

NSA leaker Edward Snowden 'accepts asylum in Venezuela'? - ortusdux
http://www.news.com.au/technology/nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-accepts-asylum-in-venezuela/story-e6frfro0-1226676844160

======
josteink
As a European, I'm utterly and totally ashamed that _nobody_ here actually
offered him asylum. None.

This lack of action speaks so very clearly that whatever nasty the US is doing
now, entire Europe is in on it already. Sans the actual European people under
total surveillance ofcourse.

It seriously makes you wonder what's going on behind closed doors in European
governments and EU offices. It can't be good, and it needs to be rooted out
pronto.

~~~
kimlelly
Europe is no longer an independent entity, it's more and more becoming the
colonies of the US. We have very real facts that make this obvious:

1\. the President's plane incident

2\. the absence of honest outrage on the part of EU politicians regarding all
the recent news

3\. the direct surveillance collaboration with the NSA

4\. the fact that the NSA is allowed to build multi-billion surveillance
centers in Germany

5\. refusal of help to Edward Snowden

Please add your observations to this list.

~~~
Kurtz79
Europe has not been an independent entity since the end of WW2 and the
beginning of the cold war.

Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military bases
of a foreign power in its own territory.

I'm not judging or complaining, it's just the way it is. At some point in
history, decisions were made about Europe's own place in the world that put it
under US sphere of influence, and these decisions have important consequences
to this day.

It can be argued that European countries traded part of their own sovereignity
in exchange for security, protection and economic progress.

~~~
kimlelly
> Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military
> bases of a foreign power in its own territory.

Correct, that and the NSA infrastructure on European soil has to vanish.

~~~
Zaytes
> Correct, that and the NSA infrastructure on European soil has to vanish.

The odds of either of those things occurring are perilously near zero

~~~
kimlelly
Don't take this personally (you're in good company...):

We need to STOP saying:

1\. "I'm so not surprised"

2\. "That has zero chance of happening"

What we NEED to do is:

1\. Think about things we CAN do

2\. Find others to EXECUTE these things

3\. TALK about this action

Anything else is just demotivating people. And that will only make things
worse.

EDIT: To the downvoters - that's exactly what I'm talking about.

~~~
Zaytes
OK, we can widely adopt encryption and use alternets whenever possible, and
attempt to affect technological activism. That is feasible and should be done
as swiftly and as widely as possible. Evangelize these measures to the less
technically inclined people in your life.

But as far as "removing" US military and intelligence presence from Europe -
that will literally never happen, as all of Europe is entirely complicit in
our presence and information gathering activities.

------
skwirl
At this point, Snowden is a pawn in an international strategy game. None of
these countries are offering Snowden asylum because they believe in his cause.
They are offering him asylum because it is something that they can use against
the United States (for unrelated contentions) and use as a political trophy
within their own countries.

As such, Snowden has to worry about many scenarios. Will his "host" country
use him to extract concessions out of the United States in exchange for his
extradition? When the regime changes in the country he ends up in, will he
wear out his welcome? Can the country he ends up in even protect him from
extraordinary rendition? Even if the country fully intends on assisting
Snowden, would it be able to weather whatever sanctions were levied on it by
the United States in the form of trade restrictions? Ecuador didn't seem to
think so.

Then there is the question of whether he can even get to the country he is
going to. France and Spain (indirectly) forced down the jet of the president
of Bolivia on the rumor that Snowden was on the plane. There is no reason to
expect that they and other European countries won't do so again. Routes from
Russia to Cuba (assuming he has to use Havana as a stop) also typically fly
over the United States. The United States is free to, if not directly force
the plane down in the United States, not grant it permission to fly in U.S.
airspace, effectively forcing it to land in a U.S. friendly country (Canada).
And Cuba might simply hand him over to improve U.S. relations. My
understanding is that small private jets simply do not have the range to go
directly from Moscow to any of the countries listed (perhaps Venezuela would
be just within reach).

At this point, though, I don't really see what option Snowden has but to take
Venezuela's asylum offer and hope for the best. He is on a small boat on the
ocean in a raging storm. His fate is not in his own hands.

~~~
jgrahamc
_When the regime changes in the country he ends up in, will he wear out his
welcome?_

This is a reasonable question, but not sure the word 'regime' is warranted. If
you're talking about Venezuela then that's a democratically elected
government.

