Does Russia want to get more cozy with Donald Trump by sending him a gift in the form of a traitor that should be executed the moment he sets foot in the US? That traitor referred to is Edward Snowden. As if Russia isnt cozy enough already with the current president of the United States. It is alleged that Trumps victory was in part aided by Russias keyboard warriors. The rumor of Snowdens extradition, according to NBC News is from an unnamed US official within the Trump administration. But according to one of Putins interviews in Russia:

Russia is not the kind of country that expels fighters for human rights Jokes aside, Mr. Snowden defines himself as a fighter for human rights,

Vladimir Putin

Its kind of weird and funny hearing those words from Putin given Russias old reputation, but in that interview, hes been joking quite a bit. The US is divided about Snowden whether hes a traitor or a hero. Those who think the latter want him welcomed with charges dropped and with honors for uncovering what kind of surveillance state the US has become. Conspiracy theorists said that terabytes of data are collected daily by the NSA from monitoring of phones and messages of ordinary US citizens. This was confirmed by Snowden along with other scandalous info. Others have come forward to say that the NSA wouldnt have gone to such lengths if they chose much better systems that actually track real persons of interest.

If Putin is serious about his previous statement, then he thinks Snowden is some sort of hero. Or perhaps he just granted the man asylum to troll on the US. Snowden has been in Russia since June 2013 and his asylum is only up to four years and the clock is ticking for the notorious whistleblower.

Now Trump thinks otherwise. In his campaign trails, he thinks that Snowden should be executed for his crimes. If Snowden does get caught, he could face a minimum 30-year prison sentence for two counts of espionage. Putin said that Snowden could be rotting away in a zindan (a dark room somewhere in Central Asia) if the US caught him before getting to Russia.

If the rumor is true, Russia might be thinking of booting out Edward Snowden when his asylum expires. Snowden is currently busy asking for asylum in other non-extradition countries just in case. But the rumor isnt true as Russia extended Snowdens stay for two more years.

The funniest thing is that the former deputy director of the C.I.A. !!! does not know that Snowdens residence permit in Russia was just extended for a couple more years,

Maria Zakharova, spokesperson, Russian Foreign Ministry

The unnamed official according to the spokesperson is said to be the former acting director of the CIA, Michael J. Morell. According to him, if Russia wants better ties, they should send Snowden over with a bow to Mr. Trumps doorstep.

What concerns many citizens whether or not they consider Snowden as a hero, is that he may already be passing important information to Russia as a reason for extending his asylum. Snowden refutes this as well as Putin who jokingly thinks that he should be giving at least something for his stay but he manages to transmit things in channels known only to the whistleblower. Below is Snowdens tweet on the matter.

Finally: irrefutable evidence that I never cooperated with Russian intel. No country trades away spies, as the rest would fear theyre next. https://t.co/YONqZ1gYqm

Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 10, 2017

As per Snowden, the US has nothing to worry about, but while Trump is technically in the White House, hes not going home anytime soon. Here is the fun YouTube video about Putins thoughts on Snowden.

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From Russia with Love, Take Edward Snowden - Movie TV Tech Geeks News

Edward Snowden speaks via video link at a news conference for the launch of a campaign calling for President Obama to pardon him in New York City on Sept. 14, 2016.Spencer PlattGetty Images

Ideas

This week, Edward Snowden, multiple human rights and civil rights groups, and a broad array of American citizens asked President Obama to exercise his Constitutional power to pardon Snowden . As a former CIA officer, I wholeheartedly support a full presidential pardon for this brave whistleblower.

All nations require some secrecy. But in a democracy, where the government is accountable to the people, transparency should be the default; secrecy, the exception. And this is especially true regarding the implementation of an unprecedented system of domestic bulk surveillance, a mere precursor of which Senator Frank Church warned 40 years ago could lead to the eradication of privacy and the imposition of total tyranny.

That today we are engaged in a meaningful debate about whether such a system is desirable is almost entirely due to the conscience, courage and conviction of one man: Edward Snowden. Without Snowden, the American people could not balance for themselves the risks, costs and benefits of omniscient domestic surveillance. Because of him, we can.

