Will Edward Snowden Return To The U.S.?
The well-known U.S. whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has said he would go home to the U.S., under certain conditions. But, is the U.S. willing to accept Snowden’s conditions? Or, for that matter, do they even want Edward Snowden back?
That seems to depend on who is asked. According to The Atlantic, when former Attorney General Eric Holder left office he signaled that progress could be made between Edward Snowden and the U.S. Justice Department.
“I certainly think there could be a basis for a resolution that everybody could ultimately be satisfied with. I think the possibility exists.”
Despite that, present Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that nothing had changed and the government was still not looking for any kind of deal with Snowden. If Edward Snowden returns to the U.S., he could face a life sentence under the Espionage Act according to The Week, and that remains the official position of the government.
“I’ve volunteered to go to prison with the government many times… What I won’t do is I won’t serve as a deterrent to people trying to do the right thing in difficult situations…We are still waiting for them to call us back.”
Edward Snowden’s lawyer, Ben Wizner, outlines further what Snowden wants, and doesn’t want.
“Our position is he should not be reporting to prison as a felon and losing his civil rights as a result of his act of conscience.”
What does his old boss, Michael Hayden, of the NSA say to all of this talk of Edward Snowden returning?
“If you’re asking me my opinion, he’s going to die in Moscow. He’s not coming home.”
Ironically, Russia, the country that Edward Snowden currently lives in after seeking asylum from the U.S., is a place where being a whistleblower (like him) is risky business. In fact, getting on the wrong side of the government in any fashion is not a wise move.
According to the Guardian, Alexander Perepilichnyy, who helped blow the cover off of a $230 million money-laundering ring that involved the Russian Mafia and the state, was recently poisoned by a rare plant and ended up dying in a Russian prison cell. Another whistle blower, Sergei Magnitsky, also died, just a short time before he was to be released from prison. He had been tortured and killed. It triggered an international outcry that led the U.S. and other countries to freeze bank accounts and restrict travel for a number of Russian officials. And that led Russia to retaliate.
It is estimated that at least 11 people die in custody in Russian prisons each day under a system that has changed little since the times of the U.S.S.R., according to the Guardian.
“Unknown to the public when he was alive, Magnitsky’s name has come to symbolise the deep ills that haunt Russia since his death – its Kafkaesque justice system, its torturous prisons and even its vengeful foreign policy.”
Instead of condemning Russia for this, however, Edward Snowden praised Russia, according to another article in the Guardian, for “being the first to stand against human rights violations” when it looked like he would be accepted there for asylum.
Meanwhile, Edward Snowden has continued his crusade against the actions of the countries like the U.S. and U.K., joining the Twitterverse recently, where he quickly amassed 1.37 million followers. He isn’t very good at following back, however. He follows just one twitter account: The NSA.
Snowden was also interviewed in Moscow by the BBC show Panorama, and gave a warning to U.K. viewers that their smart phones were in danger.
According to Snowden, the NSA and the GCHQ, the U.K. equivalent to the NSA, has the ability to hack into smart phones. The technology is known as the “Smurf Suite” and gives these surveillance departments powers to take absolute control over a smart phone without the user’s knowledge.
“They want to own your phone instead of you.”
Edward Snowden knows.
[Featured photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images]
