Russia has granted former NSA contractor Edward Snowden an extension to stay in the country for three more years. (Reuters)

MOSCOW Russia has granted fugitive National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden permission to remain in the country for three more years, Snowdens attorney said Thursday, a measure that promised to further strain U.S.-Russian relations.

The decision gives the former NSA contractor the option to remain in Russia through August 2017 and, potentially, to take up Russian citizenship should he extend his stay for one year beyond that, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told reporters.

The decision last year to grant asylum to Snowden for a year was a major factor in the souring of U.S.-Russian relations, which have deteriorated to Cold War lows over the conflict in Ukraine. The decision to extend Snowdens stay, although not a surprise, represents another political dig by the Kremlin at the Obama administration, which made Snowdens return to U.S. territory a high priority.

The announcement came on the day that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would ban all meat, produce and milk imports from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway for a year.

Starting August 1, 2014, Edward Snowden has received a residence permit for a three-year term, Kucherena said. He said his client has not been granted official political asylum, which would allow him to stay in Russia permanently and must be decided through a separate process. Kucherena said Snowden has not decided whether to try to remain in Russia permanently.

Last year, Snowden released thousands of files about the inner workings of U.S. intelligence agencies to journalists, including those at The Washington Post and Britains Guardian newspaper. The subsequent articles created an uproar about the reach and extent of U.S. government surveillance both at home and abroad and led to a review by the Obama administration of intelligence agencies surveillance powers.

As a result of the leaks, Snowden faces U.S. charges of espionage and theft of government property, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Kucherena painted a picture of a somewhat lonely life for Snowden, who is working to learn Russian and rarely gives interviews.

He has to think about his security. He has a very modest life, Kucherena said. But Snowden is very free to move around, goes shopping, and visits museums and theaters, he said.

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Russia grants Edward Snowden residency for 3 more years

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Edward Snowden, the former security contractor who exposed top-secret American spying programs, has won the right to live in Russia for three more years, his lawyer said, threatening to further strain ties with the U.S. Betty Liu reports on In The Loop. (Source: Bloomberg)

Edward Snowden, the former security contractor who disclosed American spying programs, has won the right to live in Russia for three more years, his lawyer said, threatening to further strain ties with the U.S.

Snowden, whose one-year asylum expired July 31, can apply for Russian citizenship in mid-2018, Anatoly Kucherena told reporters in Moscow today. Snowden didnt get a residency permit as a special favor, the lawyer said. This is an ordinary procedure for any foreign citizen, he said.

As the standoff over Ukraine worsens, Russia and the U.S. are locked in their biggest geopolitical confrontation since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tensions erupted last year when the two powers clashed over the civil war in Syria and Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum when he fled from Hong Kong in June 2013 after exposing clandestine U.S. National Security Agency programs that collect phone and Internet data.

Snowdens revelations about U.S. spying last year set off a global debate about the trade-offs between privacy and security and hurt ties with European allies, in particular Germany.

Snowden, 31, has said he worked alone in taking thousands of classified documents, denying claims made by U.S. lawmakers that he was an agent of a foreign government. He faces espionage charges in the U.S.

Edward Snowdens revelations about U.S. spying last year set off a global debate about the trade-offs between privacy and security and hurt ties with European allies, in particular Germany. Close

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Edward Snowdens revelations about U.S. spying last year set off a global debate about the trade-offs between privacy and security and hurt ties with European allies, in particular Germany.

Excerpt from:
Snowden Wins Three-Year Extension of Russian Residency

By Joe Sterling, CNN

updated 8:10 AM EDT, Thu August 7, 2014

Edward Snowden gets three more years of residency in Russia.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Edward Snowden, who leaked secret information about U.S. spying programs, has been granted an extension to stay in Russia for three more years, his attorney said in a televised press conference in Moscow Thursday.

Snowden recently formally requested that Russia's government extend his temporary asylum, and Snowden attorney Anatoly Kucherena said the request had been accepted.

"As of August 1, 2014, Snowden has received residency for three years," Kucherena told reporters Thursday.

Snowden's temporary asylum in Russia ended on July 31. He'd been holed up at a Moscow airport for five weeks before the Russian government granted asylum for one year on August 1, 2013.

Snowden has kept busy working for a Russian website and speaking out on the disclosures about the U.S. government's spying programs and processes that he helped make public.

Snowden's disclosures in 2013 made him an icon among those who praised him for risking his future to expose these secrets and a villain among those who accused him of being a lawbreaker who betrayed the United States.

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Russia extends Snowden's stay

By Stewart Baker August 3

The evidence is mounting that Edward Snowden and his journalist allies have helped al Qaeda improve their security against NSA surveillance. In May, Recorded Future, a predictive analyticsweb intelligence firm, publisheda persuasive timelineshowing that Snowdens revelations about NSAs capabilities were followed quickly by a burst of new, robust encryption tools from al-Qaeda and its affiliates:

This is hardly a surprise for those who live in the real world. But it was an affront to Snowdens defenders, whove long insisted that journalists handled the NSA leaks so responsibly that no one can identify any damage that they have caused.