For this service, the government has charged Snowden under the World War I-era Espionage Act. Yet Snowden did not sell information secretly to any enemy of America. Instead, he shared it openly through the press with the American people.

For this service, Snowden has been accused of having "blood on his hands "the same evidence-free clich trotted out every time a whistleblower reveals corruption, criminality or anything else the government would prefer to hide. That this charge is being aired by the very people responsible for wars that have led to thousands of dead American servicemen and servicewomen; hundreds of thousands burned, blinded, brain-damaged, crippled, maimed and traumatized; and hundreds of thousands of innocent foreigners killed, is more than ironic. Its also a form of psychological projection, or propaganda, intended to distract from where true responsibility for bloodshed lies.

And for this service, the usual suspects have claimed Snowden has caused " grave damage to national security ." As always, the charge is backed by nothing but air, and ignoresin fact, is intended to distract fromthe real damage caused by metastasizing governmental secrecy. This includes not only disastrous government mistakes and cover-ups (see the Bay of Pigs, the missile gap, the Gulf of Tonkin, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, etc.), but also the ongoing strangulation of democracy itself. The nation is not made more secure, but is instead more fragile, when the government knows more and more about the people and the people know less and less about the government.

Even well-meaning media personalities fret over questions like: " But what would happen if every top-secret cleared intelligence employee decided what secret information to unilaterally declassify? " In fact, whistleblowing is extraordinarily rare, in part because of the draconian penalties the government metes out to punish it. Whats rampantand realis over-classification . An insistence on discussing a fantasy hypothetical of radical transparency, when the world we actually live in is one of radical secrecy, seems a strange way to frame a debate.

If leaks really are so terrible that the government conflates them with espionage ( and even with terrorism ), why isnt the government prosecuting the thousands of leaks that insiders dole out to favored reporters every day? Its almost as though leaking isnt really the problem, but rather the nature of leakswith leaks that assist favored government narratives encouraged, and ones that challenge those narratives prosecuted.

Its important to understand that Snowden violated no oath of secrecy because there is no such oath. The only oath is the oath to defend the Constitution. With regard to secrecy, there is only an NDA. So anyone who suggests that Snowden violated an oath of secrecy is either ignorant or lying. Faced with a choice between an oath on the one hand, and an NDA on the other, Snowden chose the oaththe real oath, the only oathand alerted the American people to what the government was concealing from us.

In other words, Snowden followed his conscience. Authoritarians might condemn such a choice. Americans should celebrate it. After all, in his seminal essay Civil Disobedience , Henry David Thoreau wrote, It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. And indeed, if people were intended to only and always obey the law, why would we have been given the powerand burdenof conscience? Similarly, if the president were intended always to hew to the law even at the expense of justice, why would the founders have vested the office of the president with the power of pardon?

Without question, history will vindicate Edward Snowden as it has Daniel Ellsberg . President Obama has a chance to be on the right side of that history. In doing so, he would do his legacy, and his country, a great service.

Read more here:
President Obama Should Pardon Edward Snowden | Time.com

February 13, 2017

Joseph Wippl, Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was recently interviewed on the possibility of whistleblower Edward Snowden being returned to the United States by Russian authorities.

Wippl was quoted in a February 12, 2017 article in theBoston Heraldentitled Edward Snowden May Head to U.S., Jail.

From the text of the article:

Boston University professor and longtime CIA officer Joseph Wippl said gift-wrapping Snowden and forcing him on a plane to U.S. wouldnt make a whole lot of sense.

Its up in the air whether Snowden was an agent of Russias before he got to Russia. Certainly, hes become one there, Wippl said.

His use may indeed be over, and also he may not want to stay in Russia forever. I would be surprised if they forcibly sent him back. Its just something that wouldnt make a whole lot of sense. As a bit of a present, I dont know how much good that does to the administration.

You can read the entire article here.

Wippl is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. He spent a 30 year career as an operations officer in the National Clandestine Service (NCS). Wippl has served overseas as an operations officer and operations manager in Bonn, West Germany; Guatemala City; Luxembourg; Madrid, Spain; Mexico City; Vienna, Austria; and Berlin, Germany. Learn more about him here.

Posted 6 days ago on Monday, February 13th, 2017 Permalink

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Wippl in the Boston Herald on Edward Snowden - BU Today