Thread: Snowden on his way to Venezuela?

Originally Posted by Humbert

The US is Ecuador's largest market for it's exports. No matter how many dopey songs you come up with.

Y'all think Ecuador is hoping China will ride in one a white horse? Get real you dreamer.

I am sure Ecuador will have a big problem selling that crude oil to someone else.

Better die on your feet than live on your knees. Good on you Ecuador.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

The threats didn't work, so now they’re forced to beg.

hilarious, isn't it ? kerry seems to be out of his league,

what's wrong with Obama ? first Hilary the beast, completely inadequate for the job, and now Kerry, the flip-flopper

isn't Obama taking foreign policy seriously ? or just sabotaging those policies for good measure and fuck the Pentagon in the process ?

Him and GW Bush are doing a splendid job in that regard, sabotaging US foreign relations from within

When you look at them come and go, I doubt the rot the US is in comes down to Potus. That's just the talking head.

Originally Posted by sabang

Better die on your feet than live on your knees. Good on you Ecuador.

Ecuador I salute you

Together we will vanquish the Great Devil.

Somewhere there is a drone patiently circling and waiting for the opportunity to met justice to Snowden.

RickThai

Originally Posted by RickThai

Somewhere there is a drone patiently circling and waiting for the opportunity to met justice to Snowden.

RickThai

My money's on a car accident.

Or a hypodermic in umbrella trick, or maybe just accidentally fall from a height, poor sod.

Gotta laugh at how the US has been barking away at all and sundry, but get snubbed by both China and Russia over Snowden.

He must be holding something the US wants really badly for this game of political cops and robbers to get to this impasse.

Quite a valuable pawn.

He did break the law because of the required Loyalty Oath he was required to sign. He may even of had to sign away some rights if he ever broke certain NSA rules. I think he is a very brave man for doing what he thinks is right in spite of the risk. On the other hand I hear that some groups have already changed the way they communicate so the spy agency is having a harder time finding out what they talk about, and what they are doing. Otherwise I don't know if he has done anything chriminal yet or not but I do think he would be better off in the long run to bargain with the government and then come back and seattle it all up. If not he will always be looking over his shoulder for the man.

Originally Posted by sabang

Better die on your feet than live on your knees. Good on you Ecuador.

It will be a short lived moment of glory when the Ecuadorian agricultual industry loses 2-300,000 jobs. Do you really think China will buy all those rotting bananas? But hey poking your finger in Uncle Sam's eye feels good. Until reality sets in and the farmers start rioting.

He's in a hotel in the transit zone, not stuck in the transit lounge.
Despite what they say the Russian authorities will definitely be having a chat with him.

Edward Snowden 'not likely to gain asylum in Ecuador for months'
As NSA whistleblower waits at Moscow airport, Ecuadorean foreign minister says entry decision will be considered carefully

Miriam Elder in Moscow Julian Borger
The Guardian, Wednesday 26 June 2013 17.26 BST
Jump to comments (393)

An image of fugitive Edward Snowden appears on a screen at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on 26 June. Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Ecuador has said it could take months to decide whether to grant asylum to Edward Snowden, potentially confining the US whistleblower to the halls of a Russian airport for weeks to come.

Ricardo Patino, Ecuador's foreign minister, said Snowden's case was similar to that of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who has been granted asylum at the country's embassy in London.

"It took us two months to make a decision in the case of Assange, so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time," Patino said during a visit to Malaysia. He said Ecuador would "consider all the risks" in granting asylum, including concerns that it could harm trade ties with the US.

Sander Levin, a US congressman, told The Hill newspaper on Wednesday that if Ecuador granted Snowden asylum there was no "basis for even discussing" extending a trade deal up for renewal in July.

Snowden fled Hong Kong on Sunday after leaking secret documents revealing US surveillance programmes.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, confirmed on Tuesday that Snowden had arrived in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and was waiting in its transit area following days of speculation as to his whereabouts.

Reporters at the airport have seen no sign of Snowden, fuelling suspicion that he is being hidden by the Russians.

