Thread: Snowden granted 1-year asylum in Russia, leaves airport

Snowden granted 1-year asylum in Russia, leaves airport

http://rt.com/news/snowden-entry-papers-russia-902/

Published time: August 01, 2013 11:45
Edited time: August 01, 2013 12:40 Get short URL



Share on tumblr



Trends
NSA leaks Tags
Russia, Snowden, USA

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and is allowed to enter the country’s territory.
The whistleblower has been granted temporary political asylum in Russia, Snowden's legal representative Anatoly Kucherena said.
“I have just handed over to him papers from the Russian Immigration Service. They are what he needs to leave the transit zone,” he added.
He departed at around 15.30 Moscow time (11.30 GMT), airport sources said. His departure came some 30 minutes before his new refugee status was officially announced. Snowden has already left the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, an RT crew at the scene has confirmed.
His present location has not been made public nor will it be disclosed, Kucherena said.
“He is the most wanted person on earth and his security will be a priority,” the attorney explained. “He will deal with personal security issues and lodging himself. I will just consult him as his lawyer.”
Snowden eventually intends to talk to the press in Russia, but needs at least one day of privacy, Kucherena said.

The whistleblower was unaccompanied when he left the airport in a regular taxi, Kucherena added.

However, WikiLeaks contradicted the lawyer, saying the organization’s activist Sarah Harrison accompanied Snowden.

Russia is confident that the latest development in the Snowden case will not affect US President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Moscow, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said.
“We are aware of the atmosphere being created in the US over Snowden, but we didn’t get any signals [indicating a possible cancellation of the visit] from American authorities,” he told RIA Novosti.
Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor, came to international prominence after leaking several classified documents detailing massive electronic surveillance by the US government and foreign allies who collaborated with them.
Snowden was hiding out in a Hong Kong hotel when he first went public in May. Amidst mounting US pressure on both Beijing and local authorities in the former-British colony to hand the whistleblower over for prosecution, Snowden flew to Moscow on June 23.
Moscow was initially intended as a temporary stopover on his journey, as Snowden was believed to be headed to Ecuador via Cuba. However, he ended up getting stranded at Sheremetyevo Airport after the US government revoked his passport. Snowden could neither leave Russia nor enter it, forcing him to remain in the airport’s transit zone.
In July, Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia, a status that would allow him to live and work in the country for one year. Kucherena earlier said the fugitive whistleblower is considering securing permanent residency in Russia, where he will attempt to build a life.

Wow....Russia/Putin just told the US Government to go to hell, the US response will be interesting to say the least.

Fugitive Snowden slips out of Moscow airport for 'secure' base


http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9700N120130801






By Timothy Heritage and Alissa de Carbonnel
MOSCOW | Thu Aug 1, 2013 8:45am EDT

(Reuters) - Fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden slipped quietly out of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Thursday after Russia granted him temporary asylum, ending more than a month in limbo in the transit area.
A Russian lawyer who has been assisting Snowden said the American, who is wanted in the United States for leaking details of secret government intelligence programs, had gone to a secure location which would remain secret.
After weeks staying out of sight from hordes of reporters desperate for a glimpse of him, Snowden managed to slip away in a taxi without being spotted. Grainy images of his passport showed he had been granted asylum for a year from July 31.
"He is the most wanted man on planet Earth. What do you think he is going to do? He has to think about his personal security. I cannot tell you where he is going," his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Reuters.
"I put him in a taxi 15 to 20 minutes ago and gave him his certificate on getting refugee status in the Russian Federation," he said. "He can live wherever he wants in Russia. It's his personal choice."
He said Snowden was not going to stay at any embassy in Moscow, although three Latin American countries have offered to shelter him. Snowden was well, he added.
Snowden was accompanied by Sarah Harrison, a representative of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which confirmed he had left the airport.
"We would like to thank the Russian people and all those others who have helped to protect Mr. Snowden. We have won the battle - now the war," WikiLeaks said on Twitter.
Snowden, 30, arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23. Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela have offered him refuge but there are no direct commercial flights to Latin America and he was concerned the United States would intercept his flight to prevent him reaching his destination.
Snowden's case has caused new strains in relations between Russia and the United States which wants him extradited to face espionage charges.
The White House has signaled that President Barack Obama could consider boycotting a planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in early September.
But a senior Kremlin official said ties between Russia and the United States would not suffer because of what he said was a "relatively insignificant" case.
"Our president has ... expressed hope many times that this will not affect the character of our relations," Yuri Ushakov, Putin's top foreign policy adviser, told reporters.
He said there was no sign that U.S. President Barack Obama would cancel the planned visit in September.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, Alexei Anishchuk and Katya Golubkova, editing by Elizabeth Piper)

