Where should Edward Snowden go?
What would you do, if you were him?
Stay in Russia? Choose which country? Means of transportation? Which route?
What can he do, so that the CIA never finds him? Plastic surgery?
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47 Answers
Send him Tel Aviv. Netanyahu has no love for Obama, and Israel has told the US to shove it in the past.
He should return to the US, and face the music.
Alaska, he could hide out with the polar bears in their, ahem…snow den.
Alaska? And risk being shot by Sarah Palin?
One of the south american countries that offered him asylum.
Shot by Palin, I can think of worse ways to go.
Which South American country would be best from his perspective? Is the CIA equally powerful in all of them?
@mattbrowne
The CIA is probably powerful enough to assassinate him in whatever country he is. In South America he at least does not have to worry about the South American government helping the assassins.
Ha, S.America favoured bolt hole of many a nazi bastard, Snowden hardly in that league, but if needs must.
He should do the honorable thing and turn himself over to the United States. If he believes that what he did was right and why is he running away like a coward? Personally I would rather live in prison in United States for a few years then be stuck in a hell hole like Venezuela for life. He should own up to what he did and take responsibility for it like a man.
@gondwanalon
“If he believes that what he did was right and why is he running away like a coward?”
Same reason that Jews escaped from Nazi Germany.
@ragingloli The Jews were totally innocent people who did nothing wrong. They were escaping Germany to escape certain death.
Ssnowden is criminal and sniveling punk the lam.
Only an insane person would say that there’s anything similar.
@gondwanalon – you say that Snowden is a criminal sniveling punk, as if it were true.
The fact is that there quite a bit of debate here in the US – even among the right wing – about just how much of a criminal he is. One can make a pretty strong case that Clapper, the head of NSA, is the criminal for lying to Congress and the American people, and that the heads of the FBI and CIA are accessories to the crime of wiretapping.
So let’s not be so quick to vilify Snowden. He hasn’t been arrested, much less tried, and that makes him innocent until proven guilty.
Or did that law go out of the window along with the wiretap laws?
Were I Snowden, I’d return to US and blow up the biggest trial in history.
We cannot fight homeland tyranny with a strategy of “expose and hide”. Our methods must be bold and brave, out in the open, directly in the face of those who lurk in the shadows of deceptive policies. They are the ones who should fear the truth, and run from it. But to those who expose truth, and share it with others, let truth be a friend.
@RealEyesRealizeRealLies and @gondwanalon -
I don’t think the US intends to put him on trial despite his status as a US citizen.
I think that their plan is to shove him off to Guantanamo without any legal process, and essentially silence him in that way.
This fits right into the mindset of the intelligence community.
The other option, of course, is to do a Bin Laden type of raid and drop Snowden out of a helicopter over the Atlantic. Hey, it worked before…
@gondwanalon “The Jews were totally innocent people who did nothing wrong.”
But the majority German population had been hypnotized by their leaders to think otherwise.
Don’t let the US leadership hypnotize you into thinking the same of Snowden.
I honstly don’t know what to think of Snowden at this point.
When he first dropped off the radar in Hong Kong, I thought that he had already taken steps to change his appearance and had already left that city to go to a better hiding place before he had been formally charged. I am a bit disappointed that he didn’t seem to have a plan already formulated.
Treason is defined as revealing state secrets to an enemy of the nation. Snowden has revealed secrets about the NSA to the American public, and for that he is being accused of treason. That says a lot about how the NSA regards the citizens of its own country.
@gondwanalon ”...be stuck in a hell hole like Venezuela for life.”
I really can’t recall ever reading a more ill-informed, ignorant statement by a flutherite. Have you ever even been there? (Have you ever been anywhere, for that matter?) Or is this statement a product of your education provided mainly by your star-spangled Tee Vee Box?
@Espiritus_Corvus Talk about being ill informed. HA! You know nothing about me or what I know and yet you do exactly what you accuse be of doing.
Actually I have friend who is from Venezuela and has told me enough about that country for me to understand what it is like to live there. Also I have read about it.
@gondwanalon
Whoever travels without a guide
Needs two hundred years for a two day journey.
