Obama administration set to make NSA leaker Snowden’s trip tough

[morningfog]

Edward Snowden could be in for the longest and most arduous flight of his life if President Obama gets his way.
Venezuela and Bolivia have offered asylum to the 30-year-old National Security Agency leaker charged with espionage, but the U.S. government is certain to ensure getting from the Moscow airport to South America won’t be easy.

Nearly every commercial route from Moscow to South America would involve traveling through the skies of at least one member country of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

And the United States has been fervently lobbying its allies to deny any flight carrying Snowden access to its airspace if he attempts to evade U.S. capture on a passenger airliner.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the administration was talking to countries that might serve as potential transit points or final destinations for Snowden, in an attempt to convince them not to give him sanctuary.

“We’ve made very clear that he has been charged with felonies and, as such, he should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than travel that would result in him returning to the United States,” said Carney.

* * *

There are some reasons to think the Obama administration won’t go to every length possible to stop Snowden, who has already traveled from Hong Kong to Moscow but has since had his passport revoked.

Doing so could open problematic doors for America that it would prefer closed, according to Jonathan Turley, a law professor at The George Washington University.

“If countries bar international flights because of single passengers, one can imagine a host of these demands coming from [other] countries, whether it’s the Dalai Lama or some political dissident,” he said. “The U.S. is giving legitimacy to that type of complaint."


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/309727-obama-administration-set-to-make-snowdens-trip-tough-#ixzz2YXt2EwkQ

[LuvNewcastle]

1. He could go back the way he came.

He could fly from Moscow to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to a friendly country in South America, right? Or he could fly across Africa to Johannesburg, and from there to a point in S.A. The latter route would be shorter, of course. Europe could be avoided altogether.

[morningfog]

3. The article mentions both of those routes. The Africa route

would require a stop and refuel somewhere in Africa. And, it is not clear that Hong Kong would let him pass through again.

[kentuck]

2. I'm starting to believe Ezra Klein was right.

He doesn't exist.

Russia is looking high and low for him as we speak. Has Glenn Greenwald actually met the guy or has he been set up by the CIA?

Venezuela will not be able to find him to put him on the plane and Russia will think there is a renegade NSA person running loose in their country.

The terrorists will think all their communications are tapped. No Internet, no emails, no phone calls. This is really gonna put a crimp in their style.

And then...

We can pull all the troops out of Afghanistan.

[Recursion]

11. Two weeks ago I was saying that in jest

Now.... I mean...

[reformist2]

4. Putin should fly him to Venezuela in his personal jet.

[pinboy3niner]

5. Several U.S. allies wil invite him to stop by for coffee enroute

[LuvNewcastle]

6. That's too brazen for Putin, I think.

Putin's sneaky.

[Igel]

7. It would be a horrible precedent.

Whether anybody tries it depends on how short-term a thinker tor how arrogant they are. At one point the US probably would neatly have assumed that they could have one rule today, another rule next year, and everybody would just nod and go along with the hypocrisy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. It might be a very short trip. Even Germany is talking about giving him asylum.

Though, at best, it's a long shot.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/venezuela-says-it-would-give-snowden-asylum-a-910200.html

Meanwhile, in Germany, where Snowden exposed cooperation between US and German intelligence agencies whom he said were "in bed together," the debate over whether Berlin should find a way to offer Snowden asylum continues to simmer.

In a strongly worded text in its current issue, SPIEGEL asks, "Would it not be an act of humanity to liberate him from his current state by, for example, offering him asylum in Germany?" SPIEGEL writes that Snowden could get to Germany from Moscow within a day -- a stamp and a signature would suffice for Snowden to board the next plane to Germany and apply for asylum here.

The magazine notes that German border guards could reject him, but they aren't required to. More likely is that Snowden would immediately be taken into custody because the US has filed a formal request for extradition. The federal government, however, could intervene. Either way, a court would step in to review whether the American request could be fulfilled.

Still, as SPIEGEL points out, "there is a way to bring Edward Snowden to Germany and to let him stay here. One just has to be willing to do it and to accept the subsequent fury of the Americans." But there's a not a willingeness to do so. "At the moment," the magazine writes, "realpolitik means knuckling under to the Americans because Germany is politically and economically dependent on the US and economically on the Chinese, which is why there is little objection from Berlin on the issue of human rights. Germany is a country that doesn't dare anything. The Snowden case also shows that Germany is a dwarf when it comes to world affairs."

[JaneyVee]

9. He could come back to the US and help finish what he started.

[magellan]

10. It would be far from the first bad precedent we set

...even in recent memory.

[BlueCheese]

12. We're in Hollywood movie-land now...

Here's a hypothetical. Suppose a civilian plane believed to be carrying Snowden enters (say) France without overflight permission. How could you force it to land? You can shadow it with fighters, but short of shooting it down, what can you do?

Also, is this article more or less a statement that the U.S. is willing to do things like deny Evo Morales permission to fly over various European allies? (This is not saying that we were behind forcing Morales to land, but it certainly sounds like something we would be willing to do.)