Snowden thread

[Tender Branson]

Snowden has strong words for Obama/Biden:

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23139980

[Tender Branson]

Of the 21 countries that Snowden applied for asylum, 3 are already out of the running:

* Russia (Snowden has withdrawn the request)
* Norway (has rejected the request)
* Austria (has submitted the request at the Austrian embassy in Moscow, which is unlawful: asylum requests can only be filed within Austria and not at embassies abroad to avoid asylum tourism)

The 18 countries that remain:

Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela

[Tender Branson]

It seems we are not alone:

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[Tender Branson]

Meanwhile, the Bolivian President Evo Morales' plane (which was flying from Moscow back to Bolivia) had to land in Vienna tonight, because of rumours that Snowden was on board.

Because of the rumours, France, Italy and Portugal closed their airspace and Morales and crew took a nap at the VIP section of the Vienna airport and gave a news conference before.





http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE9610C520130703

[Tender Branson]

Well, you don't always have the Bolivian President in town, so our President decided to pop in and have a talk with him:

[Tender Branson]

Meanwhile, Bolivia "declared war" on Austria, France, Italy, Portugal and the US of course.

They "declared war on us" because we searched their plane for Snowden (which of course is understandable and a necessary check, considering that a guy who could impact relations with the US might come here) and Morales actually agreed that the plane is searched:

(Reuters) - Bolivia accused Austria of an act of aggression by searching President Evo Morales' plane on Wednesday and blamed Washington for its forced landing in Vienna over suspicions that former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was on board.

Morales' plane was stranded at Vienna airport for several hours after Portugal and France abruptly canceled air permits for it to fly through their airspace, but eventually resumed its flight home form an energy meeting in Moscow.

Austria found no sign of Snowden on board. He is believed to still be in the transit area of a Moscow airport, where he has been trying since June 23 to find a country that will protect him from prosecution in the United States on espionage charges.

The diversion and search of Morales' plane were the latest turns in the 30-year-old Snowden's bid to escape the clutches of the United States since he divulged details of a secret U.S. government surveillance program, Prism.

Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca blamed the forced stopover in Vienna on "unfounded suspicions that Mr Snowden was on the plane".

"We don't know who invented this lie," Choquehuanca said in La Paz. "We want to express our displeasure because this has put the president's life at risk."

Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations told reporters in Geneva that Austria's decision to search the plane was an act of aggression and a violation of international law.

The envoy, Sacha Llorentty Soliz, said he had no doubt that the orders to divert Morales' plane came from the United States.

Austria's deputy chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, confirmed Snowden had not been stowed away after Austrian authorities inspected Morales' government plane but said the search had been permitted by Morales.

"Our colleagues from the airport had a look and can give assurances that no one is on board who is not a Bolivian citizen," Spindelegger told reporters at the airport.

"Morales agreed to a voluntary inspection," he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-usa-security-snowden-idUSBRE9610C520130703

[Tender Branson]

Meanwhile, Bolivia "declared war" on Austria, France, Italy, Portugal and the US of course.

They "declared war on us" because we searched their plane for Snowden (which of course is understandable and a necessary check, considering that a guy who could impact relations with the US might come here) and Morales actually agreed that the plane is searched:

(Reuters) - Bolivia accused Austria of an act of aggression by searching President Evo Morales' plane on Wednesday and blamed Washington for its forced landing in Vienna over suspicions that former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was on board.

Austria is not a US ally, and you could have said no. It was convnient, but hardly necessary to be so compliant.

True, but considering that national elections are coming up the government probably wanted to go 100% sure and still check the plane for Snowden after Morales offered the vountary check.

If we didn't check the plane and in the event that Snowden was really in the plane on the way to Bolivia, we would then have the blame on us: "Why didn't those Austrians look into the plane ?", or if Snowden went out of the plane at the airport we would now be drawn into a complicated international situation, just 3 months before the election. I think the situation was handled well and even Morales thanked the country's officials for the "excellent handling" of the situation. Don't know really why the Bolivian embassador is now bitching around that the search was "illegal" when Morales himself offered it on a voluntary basis and thanked us for the great time here ...

[Tender Branson]

BTW:

The Morales plane was actually in Salzburg (not far away from me), then made a U-turn and went back to Vienna.

[Tender Branson]

More pics from their airport:

http://derstandard.at/1371171425996/snowden-Morales-strandet-in-Schwechat-und-trifft-Brother-President

[Tender Branson]

Wow, I thought the countries of Western Europe were friends and allies of the United States. Suddenly helping us catch a fugitive guilty of espionage is some act of supreme cowardice and spinelessness?? Ridiculous. I would hope and expect the United States to do the same if a German or Austrian or Italian or whatever criminal on the run was possibly flying through American airspace. 

