Article

2013-06-23 Home Front: WoT

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve White 2013-06-23 09:38|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11125 views ] Top

#1 Moscow? a real traitor? Or convenience, that'l put him on the list.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2013-06-23 09:54|| 2013-06-23 09:54|| Front Page Top

#2 Unless Obama kidnaps him back from wherever he lands, Snowden isn't coming back. Even if he does, it will be a political disaster putting him on trial.

Posted by Charles 2013-06-23 10:23|| 2013-06-23 10:23|| Front Page Top

#3 Good move by Putin. Who or what do we have that's worth it to the Russkis so they would trade Snowden back to us?

Posted by Penguin 2013-06-23 10:27|| 2013-06-23 10:27|| Front Page Top

#4 Nothing

Posted by European Conservative 2013-06-23 11:04|| 2013-06-23 11:04|| Front Page Top

#5 Even if he does, it will be a political disaster putting him on trial.
Posted by Charles

Correct! The current subverters in Washington have no desire to see Eddie come home. They couldn't stand the competition.

Posted by Besoeker 2013-06-23 11:09|| 2013-06-23 11:09|| Front Page Top

#6 As far as anyone knows, Snowden has given up only enough information to let the Americans know the that the socialist Obama regime is spying on every detail of their life.

It appears that he has given no one in China information that would label him a traitor.

The hard drives on his 4 laptops are no doubt encripted. No doubt only he knows how to get past the encription of his data.

But you will not hear that from the Obama Regime.

Posted by Winky Sproing5899 2013-06-23 11:20|| 2013-06-23 11:20|| Front Page Top

#7 Consider this move also as another biatch-slap from Putty to The Won.....

Posted by USN, Ret. 2013-06-23 11:26|| 2013-06-23 11:26|| Front Page Top

#8 Who or what do we have that's worth it to the Russkis so they would trade Snowden back to us?

Syria?

Posted by SteveS 2013-06-23 12:08|| 2013-06-23 12:08|| Front Page Top

#9 Speculation is Snowdens trail is Moscow to Havana to Caracus Venezuela as his last stop.

Posted by Cliter Shons9974 2013-06-23 12:21|| 2013-06-23 12:21|| Front Page Top

#10 He will come to Caracas for the waters and stay for the free gas and Cuban interwebs.

Posted by Shipman 2013-06-23 12:44|| 2013-06-23 12:44|| Front Page Top

#11 He can tell them all about how that evil spying the US did hurt their attempts to help the strong upstanding moral rapists/kidnappers/terrorist communists on the side of good in Colombia.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-06-23 12:44|| 2013-06-23 12:44|| Front Page Top

#12 It appears that he has given no one in China information that would label him a traitor.

You don't know that,

That he's going to a place where US spying helped hinder their support for a group of terrorists in neighboring countries should be a big hint.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-06-23 12:47|| 2013-06-23 12:47|| Front Page Top

#13 Drat, I should have put quotes around 'good' in the first post. I'm being sarcastic.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-06-23 12:50|| 2013-06-23 12:50|| Front Page Top

#14 Update
Edward Snowden asks for asylum in Ecuador: live updates

Posted by tipper 2013-06-23 13:00|| 2013-06-23 13:00|| Front Page Top

#15 try the sushi

Posted by Frank G 2013-06-23 13:10|| 2013-06-23 13:10|| Front Page Top

#16 you just know, though, that it would be OK to imprison HIM in Gitmo, right, Obama/Holder?

Posted by Frank G 2013-06-23 13:12|| 2013-06-23 13:12|| Front Page Top

#17 Do they have restaurants or food stores before customs in the Moscow airport?
If not the boy is going to get hungry and thirsty really fast.
If they do and he doesn't yet have rubles can he buy anything?

Posted by 3dc 2013-06-23 13:14|| 2013-06-23 13:14|| Front Page Top

#18 in the comments:
WikiLeaks has issued a brief profile of Sarah Harrison, the WikiLeaks staffer believed to have flown with Snowden.

Posted by 3dc 2013-06-23 13:29|| 2013-06-23 13:29|| Front Page Top

#19 another comment:
Snowden's Aeroflot flight to Havana passes through US airspace. Will Federal authorities allow wanted man to fly over US or make plane land?

Posted by 3dc 2013-06-23 13:34|| 2013-06-23 13:34|| Front Page Top

#20 All of this in order that Snowden can install new batteries in Vlad's Super Bowl transmitter/decoder ring? Sounds a bit far fetched to me.

Posted by Besoeker 2013-06-23 13:34|| 2013-06-23 13:34|| Front Page Top

#21 Remember that disinformation is just as important than information. Snowden has, in some ways, the upper hand on the O administration. Yes, they do not want him in court, but O admin would ahem bend the rules, if need be.

I am sure that Snowden has worked these contingencies and has a hole card with his information, so a hit on him will not eliminate later release of more information.

You can bet your boots that Snowden is getting lots of help from either the Russians or Chinese, or both. Cat is out of the bag.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2013-06-23 14:45|| 2013-06-23 14:45|| Front Page Top

#22 AP, if the O administration were a collection of agent provocateurs what would they do different?

