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As a European, I'm utterly and totally ashamed that nobody here actually offered him asylum. None.

This lack of action speaks so very clearly that whatever nasty the US is doing now, entire Europe is in on it already. Sans the actual European people under total surveillance ofcourse.

It seriously makes you wonder what's going on behind closed doors in European governments and EU offices. It can't be good, and it needs to be rooted out pronto.

I was specially ashamed to hear that my country had blocked Bolivia's President plane. An action that was absolutely uncalled for and for which we had no explanation from our government.
I'm with you. But then, the EU has been under the US boot for a long time now. And as Snowden's revelations show they knew about PRISM and at least some participated.

Real shame though that even a social oriented society like Europe can't do a thing about it.

Well, European citizens will have to get off their butts and get used to actually go out and vote for different people, now.
IMO it's more to do with how nobody can afford to piss off the US so much.
@PanickedOmlette: You're hellbanned; don't ask me why, I just read HN with the option to see dead users.

Regarding your post, you're wrong about the MEP salaries:

Article 10 of the new Statute sets the amount of the MEPs salary as 38,5 % of the basic salary of a judge at the Court of Justice of the European Communities, thus currently €7,665 before tax.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...

Besides, I'm pretty sure the EP doesn't rule over the airspace of the member states.

Yes, the US can threaten every EU nation individually, with the help of the remaining EU nations. The punishment is isolation and it's called playing nations off against each other. It's a nice game theory thingy.
As a fellow EU citizen I completely agree, but am not particularly surprised. And don't feel that ashamed because as citizens we're only tangentially responsible for the crimes of our governments.
As citizens we are 100% responsible for the crimes of our governments.
> As a European, I'm utterly and totally ashamed that nobody here actually offered him asylum. None.

Just imagine how the self-aware Americans (US) feel.

My patriotism took a giant hit with USAPATRIOT. Its been in an abject freefall since Citizens United.

I used to venomously ridicule people who suggested 9/11 was a false flag event. As time has gone on, I find it more and more likely that they let it happen to justify perpetual war and the fullscale rollout of the Panopticon.

We live in a fascist state.

Pissing the US off would probably be enough reason enough for many European countries to not offer asylum anyway. Not that that says anything about whether there are other reasons as well.
As a European, I'm not surprised in the least.
Europe is no longer an independent entity, it's more and more becoming the colonies of the US. We have very real facts that make this obvious:

1. the President's plane incident

2. the absence of honest outrage on the part of EU politicians regarding all the recent news

3. the direct surveillance collaboration with the NSA

4. the fact that the NSA is allowed to build multi-billion surveillance centers in Germany

5. refusal of help to Edward Snowden

Please add your observations to this list.

Europe has not been an independent entity since the end of WW2 and the beginning of the cold war.

Unless you think that is normal for a country to have permanent military bases of a foreign power in its own territory.

I'm not judging or complaining, it's just the way it is. At some point in history, decisions were made about Europe's own place in the world that put it under US sphere of influence, and these decisions have important consequences to this day.

It can be argued that European countries traded part of their own sovereignity in exchange for security, protection and economic progress.

As an European resident, I definitely agree to your assessment. By intuition, I'd say an important role is played by the fact that some European countries, members of EU even, are also NATO members, but I find it somewhat difficult to structure my arguments right now.
Your list 2-5 is accurate, but the President's plane incident is bunk. Apparently Morales didn't have any fuel so he put on a little show play to get some attention. He didn't even take off from the same airport as snowden. While the US intelligence service is incompetent, I don't think they are that stupid.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/edward-snow...