~Rumi
Oh, I know you. The few lines of ignorance you’ve left on this one string speaks volumes as to who you are. It was all that was necessary.
@Espiritus_Corvus, “The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing” -Socrates
You extrapolate “volumes” about me from just a few words that I wrote? Thank you for giving me a little laugh. Good luck and good health to you.
You see, @gondwanalon, willful stupidity advertises itself. People like you, the willfully stupid, are proud of it and make statements (such as yours found above) with impunity, perhaps in hopes of garnering cohorts. Many of the quotes you pay homage to on your Fluther profile page also confirm this. But what this advertising actually does is signal everyone else as to the personality type which is attracted to making baseless statements at other’s expense. There is a bullying factor here as well, because this personality will often go after only those whom they perceive as smaller, weaker, or voiceless. Like the wife beater, merely the fact that the man beats his wife is all most people need to know in order to judge him reprehensible. So, If you don’t like the extrapolation, don’t leave such telling clues.
I think his strategy is to remain in Russia only for a while, and then leave this country when the tremendous attention has died down.
Snowden reminds me a bit of Daniel Ellsberg, “a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers. The papers revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, as an editor of the New York Times was to write much later, these documents demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006.”
@mattbrowne I agree.
Like Ellsberg, Snowden has confirmed what many people have suspected for a long time, taking suspicions out of the realm of conspiracy theory to a reality we all can now deal with. This is very helpful to a society which demands openness.
I think, and since yeaterday this has been confirmed by reports out of Sheremetevo Airport, Snowden is asking for asylum from Russia merely in order to get legal transit through Russian territory to either a plane to one of the three Latin American countries that haven’t been cowed by the US, or into downtown Moscow to one of their embassies. Putin has made it clear he does not want him as he is just a headache. Putin has the same tech capabilities as the US to spy on his own people and other countries, and as a former KGB official (Spetznaz as well?) probably has no qualms about doing so. So Snowden’s data is probably old news to him and serves no purpose other than as an irritant between the US and himself in upcoming talks.
Some interesting info on Snowden that isn’t discussed much in the media has come about. He is epileptic. He revealed a CIA operation that, to me, confirms which strata of American society they actually work for:
“Snowden said that in 2007 the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was responsible for maintaining computer network security. Snowden described his CIA experience in Geneva as “formative”, stating that the CIA deliberately got a Swiss banker drunk and encouraged him to drive home. When the latter was arrested, a CIA operative offered to intervene and later recruited the banker. The revelations come at a sensitive time for US-Swiss relations as the Swiss government attempts to pass legislation allowing for more banking transparency.”
So, the Swiss want to legislate more openness as to their international banking—to no longer be a shelter for the international class of tax-evading wealthy (a policy criticized in public comments by US presidents since at least Dwight Eisenhower)—but now we have a CIA operation designed to sabatage that legislation. Like many of these revelations from Ellsberg to Snowden, this is no surprise, but it is important confirmation.
@Espiritus_Corvus – Thanks for sharing this. Journalist Glenn Greenwald claims that Snowden has further information which could become the US government’s worst nightmare. I wonder if this is really true. If yes, it could protect his life. He can threaten that a trusted person will release this upon his death.
@mattbrowne Yes, I read Greenwald yesterday. After checking him out, I don’t think he would risk his career lightly for a little spotlight, so he carries weight with me. (Greenwald is also a lawyer, specializing in US constitutional and civil rights litigation. He used to have a personal blog called Unclaimed Territory and another on Salon.com, but no more.)
Yes, something sinister may be afoot, Watson.
I do see a difference between Snowden and Ellsberg though. Ellsberg stayed here, unless I am mistaken, while Snowden fled and may have given damaging evidence to the Chinese. At first, I felt like Snowden was heroic and now I’m just not so sure.
ABC News, 9 July, 2013:
Poll: More Than Half of Voters Say Snowden is Whistle-blower, Not Traitor
55% say he is a whistleblower, not a traitor.
34% say he is a traitor.
