After nearly a month on the run and spending the past week living in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport — we think — the final fate of NSA leaker Edward Snowden is still up in the air. This morning saw a new wrinkle added to Snowden’s life on the run, though, as Russian president Vladimir Putin announced today that Snowden would be welcome to stay in Russia without living in fear of extradition, provided he stops leaking sensitive information about U.S. intelligence programs like PRISM, or his latest hit, documents indicating that the United States bugged the stateside offices of EU allies.
The reasons behind Putin’s seeming change of heart are unclear so far, and so is whether Snowden would be willing to stop releasing U.S. intelligence secrets in exchange for a promise that he wouldn’t be extradited. Putin doesn’t seem to think so, saying that Snodwen seems to think of himself as a “fighter for human rights” and is unlikely to stop releasing the classified information he had access to as a contractor for the NSA.
Puting laid out the conditions for Snowden’s welcome in Russia at a press conference earlier today, saying in part:
“There is one condition if he wants to remain here: he must stop his work aimed at damaging our American partners. As odd as it may sound from me.”
If Snowden is ready to call his life as a leaker quits, though, it would ad Russia to the fairly short list of places he might be able to go to avoid facing a trial back in the United States
(via RT)
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