6. The hosting of SWIFT in Belgium, and SIX Interbank Clearing in Switzerland, who are both pinnacles of the inefficient, rent-seeking, environmentally and socially irresponsible, protectionist financial establishment and its surveillance abuses. The former's main guilt is in centralizing data on all global interbank transfers and passing it off to allied governments (particularly the US, even after rage against matters surfaced in the EU parliament, a 'SWIFT2' was designed, and new regulation nominally put in place... in response, the very structure of the EU conveniently changed - creating the Directorate of Home Affairs (sound like "Homeland Security" to anyone else?), which rubber-stamped their surveillance requests, and actively sidelined the European Data Protect Supervisor, who were tasked with protecting citizens against such abuses). [Note: The above was volunteered on official letterheard in response to FOIA, straight from the agency in question]. Longtime aspiring to be perceived as politically non-partisan (self-described as an "international cooperative"), they shred any pretensions recently to ban Iran outright from the entire network in a move even the incoming director shockingly described as "unprecedented" (reading between the lines, I believe he perhaps personally honestly didn't support it and his hand was forced). The second operates as a deniable financial NGO on the part of the global financial establishment for petty protectionism with minimal transparency.

7. The illegal rendition of The Pirate Bay's anakata from Cambodia to Swedish solitary confinement (himself a Swedish citizen) - without charge or process - for a term said to constitute torture even under UN definition.

I'm just gonna post a previous comment I made on another story regarding this:

----------------------

I wonder why in the Venezuelan government's eyes it's OK for them to constantly monitor and record every call, email,etc made by their political opponents.

I wonder what would happen to an officer of the SEBIN (venezuelan inteligence agency)if they came out with details about how they record every political opponent movement. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up being just another statistic in the homicide rates.

They even had a late night TV show (La Hojilla) where a guy would play back cell phone recordings and emails of the opposition politicians.Live. On TV. He had carte blanche to insult,record anyone he wanted live on TV. Chavez would often call in to the show to congratulate him.

They even had a Congress session where they played recordings of the cell phone calls of the most prominent opposition members and their family. And that was live on TV again!

Hipocrysy at it's best.

---------

These governments are not "fighting for freedom" or for the privacy rights of the people of the world. Many of these governments would sell their mothers to have a PRISM-like system. Venezuela included.

EDIT: when I talk about hipocrisy, I'm talking about the venezuelan govt, not Snowden.

These governments are not "fighting for freedom" or for the privacy rights of the people of the world.

Given his published views on surveillance I'm sure Snowden would agree. I highly doubt Venezuela is his first choice for asylum, or anywhere close to it. He doesn't have a lot of choice at this point if he wants to stay out of the reach of the CIA. I doubt he'll stay there long, even if he wants to, but it might be a useful step on the way to another country.

I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually volunteers to come back to the US for trial, but he might be waiting until there have been enough disclosures of government wrongdoing, and enough public outrage, that the Obama administration wouldn't dare trying to sequester him and prevent an open trial.

Why is fighting for freedom in quotes here?

[EDIT] To add a couple of minor points:

hipocrysy -> hypocrisy

Is this the story you mean?

http://boingboing.net/2013/07/08/snowden-and-venezuela-my-bi...

It's a good read, and covers in detail the kind of abuse of surveillance they have in Venezuela - what's interesting about this is that it cuts both ways. While you might say it shows Snowden to be hypocritical (though I'd argue he has no good choices here), it is also a perfect illustration of the dangers of pervasive surveillance, and the way it undermines our everyday democracy. It would be so easy to use surveillance to investigate and harass political opponents, and in the US or UK we wouldn't even know it is happening, we'd just read about the embarrassment of a politician over an affair or similar peccadillo, without knowing how the press came to be informed.

I think that's irrelevant. Snowden was interested in revealing that democracies that purport to have a certain set of values actually have a different set of values, and a set of secret non-accountable courts and agencies which can do whatever they like. He's done that now, and now he needs refuge.

Yes it would be nice if he had asylum in a country which was more aligned with his beliefs, but guess what - none of those countries turned out to exist, since none of them offered asylum.

So what's he meant to do so that he doesn't appear hypocritical?

This is why an adversarial world political situation is beneficial for normal citizens. Governments only care about this stuff when they can make others look bad. Venezuela is currently adversarial towards the USA on most fronts because they go against the grain of American neo-liberal imperialism.

