Breaking: Snowden has papers that will allow him to leave Moscow airport

[flpoljunkie]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by greatauntoftriplets (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Last edited Thu Aug 1, 2013, 08:42 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: AP via Ipad app

Nothing yet, but the breaking news headline.

The Guardian has a twitter posting with a photo of Snowden's papers: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/01/edward-snowden-leaves-moscow-airport-live



Read more: Link to source

[dipsydoodle]

1. Fugitive Snowden can leave Moscow airport: lawyer

Edward Snowden has received papers allowing him to leave the Moscow airport where he has been stranded for more than a month, Russia's Interfax news agency said on Thursday.

"I have just passed him documents from Russia's Federal Migration Service," Interfax quoted Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer assisting Snowden in his request for temporary asylum request, as saying.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/01/us-usa-security-snowden-russia-idUSBRE9700N120130801

[xchrom]

2. good nt

[dipsydoodle]

3. Maybe sooner than expected.

[RetroLounge]

25. +1000

RL

[xchrom]

29. !

[Hissyspit]

4. @BreakingNews: NSA leaker Snowden receives asylum in Russia and leaves Moscow airport, lawyer says -

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23535524

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden leaves Moscow airport, his lawyer tells the BBC

[chimpymustgo]

7. Thanks for the link. Stay safe, Edward Snowden. You have earned some peace and comfort.

[dipsydoodle]

8. Indeed

I wondered at first if something may have been lost in translation but BBC tv news here in the UK have got that on their news ticker too.

Events seem to have moved very quickly this afternoon in Russia - their time.

[PorridgeGun]

16. This is nice to hear

I was beginning to wonder if Putin intended on keeping him in stateless limbo. The dismissive attitude Putin took to the whole affair at the time struck me as "the Vlad doth protest too much" and I see now that Snowden was kept in limbo so it didn't look like the Russians were in any haste to debrief him, which is almost certainly false - even the quotidian facts of day-to-day operations by a contractor can provide surprising revelations to perceptive and skilled intelligence officers.

I worked for a short time as an IT contractor to an American firm that designed very special electronic circuitry. As an IT guy I was allowed several times into the design facility itself, alone, after the engineers had gone home, to inspect network cables, securely "wipe" hard drives, replace burned out server hardware etc. I could have quite easily removed one of the massive, 10,000+ page neon coloured binders (classified, not to be moved, copied etc.) with the design specs, stuck it into my backpack, and taken a cab to the Chinese embassy. I thought it was quite funny at the time!

I know there was no security in place that would have prevented such a thing because my boss at the time (yes, another contractor) had come up with what was already in place and loved to chat at great length about his security prowess.

I'll bet they're in a scrambling panic to create far stricter access policies for contractors who hold low/no security clearances. Things have been wide open in that way in some important places for some time now, and these things can't be fixed overnight.

[JDPriestly]

28. If his information was all that valuable, he would not be in Russia.

The contractors should be more careful about security if they want to keep their contracts.

I'm grateful that Snowden told us what he did. How can we claim to be a democracy, of what value is the "right to vote" if we, that is the 99.9% of us who are loyal, law-abiding citizens aren't even allowed to know what our government is doing with regard to our own electronic information?

What are we voting on if we don't know what our government is doing?

Is it just a matter of which suit's tie looks best?

Snowden is one of a number of whistleblowers who have simply told the American people truths that we need to know.

Whose security does our Espionage Act protect? That of the corrupt and cruel? Or that of the American people? And who gets to answer those questions?

Snowden's answer to the basic questions I am asking was, "The American people." And I agree with him on that.

It's Government 101. Apparently they don't teach that in some business schools or some computer technician programs.

[newfie11]

5. Great news

[Hissyspit]

6. @wikileaks: FLASH: We can now confirm that Edward Snowden's welfare has been continuously monitored

@wikileaks: FLASH: We can now confirm that Edward Snowden's welfare has been continuously monitored by WikiLeaks staff since his presence in Hong Kong.

[Hissyspit]

9. @AP: BREAKING: Edward Snowden granted 1 year temporary asylum in Russia, lawyer says, Russian news a

@AP: BREAKING: Edward Snowden granted 1 year temporary asylum in Russia, lawyer says, Russian news agency reports. -MM

m.twitter.com/AP

[Major Hogwash]

10. Guess he won't be coming home anytime soon now, will he??

Russian is a pretty hard language to learn.
But, what the hell, Snowden has a lot of time on his hands.

