NYT editorial: Snowden's "fears do not qualify him for asylum"

[JDPriestly]

53. Depends on whether you consider prosecuting and possibly imprisoning a person for telling the truth

about a government's overreaching and surveillance of citizens to be political persecution.

To begin at the beginning, if Snowden is threatened with prosecution for a political crime, for his opinions and for dissenting or violating an unjust law, then he is entitled to political asylum.

If you think that Snowden is not facing prosecution for a political crime,and you see him not as a dissident but rather as a criminal, then you think he is not entitled to asylum.

So you have to make a judgment about the nature of Snowden's action,whether he faces potential prosecution for a non-political crime in which case he is not entitled to asylum or whether he faces prosecution for a political crime in which case he is entitled to asylum.

Either point of view can be easily rationalized and justified. As long as Snowden stays in countries that believe that Snowden would be unjustly tried and sentenced for what is essentially a political crime, then he is entitled to asylum in those countries.

The opinion of the US on this issue is only relevant if the U.S. can get a hold of him. And the harder they try to get him, the more oppressive the US government will appear to many in the world.

The US has granted asylum to many fugitives from justice who were avoiding trials and imprisonment for crimes like murder of political opponents. A few of them are still in the US.

This is a matter for each sovereign nation to decide for itself. If a country wants to give Snowden asylum, then he is entitled to asylum in that country. It isn't any of our business in the US.