According to WikiLeaks, the US government has already sent official extradition requests to five different places seeking the capture of whistleblower Edward Snowden, though none of those five places is where Snowden currently is.
WikiLeaks identified the five as Hong Kong, Venezuela, Bolivia, Iceland and Ireland. Ireland was already confirmed earlier this month to have rejected the US request because of insufficient details about where Snowden committed the alleged “crime.”
Bolivia and Venezuela have both approved asylum requests for Snowden as well, meaning that neither would hand him over if he is ever able to get there. Snowden is presently stuck in the Moscow Airport, attempting to secure a temporary asylum bid in Russia.
If granted, the temporary asylum would allow Snowden to leave the airport and stay in Russia for up to a year, giving him more time to arrange travel to the South American nations that have granted his asylum. The US has publicly demanded Russia hand Snowden over, though no extradition deal exists between the two nations, and Snowden has credibly argued that he would face torture or execution if returned to the US.
Congressional hearings concerning the NSA communications vacuum were held today. One of the congressmen who helped write the Patriot Act while on the Judiciary committee asked the NSA spokesmen where the Obama Administration got the legal authority to make such a wide ranging collection of private data. The NSA spokesmen said it was the Obama administration interpretation of the Patriot Act. The congressmen replied that he helped write the Patriot act and that he vehemently disagreed with that interpretation. He and other law makers appear ready to reign in the large scale collection of private communications by Obama.
Edward Snowden is beginning to look better to main stream Washington as the news unfolds.
Forget that last comment I see you have the story from the Guardian in great detail in the next headline.
And then…..? One of these five countries is Russia, then Bolivia, then Nicaragua, Venezuela and they all are waiting "happily" to hand Snowden to USA.., yeh right.
I hope Antileaker-In-Chief sleeps fitfully and wakes up in cold sweat having dreamt about a few ADDITIONAL leaks. Best involving compromising photos involving himself.
This just shows now out-of-touch the clowns in Washington are. I mean they sent that request to Bolivia after the President of Bolivia had his plan re-routed, and expect them to comply? They need their heads examined.