[dipsydoodle]

11. If ever.

[Major Hogwash]

14. I think the last American that defected to Russia stayed for 22 months.

Americans defecting to Russia aren't treated as stars, so when the initial excitement of moving into a new apartment with strange neighbors wears off, reality sets in.

[davidn3600]

15. Would you rather live in Russia or spend 30+ years in prison?

[totodeinhere]

24. Russia is a changed place. Moscow if that is where he will stay

is quite a cosmopolitan international city now. He might be able to fit in there. And this is probably only a weigh station on the way to Latin America anyway.

Edit - If he were gay that would be another matter but in no way does his accepting asylum there mean that he supports Russian homophobia.

[cyclezealot]

12. If he can be a system's administrator

for Prism, he can learn Russian. Besides, ultimately , he needs to know Spanish.

[totodeinhere]

23. Plus English is a second language for many Russians, especially professionals. n/t

[KinMd]

13. До свидания!

[frontier00]

17. Stop Jumping For Joy

This piece of garbage just won the White House for christie

[maddezmom]

18. How so?

[frylock]

31. because

mkay?

[maddezmom]

32. You speaking for frontier or yourself?

[frylock]

33. that was a poor impersonation of our good patriot friend, frontier

sorry for the confusion.

[maddezmom]

34. ....

That is what I thought but I'm never sure anymore.

[frylock]

35. it's really hard to tell anymore

peace!

[Ash_F]

20. Making sense as always.

[PorridgeGun]

21. Piece of garbage?

A superpower that flogs its supposed commitments to freedom, democracy, and human rights to the point of comical hubris while at the same time running the greatest secret mass surveillance operation in history (in addition to the drones, the torture, and the way Manning was treated) deserves to be exposed for its own sake, and damn the consequences.

I've read several (often sneering) posts directing those here who think we are living in a surveillance/police state to talk to someone who had lived in a "real" police state.

Such people know as little about history as they do about surveillance and intelligence work. The NSA? Surely you jest. The volume and quality of information at the fingertips of any employer conducting a full background check is something that could have existed only in the wet dreams of a 1950's agent of the Stasi or KGB.

It might be interesting and perhaps instructive to compare the per capita incarceration rates and the conditions of incarceration of the US at present and Russia under Stalin or East Germany under the Stasi.

Also, I don't seem to recall too many accounts of the east german police playing soldier dress-up and running around tasering mental patients to death or slotting family dogs. I guess even in a police state, some things are just too much. Until recently anyway.

[RetroLounge]

26. LOL

RL

[JDPriestly]

30. Christie? He is a blubbering fool. People will not like him and will not vote for him.

Of course, if the leaders of the Democratic Party foist Hillary Clinton on us, that's a different matter. She comes across cold and mean at times. Her voice gives her away.

My candidate is Elizabeth Warren.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Really? You have such little belief in the possible Democratic candidates

that you think exposing the level of NSA surveillance over Americans is enough to allow a Republican (who has not been involved in this story in any way) to win over any Democrat possible - when Obama will not be his opponent?

It's not as if the Democrats are planning to run James Clapper, is it?

[warrprayer]

19. Moscow Rules

An abbreviated list of the probably-fictional Moscow Rules has circulated around the Internet and in fiction:
Assume nothing.
Murphy is right.
Never go against your gut; it is your operational antenna.
Don't look back; you are never completely alone.
Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
Go with the flow, blend in.
Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
Any operation can be aborted. If it feels wrong, it is wrong.
Maintain a natural pace.
Lull them into a sense of complacency.
Build in opportunity, but use it sparingly.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. (borrowed from Muhammad Ali, aka Cassius Clay.)
Don't harass the opposition.
There is no limit to a human being's ability to rationalize the truth.
Pick the time and place for action.
Keep your options open.
Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action. (taken from Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Rules

Godspeed, Mr. Snowden.

[Purveyor]

22. Excellent news, indeed! +1 eom

[SoapBox]

27. ROFL

The Russians will play you like a banjo, Traitor Snowden...glad to know you loved America so much.

Not.

[greatauntoftriplets]

37. Sorry, but we're locking this as a dupe.