~~~
skwirl
I didn't mean for the word to have a negative connotation. The word "regime"
is a useful as it covers both the current administration and the system
itself. So it would cover both a change in the elected leadership and, say, a
new form of government installed by a coup or revolution.

~~~
eyko
would you have used the same word in reference to the USA?

~~~
skwirl
I would not because I (and any reasonable person would) consider the odds of a
change of the form of government itself in the United States to be so remote
to not be worth mentioning. In the case of Venezuela, their constitution is
only 13 years old, Nicaragua's is 26 years old, and Bolivia's is only 4 years
old. The systems in these countries frequently change and are likely to do so
again within Snowden's lifetime.

~~~
eyko
And Spain's constitution is not even 40, yet nobody called our government a
regime - not even in the 80s. It carries a connotation you're probably not
willing to admit.

------
rafaelm
I'm just gonna post a previous comment I made on another story regarding this:

\----------------------

I wonder why in the Venezuelan government's eyes it's OK for them to
constantly monitor and record every call, email,etc made by their political
opponents.

I wonder what would happen to an officer of the SEBIN (venezuelan inteligence
agency)if they came out with details about how they record every political
opponent movement. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up being just another
statistic in the homicide rates.

They even had a late night TV show (La Hojilla) where a guy would play back
cell phone recordings and emails of the opposition politicians.Live. On TV. He
had carte blanche to insult,record anyone he wanted live on TV. Chavez would
often call in to the show to congratulate him.

They even had a Congress session where they played recordings of the cell
phone calls of the most prominent opposition members and their family. And
that was live on TV again!

Hipocrysy at it's best.

\---------

These governments are not "fighting for freedom" or for the privacy rights of
the people of the world. Many of these governments would sell their mothers to
have a PRISM-like system. Venezuela included.

EDIT: when I talk about hipocrisy, I'm talking about the venezuelan govt, not
Snowden.

~~~
grey-area
_These governments are not "fighting for freedom" or for the privacy rights of
the people of the world._

Given his published views on surveillance I'm sure Snowden would agree. I
highly doubt Venezuela is his first choice for asylum, or anywhere close to
it. He doesn't have a lot of choice at this point if he wants to stay out of
the reach of the CIA. I doubt he'll stay there long, even if he wants to, but
it might be a useful step on the way to another country.

I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually volunteers to come back to the US for
trial, but he might be waiting until there have been enough disclosures of
government wrongdoing, and enough public outrage, that the Obama
administration wouldn't dare trying to sequester him and prevent an open
trial.

Why is fighting for freedom in quotes here?

[EDIT] To add a couple of minor points:

hipocrysy -> hypocrisy

Is this the story you mean?

[http://boingboing.net/2013/07/08/snowden-and-venezuela-my-
bi...](http://boingboing.net/2013/07/08/snowden-and-venezuela-my-biza.html)

It's a good read, and covers in detail the kind of abuse of surveillance they
have in Venezuela - what's interesting about this is that it cuts both ways.
While you might say it shows Snowden to be hypocritical (though I'd argue he
has no good choices here), it is also a perfect illustration of the dangers of
pervasive surveillance, and the way it undermines our everyday democracy. It
would be so easy to use surveillance to investigate and harass political
opponents, and in the US or UK we wouldn't even know it is happening, we'd
just read about the embarrassment of a politician over an affair or similar
peccadillo, without knowing how the press came to be informed.

~~~
rafaelm
Thanks for that article it's a very interesting read, and I wasn't aware of
that case.

There are many, many cases like this. And they don't even try to hide it or
pass it as leaks. Even recently there was a recording presented by the
Information Minister himself, which was taken in somebody's home. This means
they had to break in to the house and place bugs.

When I say hypocrisy ( thanks for the correction) I mean the Venezuelan
government, not Snowden. I support what he did and right now he cannot be
picky as to where he goes to be safe.

That's the reason why I put "fighting for freedom" in quotes. The Venezuelan
govt keeps making statements saying that it's our duty to protect Snowden for
the freedom of the world. It's just that in their eyes, those that oppose them
don't have right to that freedom.

------
salimmadjd
OT: But I'm curious why the article has to define the countries who offered
asylum as leftist:

> "...the leftist governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua...."

This implies the asylum was extended because they are leftist as appose to
other reasons, such as these countries felt rebuffed by US for forcing down
the flight of the Bolivian president, or purely on humanitarian or other
reasons.

~~~
kghose
To me "leftist" has certain idealogical connotations, as in trying out a
particular system of government that emphasizes strong and omni-present
governmental control (like the USSR, for example).

