| > The US government revoked his passport while he was in an international "no man's land" (i.e. the international side of Russian customs), effectively making him stateless. This is a myth that keeps getting repeated. The US government didn't revoke his passport leaving him stranded in Russia, they revoked his passport the day before he left Hong Kong [1]. He traveled to Russia on what turned out to be an invalid travel document issued by the Ecuadorian embassy in London [2] (same one that Julian Assange is holed up in). He was allowed by the Chinese to flee from a place that had an extradition treaty with the US and wound up in a place that doesn't. He put himself there. Honestly, the "It's the American government's fault I'm in Russia" argument that Snowden and his close supporters have been peddling isn't really much of an argument when it effectively translates to "If it weren't for the US government I'd be in Cuba or Ecuador right now." > Also worth noting that the crimes Snowden has been charged with are two counts of violating the Espionage Act, a law passed just after the US entered WWI. I keep seeing this argument being brought up, too. The age of a particular law has no impact on whether or not someone should be accountable for breaking it. If that were the case, I could quite literally get away with murder. [1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-... |