Despite remarks by Putin that he hoped Snowden would leave the country soon, it appeared Snowden might have to settle in at the Sheremetyevo airport for a while.

An anonymous source told the news agency Interfax that Snowden lacked documents that would allow him to travel.

"Snowden's US passport has been cancelled, he has no other identification documents in his hands," the source said. "So he's required to stay in Sheremetyevo's transit zone, since he can't leave Russia or buy a ticket."

The official Twitter site for WikiLeaks also proposed that Snowden would be bound to the Moscow airport for the foreseeable future.

"Cancelling Snowden's passport and bullying intermediary countries may keep Snowden permanently in Russia." Commentators also denied that Snowden was cooperating with the Federal Security Service (FSB), following Putin's similar denial on Tuesday.

"Mr Snowden is not being 'de briefed' by the FSB," the group said, adding that he was well.

Yet Snowden lost a supporter on Wednesday when the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón said he would not represent him. Snowden has been charged under the espionage act for gathering and leaking classified materials. Garzón, who represents Assange, offered no explanation.

Russian officials have been lining up to throw their support behind Snowden since he first landed in Moscow on Sunday.

On Wednesday, Alexey Pushkov, head of the Duma's international affairs committee, said: "Assange, [Bradley] Manning, and Snowden, were not spies and didn't give up secret information for money but out of conviction. They are the new dissidents, fighters of the system."

Russia's embrace of Snowden stands in stark contrast to its own record on human rights and the treatment of whistleblowers.

Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have lashed out at the US for demanding Snowden's extradition and implying Russian involvement in his flight.

Putin presented Snowden as just another transiting passenger, and Russian news agencies on Wednesday continued their campaign of possible disinformation, citing an anonymous source who claimed that he had checked in to an airport hotel but checked out a few hours later.

Reporters staking out the hotel caught no site of Snowden and receptionists there had no memory of him.

A top story on the evening news, run from the Kremlin, discussed the possibility of Russia's granting Snowden political asylum.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian security services, said: "I don't think he's just wandering around. It seems he is hiding in some place or they are hiding him."

Soldatov said he did not think Russia would accept Snowden permanently. "In this case, it would be completely impossible to say he was not briefed by the FSB – even now, it's quite difficult to say he's not being briefed."

He said he expected the guessing game to continue, however. "I think the Kremlin just enjoys it."

Elsewhere in Europe the reverberations continued following Snowden's revelations on the extent of British electronic eavesdropping, as the human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, took issue with attempts by the UK foreign secretary, William Hague, to play down the impact of the disclosures.

"Privacy is a fundamental human right which is essential if we wish to live in dignity and security. It cannot be forfeited so easily," Nils Muiznieks, the council's commissioner for human rights, wrote in a commentary for the Guardian.

Muiznieks acknowledged the duty of the state to ensure national security but added: "Those who implement secret surveillance measures risk undermining or even destroying democracy while pretending to defend it."

He advocated a new set of safeguards, including greater clarity over the laws governing surveillance, firm guidelines on the use and storage of surveillance data, and the creation of oversight bodies "accountable to parliament rather than the executive".

In Westminster, British MPs are due to meet on Thursday to hear expert testimony on the impact on British citizens of Prism, the US internet surveillance program exposed by Snowden.

Thanks for that bit of news, Koojo.

Snowden's an idealist and a whistle blower, no more, IMO.
What he revealed was what many people already knew and have discussed on many websites long before NSA kneejerked.

Big brother's been sneaky peeping all electronic communication ever since ECHELON was set up in the 1970s.

PRISM is just a more refined legal (and technical) approach to encroaching upon human rights to privacy, in the pretense of safeguarding democracy against some nebulous threat of attack. Attack from whom? Martians? The Red Peril?

The world is no longer a bunch of independent nations, it's an organised sysem of corporate structures, devoted to capital gain, where the global population, each according to their culture, can be whipped up into a nationalistic frenzy, simply to engage in the threat and action of war,y in order to intimidate a competitor group of corporate structures into giving up their rights to diminishing material resources.

