I came here with the same thought. I wonder if the Washington post is to be trusted here, or if that was never said but inserted by the journalist to give even less credibility to ecuador.
Yes, I'm positive that the same journalist publication that leaked news of PRISM in the first place is now working feverishly to discredit their own story.
Please note that this is an AP Wire story, and so, not actually written by the Washington Post.
That said, lets do a quick analysis of the subject for GP. It doesn't matter to Snowden what the AP or WaPo thinks of his asylum documents. All he cares about is whether a) his passport will get him through the intermediary countries, and b) whether Ecuador will recognize his asylum document.
He already believes a) or he wouldn't be flying through Europe (although that may have changed if the US has gotten its INTERPOL red notice right finally.
If b) is in question, it would explain why he's still hanging out in the Moscow airport, and not headed on a more direct route for South America.
There are of course many other reasons why Snowden would dally in Moscow, but whether the WaPo or AP thinks of his immigration status in Ecuador doesn't seem like one of them to me.
You give a different version of the document to each person, with unique typos in each one. If the document gets leaked, you know who did it - the typos form a "signature".
If you release multiple copies of the document, each with a slight variation, then keep track of who got which version, you can (potentially) figure out who leaked the document.
That actually makes sense, though. Fraud is an actual crime, and the action damaged the reputation of the Ecuadorian ministry. It's not like the leaker did some brave or noble thing.
If this is a fraudulent letter, then it isn't a leak - it's just fraud. It would be like me stealing some official letterhead and 'leaking' an official pardon for Timothy McVeigh (as a purely random example, please do not say I am comparing Snowden to the Oklahoma City bomber, and yes I'm aware he is dead).
If the letter is real (or was a draft of a soon to be real letter), then it's a bit different.
How can it be fraudulent when it wasn't signed or stamped? I certainly got the impression from her comments that it was upsetting that the draft/template was leaked ahead of time (without the go-ahead from the government) more than anything else. Was it leaked to the press with the statement that it was official, or did the press come to that conclusion on their own?
As I said in the last part, if this is just an early leak of a document in the works that will soon be official, it's a bit different than fraud. However, there is surely a difference between releasing templates for official documents during the middle of a tense diplomatic situation and releasing information about a (likely unconstitutional) spying operation that has been going on for years without the knowledge of the public.
A tense diplomatic situation involves words and press releases, not bombs and lives. Both situations are in the public interest, but it seems weird to prioritize diplomatic secrecy over national security secrecy.
Likewise the Supreme Court has ruled just this year that it's OK for law enforcement to take DNA samples merely for being detained. I guess all I can say is that you would all be very surprised about what's technically considered Constitutional surveillance or not, and the kind of surveillance (including very-long-term surveillance) that all levels of government have routinely used without making a formal public press release each and every single time.
That doesn't mean that what is in place now is all perfect and good (e.g. FISC itself certainly needs more transparency in its operation) but if you're beating on the Constitution drum I think you'll be let down in the end.
Well, I got the chance to be surprised regarding things like DNA samples. I'm not worried about targeted surveillance as much as I am broad-spectrum storing of everything anybody ever does on the internet for later lookup.
If they had it their way, the NSA would have never told anyone about it. Thanks to Snowden, now you can talk about the NSA spying on everyone without making it a joke so you don't sound like a loon.
