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As Predicted – Snowden Stays In Russia
The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden just announced that he requested temporary asylum in Russia. He said that this is the only way he can have guaranteed safety. Some other upright countries also offered asylum – Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador – but there is currently no safe way for Snowden to reach them. ACLU points out that the U.S. with its threats towards those countries willing to grant asylum to Snowden is thereby destroying a guaranteed human right.
Snowden's asylum in Russia is exactly what I predicted two weeks ago:
As for Snowden. He is also fucked. There is no way out for him. The U.S. intelligence community will try to get him now and forever. If only to set an example. Even if he manages to get to Ecuador the country is too small and too weak to be able to protect him. The only good chance he has is to ask the Russians for asylum and for a new personality. They will ask him to spill the beans and to tell them everything he knows. He should agree to such a deal. The NSA already has to assume that the Russians know and have whatever Snowden knows and has. The additional security damage Snowden could create for the U.S. is thereby rather minimal. Snowden can wait and work in the Moscow airport transit area until most of what needs publishing from his cache is published. He can then "vanish" and write the book that needs to be written. How one lone libertarian sysadmin found a conscience, screwed the U.S. intelligence community and regained some internet freedom for the world.
Snowden may take a while to recognize that the "temporary" asylum will have to be indefinite one. The change of personality and the spilling of the beans the Russians will ask in return may have to wait for a while.
The Russian president Putin had asked that Snowden stop publishing the NSA secrets if he wants to stay in Russia. Most secrets of public interest are likely already in the hand of trustworthy journalists who will publish what they deem to be publishable. Anything additional that Snowden says or publishes only helps the NSA with its damage assessment. That is not in Russia's interest.
I want to thank Edward Snowden, wish him a good time in Russia and success in writing his book.
Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport
Friday July 12, 15:00 UTC
Edward Joseph Snowden delivered a statement to human rights organizations and individuals at Sheremetyevo airport at 5pm Moscow time today, Friday 12th July. The meeting lasted 45 minutes. The human rights organizations included Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and were given the opportunity afterwards to ask Mr Snowden questions. The Human Rights Watch representative used this opportunity to tell Mr Snowden that on her way to the airport she had received a call from the US Ambassador to Russia, who asked her to relay to Mr Snowden that the US Government does not categorise Mr Snowden as a whistleblower and that he has broken United States law. This further proves the United States Government’s persecution of Mr Snowden and therefore that his right to seek and accept asylum should be upheld. Seated to the left of Mr. Snowden was Sarah Harrison, a legal advisor in this matter from WikiLeaks and to Mr. Snowden’s right, a translator.
Transcript of Edward Joseph Snowden statement, given at 5pm Moscow time on Friday 12th July 2013. (Transcript corrected to delivery)
Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.
It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.
I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.
That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.
Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.
Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.
I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela’s President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.
This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.
If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.
Thank you.
http://wikileaks.org/Statement-by-Edward-Snowden-to.html
Posted by: brian | Jul 12 2013 15:19 utc | 10
bevin (30)
Even a tsarist with no conception of public opinion would realise the enormous service this exposure of US hypocrisy represents to Russia, China and any other countries victimised by US propaganda. I’m surprised that Mr Pragma doesn’t.
Oh, Mr. Pragma does 😉
But I’m writing *now*. No doubt, China profitted by being able to break a major zusa attack vector and actually turning it around against zusa.
Russia and Putin also profitted handsomely and even muliple, no doubt.
And I’m not even talking about the obvious, namely the public demasking of zusa.
For one, on a national level. The large majority of Russians wants a strong man at the top. And Putin clearly has shown himself as a strong man and a very smart one, too.
On an international level, Putin won even double.
For one, smear attacks against Putin by western media and politicians will hit a major wall. Smearing the man who wide and far was the only one to protect Snowden and even elegantly as well as effectively with allegations of despotism, ignorance of human rights and the like won’t go far, if it is dared at all. Second, Putin sent a very clear and strong message to all those countries pi**ed by zusa where to look for protection. Or, more correctly, as this fact was already known before, Putin has built a bridge between those governments and their people, strongly easing and powering a movement toward and into Russias sphere of influence.
