Snowden may be granted entry to Russia Wednesday | Hacker News Reader

Snowden may be granted entry to Russia Wednesday

rt.com

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> "He plans to get a job"

Getting a letter of reference from his previous employer may turn out to be a bit tricky...

Though he does release early and often.

In Russia Federation, most employers don't require a letter of reference and they don't contact previous employer.

Not only Russia, most companies don't, almost everywhere in the world.

I feel like this is more of a gateway for applying for asylum in some embassies, as required by some countries, rather than an opportunity to stay in Russia indefinitely, or at least for an year until the next renewal.

I think that is his plan. He can't apply for asylum in most countries without going to their embassies and to do that he needs entry to Russia.

But its weird that Russia suddenly decided to grant him this safe pass after denying him asylum in order to maintain the relations with the USA. Could there be a hidden agenda somewhere?

I don't think they ever denied him asylum, this is the first he has applied. They just said that he had to stop releasing information that's damaging to the US in order to be granted asylum.

Proud to be Russian today

Sigh, he probably doesn't know what he is signing for. Unless one of his friends from foreign organizations is ready to employ and shelter him, of course.

Snowden is not stupid - he knows what he's getting into. If the Russian government is offering to shelter him, it's in exchange for more information. They have no use for a mid-level sysadmin that they can't trust.

I still find it difficult to believe that the Russian government didn't have information about the US' spy programs already.

They might have. They wouldnt tell anyone what they know, or what they dont know about.

Exactly. This is an American (well, former) screaming from a soapbox that whatever USA-conspiracy theory in mind is factual. This is a free pass to use him as a puppet.

I'm sure that they did, but that doesn't mean that Snowden doesn't know/have access to useful, privileged information.

It's really very unfortunate that he couldn't go to Latin America, all because US' European friends would rather break international law, and try and stop an asylum request, than let him go. I think even most accused terrorists would've had an easier time getting asylum than Snowden. In fact, I think I've just read about one getting asylum in Europe recently, and it has happened before, too.

> European friends would rather break international law, and try and stop an asylum request, than let him go.

I am confused; I thought airspace was sovereign territory. As a country, are you not allowed to allow or deny access to anyone you wish to allow ? I am not clear where the breaking of international law comes.

Try grounding Air Force One by denying travel over Europe half way through a flight and then holding the US president for twelve hours against his will on the basis that you want to search his plane for a suspect and see how far you get under international law by claiming that it is fine because your airspace is sovereign territory. Part of international law is that sovereignty has to respect sovereignty.

Sort of. It could be considered a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."

It might constitute the breaking of Vienna Convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomatic.... Usually diplomatic cars, airplanes, etc. are not to be stopped and particularly not to be searched by local police, so this was a HUGE diplomatic screw up, especially since Snowden wasn't on the plane.

I really hope he takes up Anna Chapman's offer of marriage, mainly because it would be hilarious and would keep Bruce Sterling happy.

Of course it would look really bad in the US press, and mean that he would definitely be under surveillance from a known Russian spy, but that is probably better than the paranoia of maybe being under surveillance from a companion who could well be a spy, and at least he'd share some ground.

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