It is interesting that in the past 5 years, the government has become a separate entity from the people.

Didn't hear much about this.
MI6 secrets threatened as Swiss spy steals a mountain of data

MI6 and the CIA have been warned that intelligence may have been compromised by an agent in Switzerland who downloaded vast quantities of data onto portable hard drives and carried it out of a secure building.

Partners including MI6 and the CIA have been told their information may have been compromised Photo: ALAMY
By Duncan Gardham, Investigations Correspondent

8:19PM GMT 04 Dec 2012

The senior technician became so disgruntled earlier this year that he stopped showing up for work at the NDB, the Swiss intelligence service.

But the agency only realised that something was amiss when UBS, the largest Swiss bank, expressed concern about an attempt to set up a new numbered bank account, which was traced to the technician.

Swiss investigators raided his home and seized portable storage devices containing terrabytes of classified information, running into hundreds of thousands of printed pages.

He had apparently downloaded the material from the Swiss intelligence service's servers onto portable hard drives and then carried them out of government buildings in a backpack.

Investigators believe he intended to sell the stolen data to foreign intelligence agencies or commercial buyers.

Swiss authorities believe that the stolen data was seized before he had an opportunity to sell it but could not be absolutely sure.

As a result they have notified foreign intelligence partners including MI6 and the CIA their information may have been compromised.

The British and Americans routinely share data on counter-terrorism and other issues with the NDB, the Federal Intelligence Service.

The suspect in the spy data theft worked for the NDB, which is part of Switzerland's Defense Ministry, for about eight years.

He was described by a Reuters source close to the investigation as a "very talented" technician and senior enough to have "administrator rights," giving him unrestricted access to most or all of the NDB's networks.

A European security source said investigators now believe the suspect became disgruntled because he felt he was being ignored and his advice on operating the data systems was not being taken seriously.

He was released from prison while a criminal investigation by the office of Switzerland's Federal Attorney General continues, according to two sources familiar with the case.

Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber and a senior prosecutor, Carolo Bulletti, announced in September that they were investigating the data theft and its alleged perpetrator. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said she was prohibited by law from disclosing the suspect's identity.

A spokesman for the NDB said he could not comment on the investigation.
Data theft is an increasing problem in the espionage world. Two years ago a British spy called Daniel Houghton was caught trying to sell information he had smuggled out of MI6’s headquarters at Vauxhall Cross.

Houghton, a computer programmer, was trying to sell a cutting edge technique for intercepting emails along with staff lists of over 300 named MI5 and MI6 officers and the home and mobile telephone numbers of 39 officers.

He downloaded at least 7,000 files onto a number of CDs and DVD disks which he then copied onto a secure digital memory card, later found under the bed in his shared flat in East London.

Houghton approached the Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, asking for £2m and they tipped off their British counterparts who set up a sting operation in a London hotel.

Most intelligence services employ IT security measures which stop users copying files but their most important line of defence is the vetting of their staff and where staff turn on their employers it is difficult to stop leaks.

The NDB is a relatively new agency which combines the functions of predecessor agencies that conducted foreign and domestic intelligence activities.

But questions are now being asked over the NDB's structure in which its human resources staff, responsible for ensuring the reliability and trustworthiness of the agency's personnel, are in the same division as the agency's information technology.

The Foreign Office declined to comment.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9722...n-of-data.html