Russia Plans To Extend Edward Snowden's Asylum

mendax writes "The New York Times reports, 'Russia plans to extend its offer of asylum to Edward J. Snowden beyond August, a Russian lawmaker said Friday at the World Economic Forum ... The lawmaker, Aleksei K. Pushkov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's lower house of Parliament, hinted during a panel discussion that the extension of temporary refugee status for Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, might be indefinite. "He will not be sent out of Russia," Mr. Pushkov said. "It will be up to Snowden."'" Snowden said yesterday that going back to the U.S. is not an option because of the country's poor whistleblower protections "which through a failure in law did not cover national security contractors like [him]." He added, "This is especially frustrating, because it means there’s no chance to have a fair trial, and no way I can come home and make my case to a jury."

In Soviet Russia...

[Dahamma]

whistle blows you!

Re:Good...

[Dega704]

He already has the corrupt government of one superpower after his head, I don't think we should ask him to go for two. Maybe a Russian whistleblower will leak loads of damning details about Putin's government surveillance and be granted asylum in the US. That would be hilariously awkward.

Re:Seems simple to me

[lister king of smeg]

Hey who let James Clapper on slashdot

Re:Seems simple to me

[The Grim Reefer]

Can't we privately send him to Mars with a 3D printer? He'll do fine over there and he'll be in a new paradise far away from decaying Earth.

Is going to Mars such a horrible thing? 200,000 people have signed up [torontosun.com] for a possible trip to Mars, why put Snowden at the head of the line?

First of all Mars [wikipedia.org] is in the United States. He can't go there. Second, the population is nowhere near 200K. It's probably closer to 2,000.

Re:good points / bad points

[anagama]

Ah yes -- the definition of Treason in Webster's trumps that in the US Constitution. You must be a member of Obama's legal team.