Truthfully, I don't think that he has the documents that would help get leverage.  The fact that he rebuffed Russia's offer makes me think that he might be truly doing this for the reasons that he says.  But even with that, at some point you have to realize that all the moves you have are bad... he really should have taken their deal once he was trapped.  Their "we can't touch him... he's not in Russia" is complete fiction, and he should know that.  He's at their mercy already...

...
You're probably right ... But it just infuriates me that people can't get together and behind this thing and force the government to blink. WTF is it gonna take to get people off their asses?!? Christ we had more outrage expressed in the MSM when Janet Jackson's titty popped out FFS.

If the overlords can't be made to blink now, with something this mind-blowingly blatant...they're never going to. We might as well pack up the flag -- I'm sure they'll be making a new one soon anyhow ... Something with more red, and a scepter. -- and leave.

But exactly how do we make them blink? They're pretty close to a lockdown.

Flood every Email server in Washington DC with messages from "We the People"... What say let Edward Snowden go, he's a true patriot and deserves a medal for reporting rampant corruption in our government.

Something is happening today along these lines: Mass protests planned over web NSA spying revelations

Some of the web's biggest names have backed mass protests over internet surveillance carried out by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The Restore the Fourth movement - referring to the US constitution's fourth amendment - said it wants to end "unconstitutional surveillance".

Reddit, Mozilla and Wordpress are among the big web names backing the action, due to take place on Thursday.

Almost 100 events have been planned across the US.

Oh, how come Google and Facebook are not on that list? 

More info on today's protests etc.:

Restore the Fourth FAQ

An alternative explanation is that they all know that they are as bad as each other..

Precisely.

When the president Nixon visited China back in 1972, there was a great deal made of the extreme lengths China was going through to absolutely insure his safety while there.

When the question came up on the news, I remember one of the big anchormen (Cronkite? or Brinkley?) asking the reporter on the scene how security arrangements were progressing. The reporter made some comment to the effect that both China's state security agencies and the US Secret Service were cooperating closely, and that arrangements were proceeding with an amazing degree of speed and efficiency. The reporter also said that the security people from both nations seemed to hitting it off extremely well on both the personal and professional level.

That prompted the anchorman to say something along the lines of how secret services seem to have much in common and act the same - no matter which  flag they serve.

I think the same rule applies here. Government spies behave like government spies the world over. About the only thing that seems to differentiate the deeds they do in service to their masters is the size of budget given them,  and the degree to which their masters are willing to turn a blind eye towards violations of law committed under the guise of national security.

We all know that.

But we can't really "prove" it.

The NSA, however, is in the enviable position of being able to provide incontrovertible proof of exactly how - and to what degree - other nations are spying on their own citizens.

And that is not the sort of laundry any government is anxious to see aired out in public.

There's an old saying that goes: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." And it's now being said again.

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Here's an interesting article which lists several countries that Snowden applied to for asylum. A lot of them are using a nasty trick where "you must be inside our border to apply for Asylum". (Aka haha, we'll deport you first!)

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/02/politics/nsa-leak/index.html

It seems like Venezuela is offering him asylum, probably just to irritate the us of a

Tweaking the nose of the giant.  And making a statement.

Even though the giant was exceptionally polite 

The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Ministry of Popular Power for External Relations of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has the honor to request the provisional arrest for the purpose of extradition of United States citizen Edward J. SNOWDEN...

Some interesting analysis by Ana de Palacio, a former Spanish foreign minister, Senior Vice President of the World Bank etc.

...the Snowden affair reinforces the perception that the US is losing its sway in South America. (...) The threat by US officials to cut off aid to Ecuador, which would amount to a measly $12 million in 2014, further evinces a clumsy approach. America's traditional sources of influence - its soft power, regional alliances, and financial leverage - appear to be running dry. The message to the world is clear: the US is not the regional power that it should be.

Obama's flippant attitude concerning alleged US surveillance of the European Union and its member states shows that American exceptionalism is alive and well. Instead of acknowledging the legitimacy of European concerns, he shrugged them off as a frivolity: "guarantee you that in European capitals, there are people who are interested in, if not what I had for breakfast, at least what my talking points might be should I end up meeting with their leaders."

The US certainly has an interest in gaining deeper analytical insight into its European allies' decision-making than can be gained by simply calling, say, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Accepting that spying is realistically part of the US toolkit, we Europeans expect it to be conducted responsibly. By dismissing European concerns about how such surveillance is carried out, Obama has demonstrated one of America's worst habits - that of patronizing Europe.

P.S. I guess the point is that the Obama administration has been incredibly clumsy so far in its pursuit to catch this guy. It's stirring up all kinds of ill feelings with traditional allies and giving plenty of ammunition to its traditional critics, which probably could have been avoided. Perhaps this attests to the skills of Snowden or the Wikileaks people, or it's just simply an unfortunate occasion that exposed these inadequacies in the current US administration (though I'm not saying Bush would have handled it better...).

There's still something wrong with this whole story. All of it. It's something to do with "too much noise".

My guess is that this is uncharted territory because the world of spying and the world of media have changed beyond recognition (due to the capabilities of the technology involved), so no one knows how to deal with this. Orwell's 1984 has become possible, but with a twist - that the oppressed also have access to the "wire" and can channel their own messages, affecting public opinion and international relations.

While the US administration needs to punish Snowden to show what happens to spies that leak, at the same time if they overdo it, there is nothing they can do from preventing a 100 new Snowdens leaking even more information, especially if they turn him into a martyr (Spartacus and Jesus come to mind...). It could equally inspire left-wing liberals and far right people against an overbearing Federal government. US democracy and the world order are being tested at the moment...

Everyone just seems to be improvising...

Why don't they follow the plot of a third rate tv movie and give a hundred grand to a sniper team and pick him off?

There's a reason why those are third rate tv movies.

  It just don't seem right that the government can prosecute someone for reporting a crime.  They just give it a different name, aka; Whistleblower, and then go about business as usual.  Of course the government will argue that it's not his place to decide what's legal and illegal, to leave that up to the "professionals", ie; lawyers.  Personally, I think they should pin a medal on his chest and call him a patriot.

It just don't seem right that the government can prosecute someone for reporting a crime.  They just give it a different name, aka; Whistleblower, and then go about business as usual.  Of course the government will argue that it's not his place to decide what's legal and illegal, to leave that up to the "professionals", ie; lawyers.

Robert Anton Wilson summed it up this way: it's magic!

If magic is the ability to bend reality in accordance with will, then "law" is the ultimate form of magic. In 1924, about a half million hitherto harmless heroin addicts became federal criminals overnight due to an Act of Congress. In 1937, the same thing happened to a few million inoffensive marijuana smokers. How? Magic!

As Wilson pointed out, the people that make the laws are wizards and sorcerers in the truest sense of the word. Their view of reality and truth overrides any which opposes theirs.

And shold you think for one second that your view of reality is every bit as valid and real as theirs, Wilson proposed this experiment: Walk away from a police officer after you've been given a "stop order." You'll be amazed just how quickly and decisively that cop's reality overrides and becomes your reality.

And that, Mr. Potter, is real magic.

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