Austria is a neutral country and the amount of attention being paid to Snowden is ridiculous even one does assume he did something wrong, Lief.

Semi-neutral I should say. We de-facto gave up our neutrality when entering the EU in 1995.

Switzerland is neutral, we are not.

[Tender Branson]

The EU Parliament has just rejected asylum for Snowden by a vote of 482 against and 114 for.

https://twitter.com/mehrenhauser/status/352731260893937664

[Tender Branson]

Meanwhile, Bolivia "declared war" on Austria, France, Italy, Portugal and the US of course.

They "declared war on us" because we searched their plane for Snowden (which of course is understandable and a necessary check, considering that a guy who could impact relations with the US might come here) and Morales actually agreed that the plane is searched:

(Reuters) - Bolivia accused Austria of an act of aggression by searching President Evo Morales' plane on Wednesday and blamed Washington for its forced landing in Vienna over suspicions that former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden was on board.

...

Bolivia has now officially said that this was a mistake: Austria was not "keeping Morales hostage on behalf of the US" and that "the search of the plane was not an act of aggression".

"There is no problem regarding Austria, in fact we are happy that we could land there."

"The anger of Bolivia is directed against the US and other countries that forced us to land there."

http://derstandard.at/1371171637073/Bolivien-Kein-Problem-mit-Oesterreich

I think Morales had a talk with his ambassador and told him he should shut the f**k up.

[Tender Branson]

Pollster is one of the 2 that do the election projections on election day:



58-35 against.

[Tender Branson]

Funny side note:

The Austrian Pirates put up a headline on their website a few days ago: "Pirate Party to unveil new front-runner for federal election @ press conference."

Media was like "oh wow, what ? we thought they already picked their frontrunner ?"

Then the Pirates announced that the new frontrunner is Edward Snowden.

A joke it was and the press conference was called off a few days later.

Also a way to attract some attention ...

[Tender Branson]

Snowden has sent an asylum request to Venezuela, Maduro has confirmed:

Venezuela receives official asylum request from Snowden

Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, has confirmed that the South American nation has received an official request for asylum from US fugitive Edward Snowden. After announcing last week that he would offer asylum to Snowden, Maduro told reporters in Caracas, the former security contractor would have to arrange the details of his flight from Moscow to Venezuela.

"We received an application letter for asylum from Snowden. He will need to decide when to fly here, if he definitely wants to fly here. Latin America is probably the only region as a collective of several countries, to offer humanitarian asylum or collective political asylum." "The United Statesdoes not govern the world nor does it govern us. We are a free and sovereign country and no one else but the Venezuelan people, the legitimate government elected by the people, governs us." said Nicolas Maduro.

Snowden was charged by the US government with three counts of felony after he disclosed a highly-classified surveillance program, which intercepts the e-mails and phone conversations of millions of people.

http://www.ecns.cn/2013/07-09/72262.shtml

The question now is: How does he get from Russia to Venezuela with a revoked US passport and without being intercepted by US fighter jets when passing near the US border ?

[Tender Branson]

The question now is: How does he get from Russia to Venezuela with a revoked US passport and without being intercepted by US fighter jets when passing near the US border ?

The US is NOT going to interdict a Russian airliner.....period.

And if another nation sends a plane to escort him to Venezuela ?

[Tender Branson]

The question now is: How does he get from Russia to Venezuela with a revoked US passport and without being intercepted by US fighter jets when passing near the US border ?

The US is NOT going to interdict a Russian airliner.....period.

And if another nation sends a plane to escort him to Venezuela ?

Venezuela or another nation may give him a travel document but he's got to fly Aeroflot if he wants to make it to Venezuela without going directly to jail.  Do you think he's crazy enough to take a flight other than on a Russian plane?

I think the best way for him would either be the Russian plane or the Venezuela-sent plane with the President Maduro on it. Do you think the US or another country would then risk grounding the plane or interdict it and force a search on the plane or a forceful removal of Snowden from the plane ?

I think if Hugo Chavez were still amongst us and healthy, he would have personally went to Moscow, asked the Venezuelan embassy there to escort Snowden to his gate with a car and fly him to Venezuela, just to show the middle-finger to the US.

[Tender Branson]

Anyway, what do you think are the best routes for Snowden to fly to Venezuela ?

Moscow -> Teheran, Iran (no extradition-treaty with US) -> some West African country (almost no country there has an extradition-treaty with US) -> Venezuela.

[Tender Branson]

Does Venezuela have any subs?

They could send a submarine to Murmansk and pick them up there.

They actually have 2 German ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_209_submarine

But there are conflicting reports about how far they can go. Some page I've found said that they are not for the sea or long-range, Wikipedia says they can reach 20.000 km.

I frankly have no clue about submarines ...