What I mean is that the leaders of countries like Ecuador or Bolivia knew about Russias attractiveness before. But only one, Chavez, went the way. In other countries Correa wouldn’t have that easy a job to swing his country into more aggressive opposition against zusa and a tighter relationship with Russia. Now, having protected a world wide “hero”, Snowden, and such having proven her power, Russia has gained both in attractiveness and in power on the streets of e.g. South America making it quite easy for Correa or Morales to move toward Russia in fast steps or for Maduro to lean closer toward Russia and to possibly even invite Russia to build a naval base and/or to train Venezuelan troops a.s.o.
Being here and *now*, however, one has to look at the question whether Russias profit can be (not insignificantly) grow by keeping Snowden much longer? Quite probably not. Will the costs for having Snowden in Russia increase? Quite probably yes.
Actually, Russia already *is* beginning to find itself in first troubles. How, for instance, to get Snowden out of the country? Sure, Russia has the equipment to fly Snowden all the distance to South America avoiding european or zusa controlled airspace. But doing so would be held against Russia as a major additional step; zusa would say that offering asylum is one thing but helping someone wanted by zusa to flee to a third country is another thing. And what is to gain for Russia?
Luckily, one part of a good solution is already at the horizon: Snowden himself should (and does, if only mid-term) wish to leave Russia; that way Russia could say that while they offered asylum they do, of course, not force anyone to stay there. To make it perfect, Snowden should leave “surprisingly”. While I do have an elegant solution satisfying all the (for Russia) desirable parameters in mind, it would, of course not be the most helpful thing to draw it publicly … (let it suffice to say that it may involve the help of Mr. P or similar)
In summary, Russia quite probably is interested to keep Mr. Snowdens stay in Russia a short one, possibly even within the stage of asylum request processing (rather than a granted asylum). And Russia quite probably is interested to have Mr. Snowden appear in a friendly and strongly anti-zusa country, preferably without Russia being too visible in the departure and transport.
Playing smartly Russia can reap 97% of all achievable benefits and then continue to profit handsomely, politically as well as economically, without actually having Snowden within Russia.
Looking at that whole thing one hardly can’t but ask oneself, where any country could turn to for support and help other than Russia? Who else would have the money, the standing and the muscles? And, sure enough, whoever ends up with Snowden, for instance Ecuador (with all positive feelings and respect for those fine countries), will hardly be able to go it alone. Somewhat coldly assessing the game table one will find that a very desirable position for Russia.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Jul 13 2013 0:36 utc | 32
I Have No Regrets
Snowden reiterated his view that U.S. cyber programs are “illegal” and “immoral,” framing his leaks as a “moral decision.”
By Edward Snowden
July 12, 2013 “Information Clearing House – Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.
It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.
I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”
Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.
That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.
Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.
Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.
I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela’s President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.
This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.
If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.
Thank you.
Posted by: kooshy | Jul 13 2013 2:28 utc | 41
Rowan and others have pointed to incoherencies, inconsistencies, etc. in Snowden’s discourse.
Personally, I see him as naive, certainly on the whole asylum etc. hoopla, incl. his first exit to Hong Kong – >>!!?? – a really stupid move, and badly advised.
But that isn’t all. These characteristics of his mirror his enemies (NSA, US Gvmt. and whomever) to a T.
Bad or no legal advice, or not paying attention to it. No respect for the rule of law or, ignoring or bending it. Or just behaving like a teen-ager in conflict with parents, willy nilly, engaging in a battle for public opinion, supporters, etc. Note Snowden has said he was gratified by the public’s reaction so far. Making deals (e.g. with Putin) as an individual facing another individual, or at least making it look like that.
These actions are congruent with what we know about Snowden. First, he is young, although 30, he comes over as a somewhat unreflective, sheltered and rich person, lacking street smarts and more, which seems comprehensible given his CV. Second, and more importantly, he is a Libertarian. Of the knee-jerk kind in the past. His about face against the Establishment he worked for can be explained, perhaps, by that. Libertarians have peculiar relationships with authority, which they may resolve by resorting to accepting ‘some’ supra-ordinal authority, for Snowden, his core Gvmt. and US values (which he seems to have fallen into by accident?), for others group/tribal loyalties are a substitute. (All of these eschew anarchism.) So there aren’t many paths forwards or sideways, some lines are drawn in the sand, the surveillance, spying, data collection, being one for Snowden, if we take the whole story at face value.