I don't really care. But why not play them against each other if it means we as citizens get to hear more about the terrible things our countries are doing. Venezuelans certainly get plenty of American propaganda. Let the Americans hear the Venezuelan propaganda. It's all BS in the end but it leads to more transparency in much the same way adversarial governments are designed to work.

At this point, Snowden is a pawn in an international strategy game. None of these countries are offering Snowden asylum because they believe in his cause. They are offering him asylum because it is something that they can use against the United States (for unrelated contentions) and use as a political trophy within their own countries.

As such, Snowden has to worry about many scenarios. Will his "host" country use him to extract concessions out of the United States in exchange for his extradition? When the regime changes in the country he ends up in, will he wear out his welcome? Can the country he ends up in even protect him from extraordinary rendition? Even if the country fully intends on assisting Snowden, would it be able to weather whatever sanctions were levied on it by the United States in the form of trade restrictions? Ecuador didn't seem to think so.

Then there is the question of whether he can even get to the country he is going to. France and Spain (indirectly) forced down the jet of the president of Bolivia on the rumor that Snowden was on the plane. There is no reason to expect that they and other European countries won't do so again. Routes from Russia to Cuba (assuming he has to use Havana as a stop) also typically fly over the United States. The United States is free to, if not directly force the plane down in the United States, not grant it permission to fly in U.S. airspace, effectively forcing it to land in a U.S. friendly country (Canada). And Cuba might simply hand him over to improve U.S. relations. My understanding is that small private jets simply do not have the range to go directly from Moscow to any of the countries listed (perhaps Venezuela would be just within reach).

At this point, though, I don't really see what option Snowden has but to take Venezuela's asylum offer and hope for the best. He is on a small boat on the ocean in a raging storm. His fate is not in his own hands.

Well, as an IT guy at the world's largest surveillance agency Snowden is also an intelligence asset.

Put another way, our failure of due process has led to a severe security breach. What made him flee was not convictions—he fled because Bradley Manning is in solitary.

Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers leaker, argued well that Snowden made the right call to flee.[0]

Forcing down his plane, or any number of molestations, would only exacerbate this baffling strategy of abusing people to the extreme.

If the government didn't do that bullshit, like Ellsberg said, he'd come home and have his day in court.

[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-l...

When the regime changes in the country he ends up in, will he wear out his welcome?

This is a reasonable question, but not sure the word 'regime' is warranted. If you're talking about Venezuela then that's a democratically elected government.

A Gulfstream V could get him there directly. Doesn't solve the EU airspace issues though.
OT: But I'm curious why the article has to define the countries who offered asylum as leftist:

> "...the leftist governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua...."

This implies the asylum was extended because they are leftist as appose to other reasons, such as these countries felt rebuffed by US for forcing down the flight of the Bolivian president, or purely on humanitarian or other reasons.

To me "leftist" has certain idealogical connotations, as in trying out a particular system of government that emphasizes strong and omni-present governmental control (like the USSR, for example).

In my opinion the countries listed are not leftist, they are simply very, very corrupt with very poor law and order and poor government accountability and democratic in name only.

I don't think they are "leftist"; they are just very corrupt and the majority of people are powerless to change it because criminal and military elements are opposing them.

"Leftist" is one of more respectable terms that those countries have been called by the western media :)
These are all countries where 'Yankee' is a bad word and 'socialism' is a good one. This isn't subjective, it is amply documented.
By OT, do you mean on or off? I read your question as very much on topic, because the fact that they are leftist governments is going to be played out through the media to disparage and discredit Snowden through guilt by association tactics that focus entirely on the nature of the government(s) offering asylum. We've already seen this happening in the US media in response to the list of countries to whom Snowden has submitted asylum applications.
That's quite a bait-and-switch of a news article. The headline claims something, and then the article body says that, actually, they have no idea if their headline is correct or not, and their only sources were a deleted tweet and another tweet making vague reference to an apparently nonexistent newspaper article.
Well, the deleted tweet was from someone who ought to know, it claimed to reference a report on a Russian 24 hour news channel, not in an article, but it's still suspicious that this isn't on their website. OTOH, Snowden accepting asylum in Venezuela, wouldn't be particularly surprising, since that's where he was originally headed.
If the Venezuelan government really wanted to be nasty, they could arrange for Snowden to be assassinated in a manner that implicates the US government.
No way.

