TIME U.S. National Security Edward Snowden Embraces American Flag on WIRED Cover "I care more about the country than what happens to me," Snowden tells magazine

Edward Snowden isnt an easy man to get a hold of. The U.S. government wants to prosecute him, his admirers want to meet him and the media want to interview him. Meanwhile, Snowden is in Russia, and for many of his seekers, inaccessible.

But WIRED managed to interview Snowden for its current issue, however, and in a decision sure to arouse controversy, put on its cover the man some believe to be a traitor draped in an American flag, looking pensively off into the distance.

Snowden tells WIRED that hes willing to go to prison, but not if it means scaring other whistleblowers. I care more about the country than what happens to me, he says. But we cant allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. Im not going to be part of that.

He also told Wired that he most fears U.S. government, not Russian police: Im going to slip up and theyre going to hack me. Its going to happen. Another interesting tidbit: Snowden wasnt sure anyone would care about his leaks. I thought it was likely that society collectively would just shrug and move on, he says. Despite his fears, however. the U.S. House of Representatives voted earlier this year in a 293-to-123 vote to halt the NSAs practice of conducting warrantless searches of millions of Americans emails and phone calls.

Is Snowden a patriot or a traitor? A whistleblower or a criminal? The questions about Snowdens motives wont be answered anytime soon, but the provocative cover is sure to add some fuel to the debate.

[WIRED]

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Edward Snowden Embraces American Flag on WIRED Cover

Photo: Platon

NSA traitor Edward Snowden, who leaked secret government data that he stole from the agency, has been photographed embracing an American flag while on the lam in Russia.

The image, which appears in the September issue of WIRED magazine, is likely to offend Americans who believe Snowden put lives at risk.

In a softball interview, Snowden told sympathetic reporter James Bamford the US still has no idea how much classified information he swiped and then slammed the NSA for negligent auditing of its massive inventory.

The NSA told The Post that if Snowden has something to say, officials there would he happy to talk to him in the United States.

If Mr. Snowden wants to discuss his activities, that conversation should be held with the US Department of Justice, said NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines.

Snowden made off with tens of thousands of stored US intelligence documents in 2013, when he boarded a plane to Hong Kong and later made his way to Russia. He has been indicted for violations of the Espionage Act for what has been called the largest intelligence leak in history.

Even as hes ducking American authorities, Snowden claimed, I care more about the country than what happens to me.

Yet, before the interview, he removed the battery from his Russian cellphone, in case it was being monitored.

In one of the few new revelations, Snowden told how NSA hackers trying to tap into Syrias Internet ended up knocking out the countrys entire system.

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Snowden embraces the American flag

AFP Snowden: lies pushed me over the edge

Washington (AFP) - Edward Snowden says dishonest comments to Congress by the US intelligence chief were the final straw that prompted him to flee the country and reveal a trove of national security documents.

In an interview with Wired magazine in Moscow, where he sought asylum after the revelations, Snowden said he had long been troubled by the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), which employed him as a contractor.

But it was only when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers that the agency does "not wittingly" collect data on millions of American citizens that he was angry enough to act.

The magazine released the article online Wednesday, along with several new photographs of the once-elusive Snowden, including a cover shot of the technician lovingly cradling an American flag.

Snowden says he made his decision to leave his office in Hawaii and head to Hong Kong with secret documents on thumb drives after reading in March 2013 about Clapper briefing a Senate committee.

"I think I was reading it in the paper the next day, talking to coworkers, saying, can you believe this...?" Snowden said.

Following his sensational leaks about the scale of US global surveillance and how the NSA sucks up data on US users' phone calls, Clapper apologized to the Senate for his "erroneous" remarks.

Snowden told Wired that he had already thought about "whistle-blowing" several times over the previous few years.

- Political radicals -

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Snowden: Clapper comments pushed me to become leaker

No matter your political stance, the image is eye-grabbing: famed whistleblower Edward Snowden stares into the distance as he clutches an American flag to his chest, as though protecting the thing he holds most sacred.

That's the picture gracing the current cover of Wired magazine and it's causing quite a stir among supporters and opponents alike of the man who pulled back the curtain on rampant NSA spying programs by fleeing the country and leaking classified documents to journalists just over a year ago.

The photo was taken by world-famous photographerPlaton Antoniou, whose portraits include such notable figures as Vladamir Putin and Barack Obama, and accompanies a lengthy profile of Mr. Snowden by James Bamford.

In a story detailing the context of the photo shoot, Wired editor in chief Scott Dadich writes that while he and the photo staff waited nervously in their hotel room before meeting Mr. Snowden, Snowden himself was calm and at ease throughout the process "Call me Ed" is how he greeted the journalists, an almost comical attempt at repartee.

During the photo shoot in Moscow, where Snowden currently resides in exile, Mr. Dadich describes how Platon (who goes only by his first name) presented Snowden with a series of props to appear in the photos with him a black t-shirt with the word "SECURITY" printed on both the front and back, another black t-shirt featuring a screaming eagle, and, of course, the American flag. The same flag, Dadich notes, that Platon used for his photo of Pamela Anderson that appeared on the cover of George Magazine in 1998.