NSA as the direct link in the chain of electronic info harvesting generated by ECHELON, needed to create PRISM to monopolise USA's end of the potential info harvest.
That is pretty much accepted as common knowledge in security circles.

The information harvested (not gleaned) by ECHELON and PRISM and other surveilance systems, (both Russia and China have their own) is invaluable for trade and exchange negotiations, as knowledge is power.

Making Snowden a whipping boy for frustrated and incompetent US management of its own surveilance system is ludicrous, for all that's happened since, is that the publicity surrounding the Snowden affair has caused world opinion to move further away from being positive about the way USA is going in administering its version of so called democracy, especially in regard to US citizens.

The world needs people like Snowden, Lasange, Manning, et al as whistle-blowers in a world which is getting increasingly crowded and over regulated by megalomanic world governments desperately competing with each other to control the whole deal, their way.

Plato wrote that even in an ideal democratic system, "But who is here to watch the watchers?".

So to the future,....one world government? Very likely, but by whom?

Originally Posted by Humbert

But hey poking your finger in Uncle Sam's eye feels good.

Damn right- and those campesino's been doing it a long time. If you want to find out why, just look at the horror your nation delivered upon those humans.
Better to die on your feet, than live on your knees.

Here’s the document issued by Ecuador, asking that Snowden be given “safe pass” and every assistance on the way to Ecuador for the purposes of seeking asylum. It was issued by Ecuador’s Counsel in London on June 22.

Look, you made Sth America what it is, America. Deal with it. But they're doing OK- I suppose some of your people want to use that as an excuse to bomb or terrorize them, again. But they're used to it. They will die on their feet, rather than live on their knees. Your 'answers' failed, America. Get used to it.

Originally Posted by sabang

Look, you made Sth America what it is, America. Deal with it. But they're doing OK- I suppose some of your people want to use that as an excuse to bomb or terrorize them, again. But they're used to it. They will die on their feet, rather than live on their knees. Your 'answers' failed, America. Get used to it.

Who are you addressing this screed to?

^^When you address a nation and a nationality that way, which passport are you using that you think makes you somehow innocent? As far as I know, both your nationalities have been taking Uncle Sam dick up the butt with pleasure and profit for yonks. So, do you prefer lube or natural?

Originally Posted by mao say dung

^^When you address a nation and a nationality that way, which passport are you using that you think makes you somehow innocent? As far as I know, both your nationalities have been taking Uncle Sam dick up the butt with pleasure and profit for yonks. So, do you prefer lube or natural?

Got that right...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Who are you addressing this screed to?

America.

somehow innocent?

I am far from innocent, I am guilty.

This piece on Snowden the anti-leaker on chat is just great:

The Ars users who knew Snowden had a more personal take on the revelations. On June 12, shortly after the Reuters profile revealed Snowden's old username, a longtime Ars user created a forum thread called Edward Snowden—NSA Leaker and Arsian. "I remember that guy," wrote the user, who goes by the moniker andyfatbastard. "He was kind of a dick. But fair play to him for what he's done."

Meanwhile, a longtime user in the #arsificial channel—one who had been on the receiving end of Snowden's vitriol in some of the exchanges listed above—changed the topic to "Edward Snowden == TheTrueHOOHA."

"He was a total cockmonger," the user wrote.

In 2009, Ed Snowden said leakers “should be shot.” Then he became one | Ars Technica

No matter where Snowden ends up US will pursue and pressure politically and economically any nation who doesn't "cooperate". Makes no difference whether he is considered a hero or a traitor. In the eyes of US government he is but one of the thousands of individuals who work with classified information. All have signed non disclosure and confidentiality agreements when they take the job.

This is not about the severity of his disclosure. It is simply a strong message to discourage others doing the same. Go public with any classified information and you will regret it.

Yup. And the point of the Russian offer and the various countries making noise about offering a kind of sanctuary to such folks is to suggest that you can both run and hide when the big bad wolf comes calling.

I expect we'll see more of this sort of thing in the near future.