In a way Snowden represents a mini-history of the US ppl, going from belief and approval (even for the Deep State) to clumsy, personal, principled and *individual* libertarian-type, opposition. Which is one reason why he is dangerous…
———–
Greewald seems to have lost his ponderous, scholarly, calm! 🙂
Posted by: Noirette | Jul 14 2013 12:47 utc | 72
It seems – with good reason – to come again and again back to questions around Snowden.
While my exposure to and or involvement with secret services (luckily) was quite limited it hasn’t been null. While I am, sure enough, not in a position to offer any final wisdom I guess I can at least throw some light on some issues.
First, I think that we need a reasonable approach to how an agency like nsa is structured. According to some one might think that nsa is just another large bureaucracy, where except for the top level a mixture of (low ranked) military guys, hired third party guys (like booz) and whatnot run the show. This is in a way right and in a way not.
The nsa always was a white shirt agency. Unlike cia, which did a lot of things in a lot of places the nsa always was about one thing: intelligence or, more precisely communication, signals, and data processing; getting hold of it, analyzing it, processing it, en- and de-crypting it, etc. The typical person applying for or invited to a job in nsa’s core business was an academic, preferably in mathematics, computer science, electronics. Quite probably know-how was not necessarily and always to be proved by an academic degree but then it had to be evident in another way and it had to be outstanding.
Snowden just doesnt’t fit. He didn’t even finish high school (it seems he later reached that level). To even be considered by nsa such a drop out had to offer an amazing level of intelligence and expertise in some relevant area. Not meaning to be hard but if Snowden has such capabilities he seems to be excellent at hiding them.
Furthermore an agency like nsa is looking for certain traits in a person. Having dropped out or simply left pretty everywhere doesn’t fit that profile, it rather raises alerts. And so does his attempt to get right into the special forces; the persons nsa is looking for rather would enlist for some years and, after having proven themselves, be proposed or permitted for special ops.
Short version: Snowden would be perceived as an unsteady person with considerable bumps in his personality and as a show-off (probably to compensate).
His “system administrator” position was, I suggest, at about the level of his former security guard position, i.e. rather low level and definitely not anywhere near important and seriously secret material.
On the other hand, this very profile that by no means fitted what was demanded for even a mid-level position and access in nsa would be strongly inviting for some spooks, be it from nsa, dia or cia, looking for a remote controllable puppet to spill whatever beans he would be given, of course with big red “super secret” stamps all over it. Feed his ego a little, give him some appreciation and understanding as a victim of unfair circumstances and push him a little into seeing the immense importance for freedom, bla bla of the dirty job you want done.
Et voila, *finally* poor little Edward who failed at school, at the military and almost certainly at climbing up within nsa or even getting a job there without going through a third party – becomes a hero and is seen as what he always considered himself: A messiah, a white knight and an immensely bright one, too.
On the other hand we have an american military that up to its highest ranks has an increasingly large group of people who are seriously pissed off by what zusa has become: A despicable and despised thug without honour that loses one war after another, runs bluntly against american values and the constitution and is run by political and finance scum.
I said it before: the break point was Benghazi. Let’s not forget that some very high ranking (incl. 4 star) military were relieved of command – and such humiliated – for ignoring washingtons wishes (which were the same wishes as some decades ago with the “Liberty”: Stay away and stand down, let them die!”) and trying to do what seemed perfectly well achievable and what was the *only* way a good american with any values could act: go and try to rescue and protect your men at Benghazi.
And there is another hint: One of the 4-stars being relieved of command, an admiral, didn’t follow orders the first time. Some years ago that same admiral, according to credible insiders, being commander of a zusa fleet in the gulf was stopped just 1 minute before 12 of provoking a war with Iran à la gulf of Tonkin.
Maneuvers like those (and even less 2 of them with 5 years or so) aren’t done by some run-wild loners; they are well founded in social groups and peer groups and they reach up at least to someone within jcs and/or the DoD and down to at least the lower officer level. Quite certainly they also bridge over to dia and nsa.
This is what happened, as far as I understand it, and this is why zusa is so obsessed with getting hold of Snowden. He was picked, nurtured, and used by an “honourable group” very high up – actually having the access that Snowden never had – to a) demask the – in their eyes – unamerican political and financial thugs holding zusa hostage and b) “wake up” the “sleeping giant” of american lore, the people on the street.