In my opinion the countries listed are not leftist, they are simply very, very
corrupt with very poor law and order and poor government accountability and
democratic in name only.

I don't think they are "leftist"; they are just very corrupt and the majority
of people are powerless to change it because criminal and military elements
are opposing them.

~~~
smutticus
Your definition of 'left' and 'right' in politics is quite simply just wrong.
Both left and right can descend into state control just as easily. Fascism,
for example, is a far-right ideology.

I also don't know why you think Venezuela is less democratic then many other N
Hemispheric countries. But having no comparison with which to judge I don't
know how corrupt a country needs to be in order to register as 'very, very
corrupt' on your radar.

~~~
Kurtz79
To his credit, he did not say that all ideologies where heavy government
presence is prominent are left-inspired.

He said that the word "leftist" implies certain characteristics, among them
heavy government presence.

I struggle to think of a real-life example where this is not the case.

~~~
lmm
A few anarchist communes existed in real life, at least for a while.

------
_delirium
That's quite a bait-and-switch of a news article. The headline claims
something, and then the article body says that, actually, they have no idea if
their headline is correct or not, and their only sources were a deleted tweet
and another tweet making vague reference to an apparently nonexistent
newspaper article.

~~~
simonster
Well, the deleted tweet was from someone who ought to know, it claimed to
reference a report on a Russian 24 hour news channel, not in an article, but
it's still suspicious that this isn't on their website. OTOH, Snowden
accepting asylum in Venezuela, wouldn't be particularly surprising, since
that's where he was originally headed.

------
colkassad
If the Venezuelan government really wanted to be nasty, they could arrange for
Snowden to be assassinated in a manner that implicates the US government.

~~~
bilbo0s
No way.

Much better for the GoV to keep Snowden alive and "WikiLeak"-ing.

I think the damage these leaks do to the US is generally underestimated. Not
just in terms of security, but also politically and economically. It's VERY
likely that a great deal of damage will be done economically over the long
term.

Frankly, I wouldn't even be surprised to see a lot of these Latin American
nations begin capitalize on that economic damage over the long term.

This whole NSA Affair will prove to be bad business all the way around.

~~~
wwhitman
That is a lovely theory except for the fact that virtually every government is
doing the same.

------
ExpiredLink
Snowden's future is clear. He will be forgotten like ... Bradley Manning. The
latter is currently on trial. Nobody cares any more.

------
voidlogic
So now he has to get there...?

Maybe they could have a frigate on a "far northing training excerise". He
could then fly by helicoper to the ship. Interdicting a home bound passenger
jet is one thing (esp. as they need fuel). Interdicting frigate in
international waters is a another ball game. But yeah, I'm probably far into
the realm a fantasy here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ARV_General_Sal%C3%B3m_%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ARV_General_Sal%C3%B3m_%28F-25%29_y_ARV_Mariscal_Sucre_%28F-21%29_-_1987-09855.jpg)

~~~
weinzierl
"Moscow - Barents Sea - Windward Islands - Caracas" interesting article in
Spiegel Online today. They have a map of the potential route and other
suggestions. For example: He could travel as diplomatic baggage. Sounds crazy,
but there are at least two cases where this has been tried. Both cases were
unsuccessful but if they were we probably wouldn't know about them.

Original (in German):

[http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/asylgesuch-von-
snowden...](http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/asylgesuch-von-snowden-in-
venezuela-moegliche-reiseroute-a-910213.html)

Translate:

[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2Fasylgesuch-
von-snowden-in-venezuela-moegliche-reiseroute-a-910213.html)

------
lucb1e
This starts to sound a bit like John McAfee's story. Better make sure any
journalists don't forget to remove geotags from photos!

------
swah
Pardon me if I'm being ignorant, but what was the american people response to
the whole "government is spying on us" thing?

I thought there would be huge protests and pressure for a response from the
president, and promise to cut back on... spying on people.

------
scrumper
Is it absolutely certain he's even in Russia? Couldn't he have left Hong Kong
on a freighter bound for South America weeks ago? It would explain why nobody
has seen him since he disappeared in HK.

------
ortusdux
Tweeted by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma:
[https://twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov](https://twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov)

~~~
stephengillie
Google Translate gives me: " _According to News 24, with reference to Maduro,
Snowden accepted his offer of asylum. If so, it is found that the safest
option_ "

So who is News 24?

~~~
flatfilefan
It's "Vesti.ru",
[http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1102569](http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1102569)