That was 6 days ago. The government’s PR machine, through their more sympathetic news and commentator outlets (which appear to be LEGION during times like these), are working overtime to portray Snowden as a foolish young man; others are out to thoroughly demonize him. It’s all ad hominem and very little on the actual details found in his leaks and the actual repercussions upon individual civil rights and freedom resulting from these NSA programs.
It will be interesting to see how effective this campaign is. Already it seems there is growing doubt among the 55%.
@janbb – What damaging evidence? It’s my understanding that Snowden always emphasizes that he would reveal nothing that puts American citizens into danger.
@mattbrowne I don’t have a source so I can’t say anything for sure, but I thought it was reported that he revealed information to the Chinese. I’m not really following the case very closely any more; I have other pre-occupations. As @Espiritus_Corvus says, the government PR machine is working hard on this and I really don’t know what to think about Snowden any more.
@janbb – I really think that Snowden views himself as someone patriotic. He sees himself as the defender of the American constitution. In the light of this, he rejects totalitarian countries like China. Perhaps he had to offer a little bit to be allowed to leave Hong Kong for Moscow.
@mattbrowne I agree; I think he does too. But I also think that he is a young man and some of his actions are perplexing. The one thing I am sure of is that I am glad I am not his parent right now.
@mattbrown—I agree, I don’t think Snowden sees himself as anything but a brave patriot who has, in a very real way, given his life for his country—whether he dies during this process or not.
As to your original question: Hell if I know. It appears, according to AP and Reuters reports now only a few hours old, that he will be granted temporary asylum by Russia within the next few days. Given a choice, he will most likely pick one of the three Latin American countries that have offered him asylum—all of which are now presided over by elected leaders from their respective socialist parties. Sadly, this will allow the Western MSM press to vilify him even further.
There remains the problem of clear airspace from Moscow to either Nicaragua, Venezuela, or Bolivia. One of those countries’ presidents will have to arrange a private flight to their country which cannot violate NATO airspace – We now know that the American government will have the flight escorted down if it goes over allied territory. (I cite President Morales’ flight, forced down against all rules of international diplomacy, a truly unprecedented event—and indicative of how badly this man is wanted.) This makes even transit over the polar cap into the Atlantic or Pacific oceans problematic.
If Snowden uses his temporary Russian asylum status to merely go into Moscow and enter one the three asylum-friendly embassies, he may end up like Assange. I’m guessing Putin will make it a condition that Snowden gets on a plane so he can be done with him. It won’t take two to three weeks as stated by Snowden’s Russian lawyer. The Russians can move pretty quick when motivated. I cite French actor Bernard Depardieu’s emergency Russian citizenship request back in January—it was granted in three days.
Edit: Brain fart in geography—The flight might fly SE down the Kamchatka Peninsula and on into the Pacific, threading the needle through NATO, Japanese, and South Korean airspace, but the US owns the Pacific—and it is BIG. This will be extremely interesting.
It seems Putin wants to get rid of him. So Putin should decide to visit Venezuela taking Snowden with him on his presidential plane. No one will dare stop the Russian plane. Not in the Atlantic. Not in the Pacific.
Ha ha, it might have to come to that. This airspace thing is a real problem. Looking at the globe, the only relatively safe flight path would be southeast over Vladivostok (home Russia’s Pacific Fleet), over North Korea, through the East China Sea, and out into the Pacific. Then there is the problem of transiting Chile or other US-friendlies to get to land-locked Bolivia. Like flying over either Panama or Columbia (US friendlies), or to avoid them, fly all the way around the southern tip of South America in order to reach Venezuela. That would take a lot of fuel. Then there is the straight shot from the East China Sea to the west coast of Nicaragua. I guess Nicaragua is where he’ll have to go, based on the airspace problem.
With Putin on board airspace is not a problem. Even US friendly countries wouldn’t dare. The US wouldn’t dare. They would deny him flying over US soil, but for getting to Venezuela or Bolivia that’s not required. If he chooses a Western route, none of the European countries would dare stopping a Russian plane and make it land in Vienna with Putin on board.
ABC News Poll, 24 July, 2013:
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 53% of Americans favor bringing criminal charges against Snowden, up from a June poll that found a plurality of 48% opposed to charging him with a crime.
~Associated Press
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