enhanced_deficit
07-01-2013, 01:42 PM
Ex KGB officer Putin batting for Obama pupms on this issue of Constitutional civil liberties of Americans and human rights?
Quote:
For the second time in a week, Putin said Russian intelligence agencies were not working with the 30-year-old American who fled his country and leaked details of secret U.S. government surveillance programmes.
"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips," he told reporters after a gas exporters' conference in Moscow.
But Putin said he suspected that Snowden would not stop leaking information, because "he feels himself to be a human rights activist".
"So he must choose a country of destination and go there," he said, speaking before the asylum request to Russia was reported. "Unfortunately, I don't know when this will happen."
The president of Ecuador, where Snowden was known to be seeking asylum, said on Sunday that his fate was in Russia's hands because Ecuador could not consider the plea until he reached Ecuador or one of its embassies.
Snowden, who has not been seen by reporters scouring the airport, has had his U.S. passport revoked and countries around the world are under U.S. pressure to deny him asylum.
A U.S. national security official said that, as far as the U.S. government knew, Snowden was still in the transit zone and would have a "hard time leaving" the airport even if he wanted to.
Shortly after Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong last month and long before he arrived in Russia, Putin suggested the surveillance methods he revealed were justified in fighting terrorism, if carried out lawfully.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/07/01/usa-security-snowden-putin-idINDEE9600ED20130701
Quote:
For the second time in a week, Putin said Russian intelligence agencies were not working with the 30-year-old American who fled his country and leaked details of secret U.S. government surveillance programmes.
"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips," he told reporters after a gas exporters' conference in Moscow.
But Putin said he suspected that Snowden would not stop leaking information, because "he feels himself to be a human rights activist".
"So he must choose a country of destination and go there," he said, speaking before the asylum request to Russia was reported. "Unfortunately, I don't know when this will happen."
The president of Ecuador, where Snowden was known to be seeking asylum, said on Sunday that his fate was in Russia's hands because Ecuador could not consider the plea until he reached Ecuador or one of its embassies.
Snowden, who has not been seen by reporters scouring the airport, has had his U.S. passport revoked and countries around the world are under U.S. pressure to deny him asylum.
A U.S. national security official said that, as far as the U.S. government knew, Snowden was still in the transit zone and would have a "hard time leaving" the airport even if he wanted to.
Shortly after Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong last month and long before he arrived in Russia, Putin suggested the surveillance methods he revealed were justified in fighting terrorism, if carried out lawfully.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/07/01/usa-security-snowden-putin-idINDEE9600ED20130701