Edward Snowden

Friday, August 2, 2013

Friday, August 2, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, August 2, 2013

Russia grants Snowden temporary asylum, angering Washington

Brushing aside pleas and warnings from President Barack Obama and other senior American officials, Russia granted Edward Snowden temporary asylum and allowed him to walk free out of a Moscow airport transit zone on Thursday, ending his legal limbo there after more than five weeks.

Mr. Snowden thanked Russia in a statement issued by WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization that has been assisting him. He accused the United States of disregarding the law in its global manhunt to arrest him and said that “in the end, the law is winning.”

Russia’s decision, which infuriated U.S. officials, significantly alters the legal status of Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence analyst wanted by the United States for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live – and conceivably even work – anywhere in Russia for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors.

Mr. Snowden, 30, departed Sheremetyevo Airport unexpectedly at 3:30 p.m. after his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, delivered to him a passport-like document issued by the Federal Migration Service, valid until July 31, 2014.

Mr. Snowden left the airport’s transit zone alone, an airport official said, but WikiLeaks later announced that he had left accompanied by one of the organization’s representatives, Sarah Harrison, who apparently had remained with him since his flight began in Hong Kong in June.

“We are extremely disappointed that the Russian Federation would take this step,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said in Washington. “Obviously, this is not a positive development.” (Source: The Globe & Mail)

Tuesday June 25, 2013

Tuesday June 25, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 25, 2013

Edward Snowden not spotted on flight to Cuba

Confusion over the whereabouts of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden grew on Monday after a jetliner flew from Moscow to Cuba with an empty seat booked in his name.

Aeroflot said earlier that Snowden had registered for the flight using his U.S. passport, which the United States recently annulled.

The founder of the WikiLeaks secrets-spilling organization, Julian Assange, insisted he couldn’t go into details about where Snowden was, but said he was safe.

Snowden has applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries, Assange said. An Aeroflot representative who wouldn’t give her name told The Associated Press that Snowden didn’t board Flight SU150 to Havana, which was filled with journalists trying to track him down. Two AP journalists on the flight confirmed after it arrived Monday evening in Havana that Snowden wasn’t on the plane.

A member of the Aeroflot crew spoke briefly to reporters gathered outside Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport, but would not give his name. “No special people on board,” he said, smiling. “Only journalists.”

Security around the aircraft was heavy prior to boarding in Moscow and guards tried to prevent the scrum of photographers and cameramen from taking pictures of the plane, heightening speculation that Snowden might have been secretly escorted on board.

But about two dozen journalists who made the flight searched up and down the plane after boarding in a fruitless hunt for Snowden. One increasingly desperate Russian television reporter was briefly convinced that AP reporter Max Seddon might be the NSA leaker. (Source: CBC News)