Snowden Does Not Deserve the Threat He Faces
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
People actually believe that someone revealing information about crimes is more guilty than the criminals. Hypocricy at its finest.
Not to mention once Snowden is in USA there will be far more attention to him and his issues in media and public. I will not be surprised of ACLU gets to raise 10X more money because of this event.
All good for liberty but bad to Washington's hatemongers.
How about weakening NATO?
For those interested in more details, the podcast (in French): https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lesprit-public/la-def...
That makes me think it may actually happen.
If Snowden is brought to the USA, you won't see or hear from him ever again. He'll be whisked quietly to Gitmo without any public announcement.
Does Obama have the option of restoring Snowden's passport just before the inauguration? He could frame it as "I hope he makes the right decision and comes home", and then Snowden silently makes it to Ecuadorian territory.
There's not an asterisk at the bottom that says the above is null and void in the internet age.
Correct. When the illegal, unaccountable, and extrajudicial surveillance powers documented by Snowden are turned on our elected representatives, which they inevitably will be, the concept of "national security" will be well and truly lost.
That's the real threat, the one that nobody ever talks about.
I took his point to be simply that, if Putin wants to boost Trump politically, and strengthen the connection between their administrations, then handing over Snowden might make sense. GP was just pointing out this possibility, not endorsing it.
He's either "protected" in Russia or dead. I seriously doubt he could return to the US without suffering some horrible traumatic body-and-evidence-destroying "accident" ...
I personally suspect at this stage, his death would turn him into a martyr and the last thing the individuals operating these illegal surveillance programs want is more attention back on what they are doing.
Not so much can't get a chance as the price would be too high. He's under Russian protection. That protection is political far more than tactical. The CIA could probably pick him up in less than an hour if they knew they could do it without pissing off the Russians. It's the "pissing off the Russians" part that's stopping them, not the logistics.
As for whether the CIA would want Snowden dead - I presume it would only have been useful to them pre-leak, and I doubt murder would have been on the cards then anyway. I don't see retribution as being particularly high on the CIA's list of priorities, and the political entities in the US that are keeping Snowden relevant wouldn't appear to gain anything from his death.
Putin gives him protection because it lets him thumb his nose at the US.
Obama said as much in why he pardoned Manning and not Snowden, in that Manning has already gone through the justice system whereas Snowden has not.
In that context, it's very easy to imagine ways to frame the death such that it would prevent him from seeming a martyr. Died in a car accident, strangled during auto-erotic asphyxiation, shot in a drug deal gone bad, depression-related suicide, etc. The right context could be used to discredit him further, in addition to silencing any potential impact by giving speeches or serving as a public figure for a privacy-focused organization in the future (for example).
Of course, you could then respond that it would still spawn conspiracy theories, but the doubt planted would certainly blunt the kind of wide-spread movement (or public outrage) that might otherwise sprout from a bald-faced assassination. Realistically, conspiracy theories will pop up in any situation in which Snowden doesn't die of old age at 95, so this isn't much of a dissuading factor for our hypothetical villains.
We know that state-sponsored assassination is possible, based on the basically-obvious case of Litvinenko. Crucially, we can also never know of any attempt which was successfully reframed, which makes it impossible to determine whether or not these "accidents" exist; there are many, many deaths which have been nominated as candidates, but no conclusive evidence of those that I'm aware of.
So, rather than "would the people in power allow it", I think the following 3 questions are more pertinent:
1 - Are nation-states competent enough to plausibly disguise the attempt?
2 - Which nation-states conduct this kind of behavior?
3 - Who in the intersection of Q1 and Q2 cares enough about Snowden to do it?
1) get revenge (human nature)
2) scare other potential whistle blowers
You don't have to believe that every US chain of command in every theatre of operations has qualms about "disappearing" people suspected of quietly leaking secrets to think that causing an international incident over a public figure like Snowden, even if the assassins were guaranteed to succeed and not perish in a firefight with Russian cops called by an FSB security detail, isn't going to do them any good.