They're finding new and interesting ways of ineptly getting into fights with the people they've been saying are more moral than us for the last forty years.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-06-23 14:57|| 2013-06-23 14:57|| Front Page Top

#23 Yes they are, Snowy. Our adversaries and enemies know that our signals, data, and traffic analysis are extensive and far reaching. They do not have nearly this capability. However, they also know that our top so-called leadership does not read Sun Tzu, and does not know an OODA loop from a hula hoop.

We have to gather data on our enemies and adversaries. It is in the interest of our survival as a nation. However, when you start using these intelligence capabilities for your own domestic political ends, and especially when it is discovered, it does threefold harm.

First, it destroys basic trust by the citizens (not people) of the US toward their govt;

Secondly, it gives our enemies and adversaries knowledge of our capabilities and what we know;

Thirdly, it gives our enemies a means of attacking and weakening the security of the US and its citizens.

Snowden may have inadvertently did some good in exposing the way the govt violated the rights and trust of its citizens, but he also did great harm in our legitimate responsibility of gathering intelligence.

There may be a remote possibility that things may be put to rights, but the US has been seriously wounded by other revelations by Snowden.

Snowden's action is a very sharp double edged sword that cuts both ways.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2013-06-23 15:31|| 2013-06-23 15:31|| Front Page Top

#24 AP, I'm not yet sure what I think of Snowden, BUT,I do know that if he was all about aiding the "enemy" he wouldn't have announced all this to the press.

If he really believes that the gov't is rapidly becoming a police state based on the NSA and other current news, how would he have acted differently?

Step 1 - warn the public and make a fuss;
setp 2 - run for your life.

Sounds as reasonable as any other scenario to me.

Posted by AlanC 2013-06-23 17:03|| 2013-06-23 17:03|| Front Page Top

#25 Basically we're hit upon the horns of a dilemma: we have an intelligence system that we need to use but also need to not have used against us.

We're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-06-23 17:12|| 2013-06-23 17:12|| Front Page Top

#26 Snowden was a contractor with some sysadmin privileges. I'd be amazed if the Chinese and the Russians don't already posses a deeper understanding of the capabilities of the systems he interacted with than Snowden himself. I'm not seeing the harm to national security.

Posted by Classical_Liberal 2013-06-23 17:24|| 2013-06-23 17:24|| Front Page Top

#27 C_Liberal, says I'm not seeing the harm to national security.

That all depends on who/what you consider to be the threat to national security. This regime considers the Tea Party to be the primary threat followed by the NRA and conservative Republicans.

Given that it's easy to see this as a threat to the security of the "elite" facists in charge.

Posted by AlanC 2013-06-23 18:28|| 2013-06-23 18:28|| Front Page Top

#28 Snowden was a contractor with some sysadmin privileges. I'd be amazed if the Chinese and the Russians don't already posses a deeper understanding of the capabilities of the systems he interacted with than Snowden himself. I'm not seeing the harm to national security.
Posted by Classical_Liberal

Exactly! Unlike other recent events, while the regime PR machine spins wildly, no bodies of dead Americans have turned up yet.

Posted by Besoeker 2013-06-23 19:43|| 2013-06-23 19:43|| Front Page Top

#29 You guys are being played - and by a silly little adolescent and his ridiculously self-aggrandizing left-wing hack pseudo-journalist.

Has any of you bothered to consider that Snowden took FOUR laptops filled with clues to our sigint techniques - and has handed them over to not just the ChiComs but also (this is really mind-boggling) Putin's anti-American gangster regime? And you guys call yourselves patriots? Please...

Oh, and did you bother to note that Snowden contacted his bumboy at the Grauniad over a month before he began working at NSA? Malice aforethought, anyone? Or that he headed immediately with his four laptops not to Iceland but to CHINA?

AYFKM?

Don't be so g-damned naive. This foolish little kid is scum.

I know y'all hate Obama and can't bear the thought that maybe, possibly, the ol' Kenyan Marxist mooselim has turned out to be far more ruthless - and effective - against the jihadis than W ever was, but really, stop being so stupid. Snowden is a pawn in a chess match whose subtleties far exceed his or his moronic admirers' grasp.

You're being played.

Posted by Lex 2013-06-23 22:36|| 2013-06-23 22:36|| Front Page Top

#30 and has handed them over to not just the ChiComs but also (this is really mind-boggling) Putin's anti-American gangster regime?

Left wing bullshit propaganda, in the house.

Posted by Hupuque Bucket2093 2013-06-23 23:26|| 2013-06-23 23:26|| Front Page Top

23:26 Hupuque Bucket2093
23:15 Newc
23:09 JosephMendiola
23:06 JosephMendiola
22:36 Lex
21:22 3dc
21:16 Bob Snore6814
20:56 Bob Snore6814
20:52 Bob Snore6814
20:51 Procopius2k
20:44 Bob Snore6814
20:29 Bob Snore6814
20:14 JosephMendiola
20:03 JosephMendiola
20:01 JosephMendiola
19:50 Besoeker
19:43 Besoeker
19:38 Procopius2k
19:34 USN, Ret.
18:38 Thing From Snowy Mountain
18:28 AlanC
17:59 Frank G
17:56 Frank G
17:54 Frank G
Merry-Go-Blog