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Snowden's meeting with Russian officials and rights activists cleared up uncertainty about where the former National Security Agency systems analyst is, but left open the big question: What comes next? Snowden said he was ready to meet President Vladimir Putin's condition that he stop leaking secrets if it means Russia would give him shelter that could eventually help him get to Latin America. There was no immediate response from Putin's office, but speakers of both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament spoke in support of Snowden's plea.
Vyacheslav Nikonov, a senior lawmaker with the main Kremlin party, described Snowden as "a bit nervous but smiling" and noted his "perfect haircut." He said that when asked to describe his stay at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, Snowden answered with one word: "Safe." Snowden is believed to have been stuck in the airport's transit zone since his arrival on June 23 from Hong Kong, where he had gone before his revelations were made public. He booked a seat on a Cuba-bound flight the next day, but did not get on the plane and had remained out of the public eye until Friday.
Putin has said Snowden stayed in the transit zone and thus technically didn't cross the Russian border. He also insisted that Russian special services haven't contacted the NSA leaker - a claim that drew skeptical winks from some security analysts who noted that Russian intelligence agencies would be all too eager to learn the secrets in his possession. Sergei Nikitin of Amnesty International's Moscow office said that plainclothes men who looked like officers of Russian special services attended the meeting, which was held in a cordoned section of a corridor. The exact location was unclear as hundreds of journalists were left in a hallway outside the meeting area, behind a gray door marked "staff only."
Nikitin said participants were asked not to take photos and video. "Snowden himself requested that, saying his pictures would give too much information to the U.S. special services," Nikitin said. Human Rights Watch's Tanya Lokshina posted a photo of Snowden at the gathering on her Facebook page, the first new image of him since the Guardian newspaper broke the story of widespread U.S. Internet surveillance based on his leaks. A brief video of the meeting's opening also appeared on the Russian news site Life News, showing Snowden speaking, then being interrupted by a flight announcement on the airport's public address system. "I've heard that a lot in the past weeks," Snowden said, smiling ironically.
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Edward Snowden's fate and the possible damage he has done to U.S. relations with close allies still commands attention of the Obama administration. The situation shows the degree to which "the United States and Europe define privacy in different ways," former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told CNNs Security Clearance. That tension was apparent following revelations from Snowden, the admitted leaker of national security documents, that the United States had been using electronic intercepts to monitor various European government offices.
While the threat of international terrorism has decreased over the past decade because of "significant" cooperation between the United States and Europe, Crowley said he is "confident" the situation will eventually "work its way through the political situation on both sides of the Atlantic." Crowley says he expects Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, to "have his hands full" with questions when he takes the stage at Aspen to discuss cyber issues.
The Snowden revelations also highlight the role of the press in matters of national security, and Crowley is ready to analyze the issue as a panelist on a discussion about counterterrorism and the media at the forum. Crowley said he is looking forward to a robust discussion about the role of government leaks to the press and First Amendment implications raised by them.
He points to the case of a Fox News reporter later identified as James Rosen who was initially declared by the Justice Department in a court affidavit as a possible co-conspirator in the case of documents allegedly leaked to him by a State Department contractor for a story on North Korea. "To me, words matter and I wish the government had found another phrase," regardless if the government said it had no intention of focusing the legal system on journalists Crowley said. "When you start throwing around terminology like that, it obviously raises concerns about First Amendment issues and rightfully so," he said.
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Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week after his attempts to leave the airport and fly out of Russia were thwarted. The United States wants him sent home to face prosecution for espionage. Snowden, who revealed details of NSA's wide-ranging spying activities targeting data and phone communication, is believed to have been staying at the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since June 23, when he arrived on a flight from Hong Kong.
RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed security official on Wednesday as saying that Snowden has been issued documents, allowing him to formally enter Russia. Anna Zakharenkova, a spokeswoman for the airport, told The Associated Press that Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer advising Snowden, would meet with the NSA leaker later on Wednesday. President Vladimir Putin has said that Snowden can be granted asylum in Russia only if he stops leaking secrets.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Migration Service told The Associated Press they had no information about the status of Snowden's application for asylum. Granting Snowden asylum would add new tensions to U.S.-Russian relations already strained by criticism of Russia's pressure on opposition groups, Moscow's suspicion of U.S. missile-defense plans and Russia's resistance to sanctions against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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