In damage control mode, Snowdens defenders first responded to the Recorded Future analysis by pooh-poohing the terrorists push fornew encryption tools. Bruce Schneierdeclared that the change might actually hurt al Qaeda: I think this will help US intelligence efforts. Cryptography is hard, and the odds that a home-brew encryption product is better than a well-studied open-source tool is slight.

Schneier is usually smarter than this. In fact, the product al Qaeda had been recommending until the leaks, Mujahidin Secrets,probably didqualify ashome-brew encryption.Indeed, Bruce Schneier dissedMujahidin Secretsin 2008 on precisely that ground, saying No one has explained why a terrorist would use this instead ofPGP.

But as a secondRecorded Future postshowed,the products that replacedMujahidin Secretsrelied heavily on open-source and proven encryption software.Indeed, one of them uses Schneiers own, well-tested encryption algorithm, Twofish.

Faced with facts thatcontradicted his original defense of Snowden, Schneier was quick tooffer a new reason why Snowdensleaks and al Qaedas response to them still wouldnt make any difference:

Whatever the reason, Schneier says, al-Qaidas new encryption program wont necessarily keep communications secret, and the only way to ensure that nothing gets picked up is to not send anything electronically. Osama bin Laden understood that. Thats why he ended up resorting to couriers. Upgrading encryption software might mask communications for al-Qaida temporarily, but probably not for long, Schneier said.It is relatively easy to find vulnerabilities in software, he added. This is why cybercriminals do so well stealing our credit cards. And it is also going to be why intelligence agencies are going to be able to break whatever software these al-Qaida operatives are using.

So, if you were starting to think that Snowden and his band of journalist allies might actually be helping the terrorists, theres no need to worry, according to Schneier, becauseall encryption software is so bad that NSA will still be able to break the terrorists communications and protect us. Oddly, though, thats not what he says when he isnt on the front lines with the Snowden Defense Corps. Ina 2013 Guardian articleentitled NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure, for example, he offers very different advice, quoting Snowden:

Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.

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As evidence mounts, it’s getting harder to defend Edward ...

Webster Tarpley on Edward Snowden
Webster Griffin Tarpley (born 1946) is an American author, historian, economist, journalist and lecturer. He is not a member of any political party and a for...

By: jabarbadi

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Webster Tarpley on Edward Snowden - Video

Snowdens asylum in Russia expires
Whistleblower Edward Snowden #39;s asylum in Russia is set to expire Thursday, and his future remains in question as the country considers his renewal request. Fearing a return to the US would...

By: RT America

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Snowden’s asylum in Russia expires - Video

The Kremlin is keeping Edward Snowden guessing about whether it will renew temporary asylum for the fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor.

Snowden, who is wanted by U.S. prosecutors after he leaked details about NSA surveillance practices, was stranded in the transit lounge at a Moscow airport in June 2013 while trying to flee to Latin America, where several countries had offered him permanent refuge. Russia waited for more than a month before granting him a one-year temporary asylum permit, which expired Friday.

Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer representing Snowden, said this week that his client had asked federal migration authorities several weeks ago to extend his asylum, but had not yet received a reply.

Edward is still on Russian territory and we have prepared and submitted a package of documents applying for temporary political asylum, Kucherena told Russian television Thursday. An official decision was expected in the coming days, he added.

Amnesty International took up Snowdens cause Friday, saying the fugitive should be allowed to travel freely and seek asylum in the country of his choice.

Edward Snowden is cornered in a legal limbo, without a passport or asylum protection from any government, Sherif Elsayed-Ali, the deputy director of global thematic issues at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

We call on all governments not to block him from traveling in order to seek protection. By interfering in his ability to do so, they are effectively complicit with the U.S.A. in his unjustified and repressive punishment.

Snowden has rarely been seen in public over the last year. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper last month, he said he had not chosen to live in Russia and disapproved of most of the Internet censorship and surveillance laws recently adopted by that country.

Political commentators in Moscow said it was unlikely that the Kremlin would deny the extension request, at a time when relations with the U.S. were strained to a breaking point by the Ukraine crisis.

Continued here:
Russia keeps fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden in ...

2013: A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur. 2014: Politically, its plutonium now for a member of Congress in this environment to be supporting something that would enhance the governments ability to conduct electronic surveillance.

What happened? You guessed it: everyones favorite hero/villain/demon/saint, Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia exactly one year ago. This week, the tech industry threw its weight behind a bill that proposes sweeping curbs on NSA surveillance and would represent the most significant reform of government surveillance authorities since Congress passed the USA Patriot Act 13 years ago. And it could actually pass again, thanks to Snowden.

