a very long time away. Snowden is probably running a bit low on cash about now. Certainly, he is not eating well judging by how much weight he's lost in just a month. So he could be offered asylum in Russia. Or he could make it to venezuela. Or he could be arrested. That's not the point. He's already yesterdays news. Everything he knew about the NSA is old news the second he shares it with the world, and when he runs out of things to trade... what is he? Radioactive. A tapped resource with nothing to offer. The money will stop, the cameras will go away, and he'll be all alone in some small Russian apartment, some small Venezuelan apartment or some small American prison cell.

And when thats the case, who will care to stop the NSA? THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT I'VE BEEN MAKING. No one has done more to undermine Edward Snowden, than Edward Snowden. Because he WILL go away, and so will all the controversy as America moves onto its next worry.

And who is likely to be the next President? Well the short list is Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, or some Democratic or Republican Governor. None of which has ANY incentive to use their political capital to reign in the NSA.

And furthermore they couldn't even do it... AS I SAID about a DOZEN times, the only way to STOP the NSA is to get 60 Senators, 218 Congressmen and the President on your side. So even if some privacy-crusader gets elected president, you still have the 60 Senators and 218 Congressmen to deal with.

You're conflating stopping the NSA with pardoning Snowden. Americans may care about their wallets, but given the fact that by 2016 the economy will likely be peachy, wallets will be of less concern to Americans. And the internet doesn't forget things this big. Certainly not things that directly affect it. So you're welcome to claim that privacy won't be an issue in the coming election, but you're very likely wrong.

And that is why Edward Snowden is so completely screwed. A Presidential Pardon? Please friend, share with me what you're smoking.

I'm not sure what's more humorous. That you seem to think Presidential Pardons are uncommon? Or that the internet is going to forget about this in time for 2016.

The internet is fickle when it comes to memes. This is true. The repeated failures of SOPA and PIPA, however, should show you that the internet can be very politically motivated when it comes time to protect it.

You are as hilarious in your ill-founded convictions as you are long-winded in your posts.

I think you and I are done here.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

International law doesn't apply in domestic courts. News at 11? The International Court is in The Hague, not the US. And it's completely unsurprising that the US justice system would abide by international law when we have shown many times in the past how little we care for it when it doesn't suit our purposes.

Not to mention, that the USA is not a member of the International Court of Justice.

[Wikiy]

Not to mention, that the USA is not a member of the International Court of Justice.

This isn't true:

As stated in Article 93 of the UN Charter, all 193 UN members are automatically parties to the Court's statute.

Furthermore, there actually was a case where the US lost against Nicaragua and Nicaragua was awarded reparations. That, though, doesn't mean the US heeded the court's decision. Funnily enough, they didn't complain how the ICJ doesn't have jurisdiction over the US (despite the fact that that's clearly stated in the UN Charter as you can see above) until they lost.

So yeah, the US is a member of the International Court of Justice and de jure they're under its jurisdiction but de facto they aren't because, well, it's America we're talking about. I only wish they left the UN to make it clear how much they disagree with international law having any effect on their country but that, of course, would mean they don't get to use that same law to impose what they want on other countries. I guess being so obviously hypocritical is not too high a price.

Edit: To add salt to injury, not only did the US breach international law by not heeding the ICJ's decision, they breached it by doing what they were convicted of (according to the court):

The Court found in its verdict that the United States was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in breach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956.

[Laize]

South American states are recalling their European Ambassadors over the incident involving the Bolivian President's plane.

[Deleted]

South American states are recalling their European Ambassadors over the incident involving the Bolivian President's plane.

Ahahah we deserve it. Well played South America.

These are the european countries the USA is heavily spying on. Countries that will obey everything the USA regardless. These are the "potential enemies"....

This is why I'm critic of the European Union, not because of the ideal of itself cause its great. But because as it stands, we're just a bunch of slave states that are showing to not have a will of their own.

[Wikiy]

Ahahah we deserve it. Well played South America.

These are the european countries the USA is heavily spying on. Countries that will obey everything the USA regardless. These are the "potential enemies"....

