After the aeroplane with the Bolivian President was forced to land on the suspicion that Snowden was on board: How outrageous would it have been, had it been an american president, that was forced to land on a similar suspicion?

So outrageous that demanding them to land wouldn’t have happened. You can’t bully the bully, in this case.

I think it’s hilarious, in a sick sort of way.

The US – which already looks asinine for all the bugging and eavesdropping that it does – now decides to be the bully of the airways by forcing other countries to do its bidding.

This is turning into being the fiasco of all fiascos for the intelligence community. And for Obama.

How stupid, how craven, how horrible the US looks after this. Snowden should be celebrated, not villified.

I agree with @ragingloli that had this had happened to an American president we would be the ones screaming bloody murder. And I agree with @elbanditoroso in every detail except the assertion that “Snowden should be celebrated, not vilified” (one “L”). What he should be is held accountable for breaking the law.

I won’t go into my beliefs about the right or wrong of the government’s covert actions or about leaking. I’m only saying here that Snowden swore an oath not to reveal information he acquired in his contractor position, and no matter how strongly he may have felt that breaking that oath was the right thing to do, he broke the law.

There must be other ways he could have unburdened himself other than by blabbing to the media and to the general population, neither of which rarely gets enough data to fully understand complicated issues and which tends see everything in polarized, black or white terms.

It would have been a rallying point for a new war. I can’t believe anyone would try to do this to the leader of any sovereign nation. I find it utterly outrageous, and I think an apology is in order. The US does not understand its place in the world.

I thought it was astonishing. I also wondered why. If Snowden were on board, they’d know where he was. Sooner or later, an airplane must come down. And then Bolivia would have had to do something with him.

The fact that he hasn’t yet disappeared under everyone’s nose, in disguise and/or with falsified papers and/or in some elaborate concealment scheme, tells us plainly that the movies we love are far more fanciful than we even thought. Where’s Ben Affleck when you need him?

It also tells me that he’s carrying a lot less leverage in the form of information and means of access to information than I thought. I expected him to have a couple dozen backup plans that would have had every major government in the world vying to shelter him.

I don’t know, @Jeruba… it sounds to me like he’s planting a pretty effective series of false trails. They haven’t got him yet.

Every failure to catch him is an embarrassment and a waste of resources. If they get him, it will be at a high cost. Probably too high a cost.

As long as he’s trapped somewhere, @glacial, it sounds like things aren’t going his way. I heard an analytical commentary on NPR the other day. They were talking about the technicalities that were being cited as reasons to refuse his requests for asylum from, at that point, 21 nations. First, he wasn’t on their soil, a usual requirement. Second, he couldn’t get from the Moscow airport to the embassies of those that considered their embassies to be their soil for purposes of asylum. Third, he couldn’t even get out of the airport, where he was not considered to be officially on Russian soil. He’s pretty stuck, it seems.

And fourth, not part of the report I heard but my thought, he seems not to be using his leverage to manipulate funds in such a way that he could pay a huge sum to people who might help him escape for money. And of course his safety and freedom would be in jeopardy every inch of the way. How can a guy in his position trust anyone?

Finally, it’s my guess (a sheer guess, a mere guess) that this young man, for all his savvy and talent, had no idea what an international storm he was really going to stir up. Maybe he simply didn’t plan on a scale that would have or could have shielded him from it.

My feeling is that he must have put at least some thought into the consequences. Otherwise, he would not have made a (so far) successful run for it. But I’m not sure why he doesn’t just stay in Russia. I’m sure Putin would be delighted to have him. Anyway, I don’t think he deserves an international shitstorm. I’m kind of in shock that he’s been charged with anything, given that he’s shown that the US government is guilty of greater a more egregious offence.

“he seems not to be using his leverage to manipulate funds in such a way…”
I’m not sure what you mean by this – do you mean manipulate other people’s funds, like stealing or blackmail? I’m not sure he’s that type of guy.

I assumed that before he made his initial move to expose his findings, he’d have made thorough and elaborate plans as to what he’d do next, with several kinds of backups and fail-safes, and that the information he held would in itself provide plenty of insurance and leverage. Maybe he did, and things just aren’t working out as he expected. Or maybe what we hear in the news is all just a cover of some sort.

The NPR story said that in order to apply for asylum in Russia, he had to be able to get to what’s considered “Russian soil,” but he can’t do that without leaving the security of the transit zone at the airport, which isn’t. (That’s where I’d have thought a little cloak-and-dagger might have come in, and of course it still may.)

To harbor him, Putin would also have to make sure his presence was never found out, would he not? Otherwise he is putting on the line whatever degree of amicability may exist in his country’s relations with the U.S. There would have to be a mighty big tradeoff, you would think.

Yes, I did mean make use of his skills with technology to produce funds of some sort. I agree that he doesn’t sound like that kind of guy. But many a real and fictional story has shown us that people will do all kinds of things under duress that they never imagined doing beforehand. My comment said that he doesn’t seem to be doing that; however, that doesn’t mean it’s inconceivable.

It seems to me that Putin is testing his boundaries lately. Harbouring Snowden would be a fairly inconsequential way of saying to the US, “You don’t have any control over me. I do as I please.” I think he would enjoy having Snowden as a trinket.

I think it would be uncharacteristically stupid of Snowden to steal money. He must know that he has a large amount of popular support, despite the charges against him. He has to retain the moral high ground if he has a hope of surviving being caught.

I predict that the anti-US countries of Latin America will reciprocate in the near future. Perhaps not with Air Force One, but some commercial airliner (Delta, AA, US Air etc). They will come up with a reason.