Dadich writes:

Platon asked him what he'd do with it in a picture. Snowden held the flag in his hands and delicately unfolded it. You could see the gears turning as he weighed his year in exile against the love of country that motivated him in the first place. He said he was nervous that posing with the flag might anger people but that it meant a lot to him. He said that he loved his country. He cradled the flag and held it close to his heart. Nobody said a word, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. We all sat there for a long moment, studying him. Then Platon yelled, Don't move! He clicked off frame after frame, making tiny adjustments to both the lighting and Snowden's posture, sometimes asking for him to look into the lens, sometimes just above it.We had our cover.

And yet, reactions to the photo have been mixed. While near-uniform in mentioning the image's power, critics have noted that its message is ambivalent which, of course, may be the point. After all, strong images are typically up for interpretation. As Brian Stelter writes in CNN, the image could be viewed as a major "PR blunder" for team Snowden, presumably because it could be easy to read such a photo as pitting Snowden against the US as opposed to the patriot he purports to be.

"I believe Snowden is a patriot. But the magazine cover is not going to persuade his doubters of that," Mr. Stelter writes.

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Does this photo tell us what Edward Snowden stands for?

By Alexei Anishchuk

MOSCOW Thu Aug 7, 2014 9:38am EDT

Fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden's refugee documents granted by Russia is seen during a news conference in Moscow August 1, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by the United States for leaking extensive secrets of its electronic surveillance programs, has been given a three-year residence permit by Russia, his Russian lawyer said on Thursday.

Moscow's relations with the West are at Cold War-era lows over Russia's actions in Ukraine. Russia banned certain food imports from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway on Thursday in response to Western sanctions.

"The decision on the application has been taken and therefore, with effect from Aug. 1, 2014, Edward Snowden has received a three-year residential permit," Anatoly Kucherena said. "In the future, Edward himself will take a decision on whether to stay on (in Russia) on and get Russian citizenship or leave for the United States."

He said Snowden could apply for citizenship in 2018 after living in Russia for five years, but that he had not decided whether he wanted to stay or leave.

The spokesman for the White House National Security Council, Ned Price, said Snowden needed to return to the United States to face charges related to the leaks.

"Mr. Snowden faces felony charges here in the United States. He should return to the U.S. as soon as possible, where he will be accorded full due process and protections," Price said.

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Grant Gross | Aug. 8, 2014

The former NSA contractor gets a three-year residency permit from the Russian government.

The Russian government will allow Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who leaked details of the agency's worldwide surveillance programs, to stay in the country for three more years, according to Russia news reports.

Snowden, living in Russia for the past year, was granted temporary asylum that expired July 31, but the Russian government on Aug. 1 granted him a three-year residency permit, according to Russian news site RT.com.

Snowden is "homesick," and has not made up his mind on whether to apply for Russian citizenship, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told reporters. Snowden has not asked for political asylum, he said.

Snowden would be eligible to apply for Russian citizenship in five years, RT.com reported.

Snowden faces charges of espionage and theft of government property in the U.S.

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Report: Snowden allowed to stay in Russia for three more years

Russia has extended Edward Snowdens residency permit, allowing the fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor to remain in the country for three more years, his lawyer said Thursday.

Snowden, who is wanted in the United States for leaking information about National Security Agency surveillance practices, was stranded in the transit lounge at a Moscow airport in June 2013 while trying to flee to Latin America. Russia eventually granted him a one-year temporary asylum permit that expired on Aug. 1.

Snowden asked the Russian authorities last month to allow him to stay and finally got an answer this week. "A decision about the application has been taken," Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who advises Snowden, said on Thursday.

"Accordingly, from Aug. 1, 2014, Edward Snowden has received a residency permit in Russia for three years, he added. Under the terms of the permit, Snowden can move around Russia and pay visits of up to three months to other countries, "depending how he plans his time," Kucherena told reporters in Moscow.

The document carries a three-year extension option. However, Snowden had not been granted political asylum that would allow him to stay in Russia indefinitely.

Political asylum could only be granted by presidential decree and was a "completely different procedure," Kucherena said. Russias decision to give refuge to Snowden strained relations with the United States.

Relations have been further strained by Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for Ukrainian separatists. The United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia, which retaliated Wednesday with a ban on certain agricultural and food products from the U.S. and Europe.

Although the United States has sought Snowden's extradition, Kucherena said there were no legal grounds to return him. "He has not committed any crimes. There are no accusations against him in the Russian Federation," the lawyer said.

A Justice Department spokesman called on Snowden to turn himself in.

It remains our position that Mr. Snowden should return to the United States and face the charges filed against him, said the spokesman, Peter Carr. If he does, he will be accorded full due process and protections.

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Russia gives Edward Snowden asylum for three more years

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