From what I understand Putin is more concerned about not appearing weak than he is about humiliating Obama.
mmm
or … it’s because there is no extradition treaty between the US and Russia - they report that kind of stuff on the network news, right?
I wonder if Snowden knows anything the Kremlin doesn’t already. I figure he’ll live long enough for the Russians to gain access to everything Snowden’s got, then he’s out in the cold.
I don’t see that happening either, but there are probably folks within the agency who, if I may paraphrase Voltaire, wish to discourage the others.
just checking; Americans are told by popular media there is no extradition treaty, right? It being fundamental to the whole issue.
What are you showing me, that The Guardian and the Voice of Russia?
Just to be clear, I wondered why the OP here and the subsequent 45 posts in this thread didn’t grasp the most basic fact - that there is no extradition treaty.
ftr, when I referred to popular media and nightly news, I was talking about mainstream terrestrial US TV.
And Washington Post, and Seattle Times, and Wall Street Journal, and Christian Science Monitor.
… and yes, the fact that there is no extradition treaty has been mentioned on the TV news programs about the whole brouhaha, it is not a deeply hidden fact, and anyone who is interested in this probably knows it by now.
Most Americans know that Putin can and will do whatever the hell he wants to. “There is no treaty” really means fuckall, don’t you think?
True. Russia has no extradition treaty with Spain, yet it extradited several people to Spain.
ok, so it’s just the OP and the 40 or so who posted earlier who didn’t watch the news.
Russians still remember that the US invaded Russia at the start of he Bolsheivik Revolution so I think there is still some animosity over the US telling Russia what to do.
To be honest – the lack of an extradition treaty does not mean that you cannot be extradited.
It only means that the “host” country has no obligation to extradite you somewhere that asks for you. But, if they want to do it? They will. As mentioned before, Russia and Spain have no mutual extradition treaty, but Russia has extradited people to us (I mean Spain :p) in the past.
If you have a treaty, you are bound to extradite if asked to do so – of course, you can have provisions regarding the death penalty, whether that person is being given special status, and so forth… But in the end, most of the time, an extradition treaty means that you are obliged to extradite.
No extradition treaty means that you are not obliged to extradite, but it does not mean that you may not extradite. If you feel like extraditing somebody, and agree with the requesting country’s reasons? Then you will extradite, lack of an extradition treaty notwithstanding.
So, the US was perfectly OK asking Russia to extradite Snowden (in spite of the lack of an extradition treaty between the two). Of course, it was very clear that Russia would say “no”, but from a diplomatic point of view the US was bound to ask.
Copy-paste from the article on extradition in wikipedia (emphasis mine):
“The consensus in international law is that a state does not have any obligation to surrender an alleged criminal to a foreign state, because one principle of sovereignty is that every state has legal authority over the people within its borders. Such absence of international obligation, and the desire for the right to demand such criminals from other countries, have caused a web of extradition treaties or agreements to evolve. When no applicable extradition agreement is in place, a sovereign may still request the expulsion or lawful return of an individual pursuant to the requested state’s domestic law. This can be accomplished through the immigration laws of the requested state or other facets of the requested state’s domestic law. Similarly, the codes of penal procedure in many countries contain provisions allowing for extradition to take place in the absence of an extradition agreement. Sovereigns may, therefore, still request the expulsion or lawful return of a fugitive from the territory of a requested state in the absence of an extradition treaty.”
Of course, most likely Russia chose to consider that Snowden did nothing that might be punishable by Russian law (one of the basic tenets of extradition is that the thing that person has been accused of should be punishable by law in both countries). But the point remains: Extradition treaty in place or not, the US was perfectly within its rights to ask for the extradition of Snowden from the Russians. The Russians were bound to say “no”, the US knew that the Russians were bound to say “no”, and the Russians knew that the US knew that… But still, the diplomatic dance had to be followed. The US had to be seen to be doing something, and the Russians had to be seen to be protecting their sovereignty. All parties were following a very classic script.
The U.S. has badly mishandled the attempts at extraditing Snowden. Our attitude seemed to be “Shut up and Give us this guy. Now!” Russia isn’t just some under under developed country that we can snap orders at.
Putin was practically goaded into taking a stand. The U.S. isn’t looking very good right now internationally. We’ve acted clumsily and almost like a petulant child in trying to grab Snowden anyway possible. Whatever happened to quiet diplomacy?
He’s already given the stuff to someone. The hell with it, change the PINs and move on. 
I agree. Snowden had to share his disks just to get out of Hong Kong. Whatever he’s carrying got copied several times by now.
I guess Obama is putting his foot down!
Is this just an attempt to look tough?
I’m not really following this story much but why was it obvious Russia wasn’t going to extradite Snowden? Other than annoying us, what do they get out of it? And I find it odd to say that what Snowden did here isn’t against the law in Russia, Putin has had people killed for less than stealing national secrets
Check - when was the last time Russia extradited someone to the United States?
For Putin, isn’t that enough?