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Why Won’t Anyone Take Edward Snowden?
Why Won’t Anyone Take Edward Snowden?
Because he is a terrible candidate for asylum
By Eric Posner
Poor Edward Snowden! He’s willing to live nearly anywhere, but no country is willing to accept him. Not Ecuador. Not China, Russia, Norway, or Spain. Why not? Because he is a terrible candidate for asylum.
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The problem for Snowden is that these countries wouldn’t gain anything by giving him asylum. He has presumably already revealed everything he knows or is planning to soon. Foreign governments can benefit from these disclosures without doing anything for Snowden in return. Most spies sell their secrets to other countries rather than give them away, and bargain hard for an escape route.
Meanwhile, Snowden is not the type of person you want living in your country. Countries don’t grant citizenship or permanent residence to people they know to be felons. These people are more trouble than they’re worth. For all his IT skills, Snowden is not likely to be an appealing employee to a government or business that might otherwise be able to use them...Any country with an extradition treaty with the United States would probably extradite him—so his efforts to get into Germany or France are pretty pointless. Perhaps, if he reached Cuba or Bolivia, he could stay in one of those countries, in the process giving up the civil liberties that he holds so dear.
Even Snowden’s supporters realize that he must face the music. The Guardian, having wrung him dry of secrets, has solemnly declared that he should be tried albeit as a “whistleblower,” whatever that means. If he returns to the United States, prosecutors can and will charge him under whatever law he broke, and that includes the Espionage Act. He is likely to be convicted, but he has an outside chance of an embarrassing mistrial, a nullifying jury, even a sympathetic judge who goes easy on him in sentencing. Americans have a soft spot for people like Snowden. This country has a long history of unsuccessful prosecutions of dissenters, from the alleged Nazi sympathizer Elizabeth Dilling, to the Chicago Eight, to Daniel Ellsberg. Thoreau, abettors of fugitive slaves, civil rights protesters, and Vietnam-era draft dodgers are honored in historical memory. The founders themselves were traitors who made good. Today, secure but stifling in the embrace of a government that protects us from crime, terrorism, old age, and ill health by keeping track of our every move, we play Patrick Henry and enact harmless mini-rebellions by cheering on people like Snowden and Julian Assange. They defy the system without threatening it.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/07/edward_snowden_and_asylum_he_is_a_terrible_candidate.html
Because he is a terrible candidate for asylum
By Eric Posner
Poor Edward Snowden! He’s willing to live nearly anywhere, but no country is willing to accept him. Not Ecuador. Not China, Russia, Norway, or Spain. Why not? Because he is a terrible candidate for asylum.
<...>
The problem for Snowden is that these countries wouldn’t gain anything by giving him asylum. He has presumably already revealed everything he knows or is planning to soon. Foreign governments can benefit from these disclosures without doing anything for Snowden in return. Most spies sell their secrets to other countries rather than give them away, and bargain hard for an escape route.
Meanwhile, Snowden is not the type of person you want living in your country. Countries don’t grant citizenship or permanent residence to people they know to be felons. These people are more trouble than they’re worth. For all his IT skills, Snowden is not likely to be an appealing employee to a government or business that might otherwise be able to use them...Any country with an extradition treaty with the United States would probably extradite him—so his efforts to get into Germany or France are pretty pointless. Perhaps, if he reached Cuba or Bolivia, he could stay in one of those countries, in the process giving up the civil liberties that he holds so dear.
Even Snowden’s supporters realize that he must face the music. The Guardian, having wrung him dry of secrets, has solemnly declared that he should be tried albeit as a “whistleblower,” whatever that means. If he returns to the United States, prosecutors can and will charge him under whatever law he broke, and that includes the Espionage Act. He is likely to be convicted, but he has an outside chance of an embarrassing mistrial, a nullifying jury, even a sympathetic judge who goes easy on him in sentencing. Americans have a soft spot for people like Snowden. This country has a long history of unsuccessful prosecutions of dissenters, from the alleged Nazi sympathizer Elizabeth Dilling, to the Chicago Eight, to Daniel Ellsberg. Thoreau, abettors of fugitive slaves, civil rights protesters, and Vietnam-era draft dodgers are honored in historical memory. The founders themselves were traitors who made good. Today, secure but stifling in the embrace of a government that protects us from crime, terrorism, old age, and ill health by keeping track of our every move, we play Patrick Henry and enact harmless mini-rebellions by cheering on people like Snowden and Julian Assange. They defy the system without threatening it.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/07/edward_snowden_and_asylum_he_is_a_terrible_candidate.html
Fleeing to Hong Kong didn't help his case.
Carl Bernstein on Monday credited Edward Snowden with sparking a needed public debate about the extent of the government’s secret surveillance programs and said there are “admirable aspects” about what the NSA leaker has done.
<...>
Calling Snowden’s travels and story since releasing information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs “operatic,” Bernstein said it may have been better for Snowden if he hadn’t fled the country.
“Civil disobedience is just that. … Indeed that this form of civil disobedience, that he would have done better perhaps for himself and for his case, as we’re now seeing in this opera, to stay in the United States and say, ‘I did this for this reason,’” Bernstein said, noting that Snowden faced a real possibility of a long prison sentence. “It’s a tough call if you’re in his shoes. … He’s got to face the music, and he’s facing them in this odyssey.”
Bernstein also said that most of the programs that Snowden revealed were already known to the public. While Snowden disclosed more about them and put the U.S. in the “spotlight,” the takeaway was that the programs were appropriately run...the program has not been abused and safeguards are in place domestically,” Bernstein said.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/carl-bernstein-edward-snowden-comments-93697.html
<...>
Calling Snowden’s travels and story since releasing information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs “operatic,” Bernstein said it may have been better for Snowden if he hadn’t fled the country.
“Civil disobedience is just that. … Indeed that this form of civil disobedience, that he would have done better perhaps for himself and for his case, as we’re now seeing in this opera, to stay in the United States and say, ‘I did this for this reason,’” Bernstein said, noting that Snowden faced a real possibility of a long prison sentence. “It’s a tough call if you’re in his shoes. … He’s got to face the music, and he’s facing them in this odyssey.”
Bernstein also said that most of the programs that Snowden revealed were already known to the public. While Snowden disclosed more about them and put the U.S. in the “spotlight,” the takeaway was that the programs were appropriately run...the program has not been abused and safeguards are in place domestically,” Bernstein said.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/carl-bernstein-edward-snowden-comments-93697.html
54 replies
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Happy 4th.
Time for me to head outside and watch the show. 
Oh yes! Now I remember.
Victor Laszlo will never leave Casablanca - alive.