Much better for the GoV to keep Snowden alive and "WikiLeak"-ing.

I think the damage these leaks do to the US is generally underestimated. Not just in terms of security, but also politically and economically. It's VERY likely that a great deal of damage will be done economically over the long term.

Frankly, I wouldn't even be surprised to see a lot of these Latin American nations begin capitalize on that economic damage over the long term.

This whole NSA Affair will prove to be bad business all the way around.

now you're thinking like the CIA ;)
So now he has to get there...?

Maybe they could have a frigate on a "far northing training excerise". He could then fly by helicoper to the ship. Interdicting a home bound passenger jet is one thing (esp. as they need fuel). Interdicting frigate in international waters is a another ball game. But yeah, I'm probably far into the realm a fantasy here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ARV_General_Sal%C3%B3m_%2...

"Moscow - Barents Sea - Windward Islands - Caracas" interesting article in Spiegel Online today. They have a map of the potential route and other suggestions. For example: He could travel as diplomatic baggage. Sounds crazy, but there are at least two cases where this has been tried. Both cases were unsuccessful but if they were we probably wouldn't know about them.

Original (in German):

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/asylgesuch-von-snowden...

Translate:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

In December 2002, a North Korean ship was boarded by Spanish special forces in coordination with the US off the Horn of Africa.[1] They believed it was carrying missiles or other arms. It was a shipment of Scud missiles on its way to Yemen, and they eventually let them pass.[2]

It is well within the capability of the US Navy to blockade or stop a Venezuelan warship, and it would probably be a bad strategy to show even token resistance when days away from anyone else being able to see what is happening.

The narrative could be something along the lines of —they were given an easy way to give him up, but they were crazy and shot at us first! I have no idea what warning shots are like from missile frigates and whether they are easy to interpret.

It might be easier to hope that a 11 or 12 hour flight avoiding unwelcoming airspaces would simply go mostly unnoticed. Foreign Policy also played with the idea a few days ago.[3]

My guess is that as long as he remains safe for a few years, popular opinion will eventually shift to his favor and he'll be pardoned, and eventually treated more like Ellsberg than Vanunu. However, since it is in the long term interests of Venezuela to repair relations with the US, it will require luck for Snowden to become popular enough in the US for a pardon before Venezuela decides that it has 'thought deeper' about what he did, and wants to make a friendly gesture toward its American partners.

[1] http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/11/us.mis...

[2] http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/11/us.mis...

[3] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/06/moscow_to_car...

Someone with some spare money should charter a private jet for him and then fly some extra hops to stay far away from countries that could cause trouble.
This starts to sound a bit like John McAfee's story. Better make sure any journalists don't forget to remove geotags from photos!
Pardon me if I'm being ignorant, but what was the american people response to the whole "government is spying on us" thing?

I thought there would be huge protests and pressure for a response from the president, and promise to cut back on... spying on people.

Is it absolutely certain he's even in Russia? Couldn't he have left Hong Kong on a freighter bound for South America weeks ago? It would explain why nobody has seen him since he disappeared in HK.
Tweeted by the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma: https://twitter.com/Alexey_Pushkov
Google Translate gives me: "According to News 24, with reference to Maduro, Snowden accepted his offer of asylum. If so, it is found that the safest option"

So who is News 24?

Snowden's future is clear. He will be forgotten like ... Bradley Manning. The latter is currently on trial. Nobody cares any more.