It is now confirmed that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and has left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International airport. The United States continues to threaten any country that grants Snowden asylum and has been successful in pressuring U.S. media never to refer to him as a whistleblower. While MSNBC hosts mock Snowden and express disbelief why he doesn’t just trust that Obama will give him a fair trial, there is little reason for Snowden to trust those assurances when a president is claiming the right to kill citizens without trial, send some people to military tribunals, and routinely uses classification laws to force the dismissal of public interest lawsuits. What’s not to trust?
Polls show roughly half of Russian citizens support Snowden and support asylum.
For Snowden, he may not see a good option. They just finishing the Manning trial where they pursued an abusive “aiding the enemy” charge without a foundation of evidence to support such a charge. He is looking at life in prison even after being acquitted on the charge. In the meantime, on America’s Animal Farm, only members of the ruling elite are allowed to steal and destroy classified evidence without going to jail.
Snowden would face classification laws limiting his defense and laws written to require little showing for conviction. The Administration is infamous for count stacking where they pile on dozens and even hundreds of counts to guarantee life in prison.
Snowden has embarrassed powerful leaders in the United States and showed that they have been lying to the public. This includes not only Obama but top Democrats. They want Snowden punished for their sins.
In such an environment, Russia may look pretty darn good to Snowden.
Source: ABC News
Michael Hayden is a disgrace. He lied for a living. His comments and opinions are about as accurate as a stopped clock.
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More from Michael Hayden:
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/michael-hayden-edward-snowden-bradley-manning-95113.html
Excerpt:
Former NSA and CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden says that Edward Snowden’s leaks are worse than what Bradley Manning released, but he says they are both emblematic of a new generation with different views of government transparency.
Talking about Snowden on Friday, one day after Russia granted him temporary asylum and three days after Manning was convicted of espionage but not aiding the enemy, Hayden said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Snowden does not understand how much damage he’s done.
“Manning was bad, but I would suggest to you that Manning was discrete bits of information — that report, that State Department cable and so on — kind of cups of water, or buckets of water. Snowden is revealing the plumbing,” Hayden said. “Snowden is telling the world how we get information. And so the effects of this aren’t going to be short-term and transient, they are going to be long-term and permanent.”
Saying Snowden had a “combustible combination of naivety and narcissism,” Hayden said the common link between the leakers is coming from a generation that has a different view of government.
“Let me connect the dots between Manning and Snowden. These are two young men … who are representative of at least a fraction of the generation from which we’re now recruiting. A generation that has a different balance point between transparency and secrecy than our generations have had,” Hayden said. “They’re talented, but they also need to be shown that whatever they think the balance point is over here for their Facebook page, that’s not the balance point the government will insist they observe inside our secrets.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/hayden-obama-supplicant-putin/2013/08/02/id/518442
Excerpt:
“You’ve got an American president, actually a supplicant, to the Russian president, in order to get this young man back,” Hayden said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” of efforts to have the former NSA contractor who disclosed the agency’s data secret data collection programs returned to the U.S. for prosecution.
The White House indicated Thursday that an upcoming fall meeting with Putin could be in jeopardy because Russia has granted Snowden temporary asylum. The two leaders were scheduled to meet in September during Obama’s trip to the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg.
Hayden, a retired Air Force general, indicated the events were particularly striking in light of Russia’s present standing as a world player.
“Putin and his team are in charge of a declining power. This isn’t China or some other ascendant economy or military force. This is about managing Russian decline,” Hayden said.
“You’ve got a leader there now with an expansive ego. Actually, Russia’s power right now is confined to the ability to say ‘No.’ It’s confined to the ability to obstruct. When they have a chance, they do it,” he said.
Hayden said relations with that country are more indicative of years past, “despite the so-called reset” that was supposed to follow the breakup of the old Soviet Union and the rise of Russian democracy.
“There’s an awful lot of this that has the echo of 20 and 30 years ago, doesn’t it?” Hayden commented, referring to the Cold War.
Oh please !!!! Mikey Hayden has got to be kidding. First of all, Edward Snowden & Bradley Manning robbed the U.S. government of its plausible deniability by confirming information which was already in the public domain. So far, neither Mikey Hayden nor any other administration official has mentioned any specific item which compromised national security. The only thing that has been compromised is the government’s & the administration’s ability to lie & cover up the truth with impunity. Perhaps Hayden will comment on things he truly knows about. First, all Americans were promised but were never given an explanation of the legality & necessity for the invasion & occupation of Iraq. The fact that these explanations are long overdue and not forthcoming is an open admission that the invasion & occupation of Iraq was unnecessary and illegal under international. law. Secondly, Americans are due an explanation as to how we are to support our troops while some are opposed, in the strongest of terms, to what our troops have been ordered to do.