[muuh-gnu]

How is he supposed to know in advance that they will not try to kill him if that legal option is on the table and they are known to be willing to make examples out of previous whistleblowers like Bradley Manning?

And even if he is not threatened with outright execution, even slightly less radical but more likely punishments, like that of Manning, are sufficiently radical to justify defecting to the Soviet Union. Even a simple life in some far away Siberian village will be more endurable than a US 24/7 waterboarding & force-feeding facility.

[sampo]

> defecting to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. 1991 was 22 years ago. You must be a real old-timer?

[3825]

Perhaps a jab at Putin, if I had to guess

[ChikkaChiChi]

Russian Federation has a far less ominous sound to it than Soviet Union. When you say the Soviet Union (or USSR) you can almost hear the evil Ivan Drago music playing in your head.

[ChikkaChiChi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwBH3Fj1zSc

I had to YouTube it immediately after typing this. There's just something terrifying about a man who speaks better English than I do, playing a man who speaks English like a man who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, that punches with the power and effectiveness of a chemical engineer.

Sometimes, I too miss the 80's.

[mortehu]

> How is he supposed to know in advance that they will not try to kill him if that legal option

Well, in most countries it's illegal to deport someone if there's a risk of a death sentence, which is why US often cannot extradite people. Hence US has to convince the "host" country first, which I guess counts for something. That's what US is currently trying to do with Russia:

> "The charges he faces do not carry that possibility, and the United States would not seek the death penalty even if Mr. Snowden were charged with additional death penalty-eligible crimes," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Russian Minister of Justice Vladimirovich Konovalov.