This is why I'm critic of the European Union, not because of the ideal of itself cause its great. But because as it stands, we're just a bunch of slave states that are showing to not have a will of their own.

As you say, it's well deserved. Even if Morales had Snowden on his plane, searching that plane is an extremely rude and illegal move. As for the European Union, if it didn't exist, we'd be more slaves than we are now. The European Union at least gives us some common goals or a channel through which we can express and fulfill common goals. Eventually, if it ever comes to that, the European Union will probably be the channel through which we end up standing up to America's "orders" which aren't really even orders, except we treat them like they are.

[Deleted]

This isn't true:

The USA is not a member of the ICC, along with Israel and Sudan. It doesn't stop them attempting to use it and/or influence its actions.

[Deleted]

As you say, it's well deserved. Even if Morales had Snowden on his plane, searching that plane is an extremely rude and illegal move. As for the European Union, if it didn't exist, we'd be more slaves than we are now. The European Union at least gives us some common goals or a channel through which we can express and fulfill common goals. Eventually, if it ever comes to that, the European Union will probably be the channel through which we end up standing up to America's "orders" which aren't really even orders, except we treat them like they are.

I agree fully with every single thing you said.

[Wikiy]

The USA is not a member of the ICC, along with Israel and Sudan. It doesn't stop them attempting to use it and/or influence its actions.

There is a difference between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. The latter is used to try people who committed crimes against humanity such as genocide and the US isn't a member of it while the former is used to settle disputes where one country accuses another of violating international law. And the US is a member of it.

[Skroe]

All I have to say is this
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...96C08Q20130713

Fugitive former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden controls dangerous information that could become the United States' "worst nightmare" if revealed, a journalist familiar with the data said in a newspaper interview.

Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published the documents Snowden leaked, said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that the U.S. government should be careful in its pursuit of the former computer analyst.

"Snowden has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had," Greenwald said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro with the Argentinean daily La Nacion.

"The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare."

THIS IS THE MAN some of you have been defending. Well done. We're done dancing around it. Snowden is desperate. Greenwald is frustrated. And now the truth comes out. They've removed the mask and revealed to what everyone with a brain knew they were. Now they're making threats against America.

This man is a coward and a traitor who wants to hurt America and played a lot of you for fools. Big ones at that. He a the reason PRISM exists. To defend him any further, is to defend a man who has openly threatened the United States.

Case. Fucking. Closed.

[Bakis]

He a the reason PRISM exists

I find that illogical.

To defend him any further, is to defend a man who has openly threatened the United States.

Rawrrrr, you are either with us or against us. Black and white Rawr.

[Deleted]

I find that illogical.


Rawrrrr, you are either with us or against us. Black and white Rawr.

"Bradley Manning - A Hero"...

Snowden's treachery is questionable, Manning is most certainly a traitor and foolish little boy.

[This name sucks]

threatened the United States government

But don't let me get in the way of whatever your problem or whatever the fuck point you're trying to make.

- - - Updated - - -

"Bradley Manning - A Hero"...

Snowden's treachery is questionable, Manning is most certainly a traitor and foolish little boy.

You obviously didn't see the videos bradley ended up releasing. Where its crystal clear that helicopter pilots were shooting innocent civilians for fun. But don't worry he deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life because using civilians as target practice is a state secret.

[Deleted]

But don't let me get in the way of whatever your problem or whatever the fuck point you're trying to make.

- - - Updated - - -



You obviously didn't see the videos bradley ended up releasing. Where its crystal clear that helicopter pilots were shooting innocent civilians for fun. But don't worry he deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life because using civilians as target practice is a state secret.

Yes, he does, because he went about it the wrong way and he obviously didn't do it for just that.

I doubt he bothered to read everything he released... So yes, fuck him.

[This name sucks]

Yes, he does, because he went about it the wrong way and he obviously didn't do it for just that.

I doubt he bothered to read everything he released... So yes, fuck him.

So what would you suggest to be the "proper" way.

Go and send an angry letter to the president about soldiers playing whack a mole with machine guns and brown people?

[cFortyfive]

Case. Fucking. Closed.

Hilarious blaming someone for trying to stay alive.