So when does the man get his medal?

A lot of people, including Dianne Feinstein and John Kerry (and Marc Andreessen), still think of Snowden as a traitor. Mind you, in theory, treason requires helping or supporting an enemy. Im not sure which enemy they have in mind: Russia? China? Edward Epstein insinuates that the Snowden affair was a foreign espionage operation all along, but the man himself claims he took no secret files to Russia and was able to protect them from Chinese spies as well.

Do the people of Earth count as an enemy?

The anti-Snowden brigade generally claim that he should have worked within the system to blow the whistle on it, and/or should have returned to the USA to face the subsequent music although it has since become apparent that the NSA has not been completely forthcoming about Snowdens attempts to express his concerns without going public.

Quite aside from self-preservation, its pretty obvious that Snowden would have been enormously less effective over the last year if hed returned and been clapped into solitary a la Chelsea Manning. (The law he has been charged under doesnt let him make his case in front of a jury, according to the EFFs Trevor Timm, accepting a Crunchie on Snowdens behalf.) Instead hes been able to chat with Sergey Brin at TED, appear on panels with Daniel Ellsberg, etc., and get his message out via telepresence.

But you know what? Its a moot point. Even if Snowden was an outright foreign spy all along, on a results-based analysis, he would still deserve a medal because, despite our vestigial Cold-War anti-commie knee-jerk reactions, the truth is that we live in a time when the greatest threat to the American way of life is America itself.

(No, not Al-Qaeda and their ilk. Sure, they are a problem, but they pale before Americas irrational, paranoid, xenophobic, massive overreaction to them and similar threats. You have to wonder exactly how long American authoritarians believe they should have carte blanche to do whatever they want in the sacred name of national security because a bunch of crazed madmen got lucky thirteen years ago. Another decade? Another century? Forever?)

There was a fascinating Foreign Policy article this week about Singapores attempts to use mass surveillance and good old Big Data to engineer a more harmonious society. Thats essentially what the pro-NSA people are supporting, even if they dont realize it:

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Dear America, Would You Please Give Edward Snowden His ...

The Kremlin is keeping Edward Snowden guessing about whether it will renew temporary asylum for the fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor.

Snowden, who is wanted by U.S. prosecutors after he leaked details about NSA surveillance practices, was stranded in the transit lounge at a Moscow airport in June 2013 while trying to flee to Latin America, where several countries had offered him permanent refuge. Russia waited for more than a month before granting him a one-year temporary asylum permit, which expired Friday.

Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer representing Snowden, said this week that his client had asked federal migration authorities several weeks ago to extend his asylum, but had not yet received a reply.

Edward is still on Russian territory and we have prepared and submitted a package of documents applying for temporary political asylum, Kucherena told Russian television Thursday. An official decision was expected in the coming days, he added.

Amnesty International took up Snowdens cause Friday, saying the fugitive should be allowed to travel freely and seek asylum in the country of his choice.

Edward Snowden is cornered in a legal limbo, without a passport or asylum protection from any government, Sherif Elsayed-Ali, the deputy director of global thematic issues at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

We call on all governments not to block him from traveling in order to seek protection. By interfering in his ability to do so, they are effectively complicit with the U.S.A. in his unjustified and repressive punishment.

Snowden has rarely been seen in public over the last year. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper last month, he said he had not chosen to live in Russia and disapproved of most of the Internet censorship and surveillance laws recently adopted by that country.

Political commentators in Moscow said it was unlikely that the Kremlin would deny the extension request, at a time when relations with the U.S. were strained to a breaking point by the Ukraine crisis.

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Russia keeps fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden in legal limbo

Fugitive U.S. intelligence agent Edward Snowden on Thursday marked one year of political asylum in Russia where he continues to live a life shrouded in mystery.

Little has been heard of the movements of the former National Security Agency contractor since he first obtained provisional leave to remain in Russia after spending according to the official version a month in the transit area of Moscows Sheremetyevo airport.

In April, he made a shock appearance on an annual question-and-answer session with President Vladimir Putin and posed pointed questions about surveillance of Russias population. I would like to ask you: Does Russia intercept, store or analyze, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals? he asked in a recorded message, appearing against a black background wearing a dark jacket and grey t-shirt.

Mr. Snowdens lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, was quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti on Thursday as saying he expected a decision soon on his application for a renewal of his residence permit and that Mr. Snowden could stay at least until the decision is made.

Analysts believe Mr. Snowden is still useful to Russia, both practically and politically. Independent defence analyst Pevel Felgenhauer said this week that while Mr. Snowden no longer has access to new information, he can explain how U.S. spy agencies operate.

As a consultant on how the NSA works he is very useful, he was quoted as saying in Novaya Gazeta.

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Edward Snowden marks one year in Russia as U.S. fugitive ...