`Like my brother and I are in skeleton costumes chasing the Karate Kid around a gym.`
That's kind of what America looks like. Snowden has all these mighty military secrets, but at the end of the day they just look like school bullies who want to smack him around. What Snowden did is without a doubt a crime, but one that seems like it was necessary, and should be easy to resolve. The longer this draws on the more America looks like a misguided bully, forcing weaker kids to pick on the nerd. It doesn't help that the mood seems to be to string him up as a traitor in war time.
Edit: 'easy to resolve' sounds flippant, but it's being turned into the biggest manhunt on a global stage since Bin Laden.
Snowden is committing a crime no more than Daniel Ellsburg releasing the Pentagon Papers was a crime, and Mark Felt (Deep Throat) was a criminal for exposing FBI and presidential misconduct.
I'd have said the last one (FBI & President) wouldn't fall under treason exactly, as whilst they were whistleblower leakers they weren't of a certain level of international security relations.
Also, there are some countries that are even less benign than then US who would like to take advantage of this situation if they can.
(How about we close this nice tax scam you got going...)
Ah the US missed a beat, the Irish politicians would happily have him detained in Shannon and escorted on to a Hercules, by men wearing blindfolds so as not to see any evil.
An interesting prospect but incredibly unlikely.
For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noshir_Gowadia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kendall_Myers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_James_Nicholson
They'd much rather him rot without trial in Guantanamo for the rest of his life, as to serve a better lesson to anyone thinking of following his footsteps.
Russia are not harboring him because he's not in Russia, he's in an international transit lounge and therefore not actually in any country.
It has always shocked me that US airports don't have this concept, it must be the only major world transport hub that doesn't.
What would prevent other asylum seekers or refugees from doing the same? Leave a war torn hell hole and camp out at Stuttgart International, sleep on the benches and busk or beg to get a meal. The fact that this doesn't happens means there are other reasons and the transit lounge isn't a DMZ as you claim.
That's a widespread myth. Russia owns, and exercises control over, the transit area. If someone inside the transit area is wanted on a Russian arrest warrant (or whatever their equivalent is), Russian authorities will go in and get them.
All a transit area really is is a small section of a country that you are allowed to enter without a visa for that country, provided that you are simply passing through. There's nothing otherwise special about them.
So what happens if you commit a major crime in that area? Who responds to a terrorist event there?
I don't know specific international laws, but I would guess that Russia has such an area for her own convenience (that if you are just passing through there's no need to bother with forcing you through Russian customs). But I would guess that Russia has every ability (and every legal right) to do whatever they want in that area whenever they want to, but is choosing not to on its own accord.
On this 4th of July the fireworks could be heard bombs bursting against nerves and conscious in this land that has become so large in view so small in vision nothing but the feared and the fearing
Also, don't you find it a tiny bit ironic that your response to him was childish and immature e.g. "Well you can leave, if you don't like something". If everyone was like you, we'd have no progress, no revolution, and no change.
By indiscriminately spying on everyone, America has made this a global issue.
This idiotic suggestion cuts both ways.
As in, whose plane would you have to be on to be safe? The Popes?
This does not mean that I agree with the US or any Gov't for that matter also breaking laws.
EDIT: "Why shouldn't I work for the NSA?" - Good Will Hunting, 1997 http://goo.gl/hjMHg
If the lawyer thinks a high-speed potato can't kill somebody, I suggest he go give it a shot (pun intended) and see what happens.
