Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Snowden granted temporary asylum

 ed snowden

Ed Snowden (above) is the NSA whistle-blower who alerted the world to Barack Obama's illegal and unconstitutional spying.  His 'reward' for informing the public was to be targeted by the White House and its underlings.  He left Hong Kong and ended up trapped in a Moscow airport for over a month (since June 23rd).  Jim Ensom (Voice of Russia) reports, "Former CIA contractor-turned whistle blower Edward Snowden has been given temporary asylum in Russia. His papers from the Federal Migration Service were delivered to him in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Wednesday, allowing him to leave the airport transit zone." The Irish Independent adds, "FORMER U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was today granted documents that will allow him to leave a Moscow airport where he is holed up, an airport source said."

This news will not lead to confetti thrown at the White House.  The administration has been vindictive, petty and criminal but, most of all, it has been obsessed with Ed Snowden.  James Morrison (Washington Times) reported yesterday:

The U.S. ambassador in Moscow this week demanded that Russia surrender fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden, whose attorney said Tuesday that his client might file a lawsuit if Russia denies his request for political asylum.
Mr. Snowden ought to be returned to the United States to face the felony charges against him,” Ambassador Michael McFaul said in a Twitter message Monday.

In yesterday's snapshot, we noted White House spokesperson Jay Carney's Ed Snowden remarks at Tuesday's press briefing:


Q    Jay, thanks.  There are reports that Edward Snowden might get his travel documents in Russia any day now, possibly as early as Wednesday.  Is that the administration’s understanding?  And in light of that, have there been recent conversations between President Obama or other senior administration officials and Russian officials?


 
MR. CARNEY:  I have no new understanding about those reports.  I would simply say that our position is the same as it has been, which is that we believe Mr. Snowden ought to be expelled and returned to the United States, where he faces felony charges, and that there is ample legal justification for that and precedent in terms of cooperation with Russia in the law enforcement arena that would allow for that.  But I have no new information on his disposition, if you will. 
And while I am confident that conversations are ongoing between the administration and the Russian government on this and many issues, I don’t have any White House conversations to read out.
 

Q    And is the President still traveling to Moscow?
 

MR. CARNEY:  As I’ve said, the President intends to travel to Russia for the G20, and we have no further announcements to make beyond what we’ve said in the past about that travel.


Q    And, Jay, some Russian officials are accusing the United States of a double standard, saying that the U.S. has repeatedly refused extradition requests; one official saying, “We’ve been denied the extradition of murderers, bandits and bribe-takers.”  Is that a fair assessment?  What’s your reaction?  Is that harming your efforts to try to get Snowden?
 

MR. CARNEY:  Well, again, you would have to give me a specific case.  The fact is that we have worked with Russia to  -- in this arena, in both directions, and as well as with other countries, so we believe there’s ample precedent here.  And our position has been conveyed to the Russian government, much as it has been conveyed by me and others publicly, which is that Mr. Snowden is not a dissident, he’s not a human rights activist.  In the view of the government which brought the case, he very clearly violated the law in disclosing classified information.  And he, as a citizen charged in this country, will be afforded all of the many rights given to defendants in our country, in our system of justice, when he returns.


Will Stewart (Daily Mail) reminds, "The American wants to make a permanent home in exile in South America but the US has called on countries he would overfly or transit to arrest him and hand him to the US authorities.Alexei Anishchuk, Alissa de Carbonnel and Kevin Liffey (Reuters) explain, "Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have all said they would grant him political asylum, but none is reachable by direct commercial flight from Moscow."  But, RT adds, "Earlier [his attorney Anatoly] Kucherena said Snowden may decide to become a permanent resident in Russia rather than stay in the country seeking an opportunity to get asylum elsewhere."   BBC News notes, "The American will be provided with new clothing, the source added.  The source added that the document would be handed to Mr Snowden by a lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena."


Geoffrey Robertson (Guardian) observes:

As Edward Snowden sits in an airside hotel, awaiting confirmation of Russia's offer of asylum, it is clear that he has already revealed enough to prove that European privacy protections are a delusion: under Prism and other programmes, the US National Security Agency and Britain's GCHQ can, without much legal hindrance, scoop up any electronic communication whenever one of 70,000 "keywords" or "search terms" are mentioned. These revelations are of obvious public interest: even President Obama has conceded that they invite a necessary debate. But the US treats Snowden as a spy and has charged him under the Espionage Act, which has no public interest defence.
That is despite the fact that Snowden has exposed secret rulings from a secret US court, where pliant judges have turned down only 10 surveillance warrant requests between 2001 and 2012 (while granting 20,909) and have issued clandestine rulings which erode first amendment protection of freedom of speech and fourth amendment protection of privacy. Revelations about interception of European communications (many leaked through servers in the US) and the bugging of EU offices in Washington have infuriated officials in Brussels. In Germany, with its memories of the Gestapo and the Stasi, the protests are loudest, and opposition parties, gearing up for an election in September, want him to tell more.


In the sewer that is the Cult of St. Barack, the whores splash themselves with a new poll or 'poll'  and rejoice over the allegation that Ed Snowden's lost support.

No, dirty whores, he hasn't.  And he won't.

You have made attacking him your everything.  But you can't keep doing your hand jobs for Barack and also do your half-and-halfs and other assorted acts.  Meaning?  You managed to spin some plates for a week or two.  If you intend to make this the scandal you save Barack from, prepare to spend the next months focusing on nothing else.  But you can't do that, can you?  Barack's too dirty, his administration too corrupt.  So you leave Ed Snowden for even a moment and the public opinion returns to normal.

Poor, filthy whores.  Balding like Josh Micah Marshall, disease-ridden and unethical.  How you have disgraced yourself, how you have shamed yourself.  You are on the wrong side of history.  But then the midwives of corruption usually are.


The White House reveals how corrupt it is as the BBC reports:



The White House is urging Congress to reject an attempt to stop the National Security Agency (NSA) collecting Americans' phone records.
With a key vote coming up, President Barack Obama's spokesman said curbs on the NSA would "hastily dismantle" a vital counter-terrorism tool.


So much for Barack's pretense of a 'dialogue.'  But if he didn't have pretense what would the Fool of Facades have?



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