Ed Snowden is currently living in Moscow, having been granted political asylum there.
However, relations between Moscow and the West, particularly the U.S., are quickly souring.
Is this likely to have any practical effect on Ed Snowden and his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills? I see this playing out in several different ways.
One possibility would be that, as an American, he’s declared persona non grata in Russia and his asylum is revoked, making him both homeless and stateless.
Another possibility would be that Moscow simply decides they want nothing more to do with him, and he and his girlfriend are “disappeared.”
A third possibility would be that he becomes something of a bargaining chip in relations between the two countries, and he goes from living in a nice Moscow apartment to being a political prisoner.
A fourth possibility is that he’s extradited to the U.S. as part of some concession or another, meaning he’ll likely wind up in Guantanamo.
I think the OP overlooked the most likely possibility. Snowden is unpopular in the United States so his popularity in Russia will rise as relations between the two countries decline.
He’s definitely unpopular with the government. As far as the people, I don’t want to speculate on whether the split is 50/50 or 90/10, but at least some Americans (myself included) regard him as a hero.
Because the minute he steps off the plane, he’ll be taken to another one bound for Guantanamo, where he’ll sit for the rest of his life without access to counsel or charges being filed against him.
Bullshit. Guantanamo has taken in no new inmates in nearly a decade, and it has never taken in anyone who was arrested on US soil. Why would they make a special exception for Snowden when Dzokhar Tsarnaev, Bradley Manning, Richard Reid, John Walker Lindh, and every single other domestic terrorist/spy of the last 14 years was processed by the civilian criminal justice system?
I’ll bet you five lemurbucks that when/if Snowden ever returns to the United States that he is charged in the regular criminal justice system and will undergo a regular trial in front of a regular judge, and if convicted will serve time in a regular prison.
The clarification noted, “unpopular with the US government” is probably sufficient to translate into “popular with the Russian government” for the foreseeable future.
Do you really believe the government would have to cheat to get an impartial jury to convict Snowden of the crimes he’s publicly admitted to having committed?
I don’t understand this “fair trial” rhetoric. What Snowden should be negotiating for is a specific plea deal. But I doubt if Snowden would be willing to do a plea deal which would require more than 5 years or so in prison–while the federal government wouldn’t be willing to settle for less than 25 years (both numbers being actual time served).
Regardless, I don’t believe Snowden will get a fair trial, mainly because the record of people who have blown the whistle on crimes of the U.S. government speaks for itself. The only person to do time for the Guantanamo torture program is the guy who blew the whistle on it.
It’s a slam dunk case. Snowden has admitted to the entire world that he deliberately stole and leaked the documents. A prosecutor couldn’t in a million years dream of having an easier guilty verdict land on their desk. Why would the government need to cheat?
It would frankly be ridiculous for him to even insist on a trial unless he really wanted to make a martyr of himself (and I mean literally, since espionage is a capital offense.) If he were to return to the US and be placed in custody, he’d cop a plea.
That may have something to do with the fact that “the Guantanamo torture program” was not illegal, but divulging classified information about it is.