Of course those people, americans with honour and values, would never ever give away *real* secrets but that wasn’t needed for this operation; for this all that was needed was the kind info that was anyway known to other countries – but not to the masses on the street.
And this explanation also explains why Putin acts as he acts.
zusa must get hold of Snowden; not to stop the gut spilling but to find out about the men behind him. The spilling itself can’t be stopped anyway; Snowden (or possibly someone behind him) feeded all the material to the press and greenwald already indicated that he wouldn’t stop even if Snowden demanded it. Or, in other words: The people are interested in and fascinated by the puppet and the us government is obsessed by the puppet handlers.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | Jul 14 2013 15:17 utc | 81
Mr. P, I get what you are coming from, but the nuts and bolts is simply a server/mainframe racks/storage and permissions and ‘staffing’. These people and the ‘maintenance’ teams who set-up a new office space, allocate access, install the applications, deal with back-up, system glitches are all dealing with COT’s applications, and can go under the radar of encryption, be it AES (256 bit) or even higher. The system tends to run functional organization applications, be it financial like ACPAC (National & Gov accounting software) Intelligence sys like i2 sys, daily input and checking security sys like AFIS The fingerprint sys, then the email servers, and user accounts, the later can be an in-house system, but will be based on/or is something like outlook or Lotus Notes etc (Staff are drones) in addition to that the ‘office’ tools . Most of these packages are now robust and sold worldwide, again; staff are drones. The support is all a part of the vendor agreement, the higher the level would determine the level of support, that would include in-house training and a dedicated support team, such deals are worth millions/billions.
Example: Once I was asked to review the security of a ‘Passport and ID center’. I can’t tell you where, other than ‘Kosovo’ or Kosova – The Head of its ‘creation’ asserted it was impossible to hack/breach, as everything was in-house ya-di-ya (Funded by USAID/EU and the UN in parts). I said, I would evaluate, but first can ‘we’ (Me and a few of my team) have a tour – The head obliged. I took 6 guys (2 women) all with varied skills, 4 had limited IT skills. We got the passes, allocated ID’s and I already knew my pentest method; yes I cheated, this meeting would be my hack. Including I has tried and ultimately failed, it was ‘In-house’ shit.
The system was tight as a ducks ass, all the right stuff, all the way to incineration of all documents and device that malfunctioned etc. The Building was fully protected, physical and electronic. I went into a brief meeting, (Hi and all that) we all got a tour . I asked for an extended meeting to discuss terms, it lasted about an hour and the gauntlet was laid. The outcome; I had one week to prove I could breach the system and validate the fact.
Within one day of the meeting I returned with a file – The system was compromised.
The head was in one way pissed, but took it as a lesson well worth the effort (No ‘she’ was not, in fact she was pissed and caused me a huge amount of stress, but expects such) . The system had passed several Gov (Not the interim) and vendor screenings, they also implemented the security protocols.
My MO – While going through the motions of touring and holding meeting, my guys had one simple task, mingle, ask questions, pretend to be interested, each had a mobile phone and were recording – It is Kosovo, no person with standing could not be afforded the right and all mobile activity ‘Was being monitored’ (Ah Snowden).
We got passwords, screen dumps, processes, staff names and details, – 6 pax with about 2 hours of collection, the 2 ladies were pretty, one guy I picked because he was a ladies’ man, the 2 others did the technical evaluations, checked on procedures, even asked staff to show how they would create an ID, watched and recoded, the one example was a political figures application. The last did physical security assessments. My function was simply entertainment and playing for time.
The failure here was; 1. Trust, and 2. Boasting, 3. ignoring an everyday tool, one that is overlooked due to ‘local’ status and the fact it was being monitored externally. 4. The perceived power of authority, we were there to see their system, and they showcased it, many with pride and 5th, assuming the visit was just a briefing and the challenge was still pending. Lastly 6th, arrogance based on vendor, tech and not ‘Local’ attributes. In that, this was not the only breach, we later found out and based on what we did evaluate the internal HR were equally complicit, and ID’ s were made to order, it was just a price, moreover ID were also made to order and that was heads of sheds and orders…
Posted by: kev | Jul 16 2013 14:49 utc | 91
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