Russia

by

Putin Is Doing the Complete Bidding of the Rothschilds | War is Crime

By Dave Hodges

PutinDollarBeing a former college basketball coach, I marvel at the skill of a good strategist who can carry out a game plan. Vladimir Putin would have been a great college basketball coach, a masterful poker player, a top used car salesman and he is an excellent leader of his country when it comes to foreign policy. Putin has made the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and our government look amateurish.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Putin has the potential to be one of the most despotic figures in all of history, I would be a fan of his cunning and his ability to carry out an agenda on multiple fronts with precision and skill.

However, there is one group that Putin does not outfox, out-strategize and out maneuver; that would be the forces controlling the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Putin is developing almost a cult following among some people in the alternative media. To them, he represents a man with the force of conviction to tell international banking to go to hell. To these well-intentioned, but misguided analysts, Putin has succeeded where other world leaders have lost their lives (e.g. JFK, Hussein, etc.). As romantic and appealing as a superhero may be who will ride in and save the world from the evil bankers, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to Putin. Whether Putin realizes it or not, he is doing the complete bidding of the big boys at the BIS and everything is moving right along according to plan.

This article explores the fact that Putin, although he may be, on the surface, resisting international banking on one level, he is very much under their control on another level. This article will also explore the implications for these events upon the American people.

The Starting Point

In the alternative media, many make the mistake of speaking about the “banksters” as if they were one entity all working towards the same goal which is the establishment of a singular economic system which controls the planet through rabid debt management. Generally, this is true. However, the process of international banking is compartmentalized and when goals are not met, we see divisions emerging and this is exactly what we are witnessing at the present moment.

Before we can effectively analyze how Putin is in the process of putting himself in charge of the world’s chessboard, we need to first take a very brief look at how international banking is organized.

Level One: The Bank for International Settlements

International banking has three major levels. The executive directors of this grand economic scheme, the Bank for International Settlements, from Basel, sit at the head of the table. The BIS sets global economic policy by manipulating currency exchange rates (e.g. IMF), establish lending rates, picking national winners and losers, etc. The singular mission of the BIS is to march the world’s central banks into the NWO that they control.

It can be said that the forces, both known and unknown, are the rulers of the planet.

Level Two: The Central Banks

The second level of power consists of the global central banks including the Federal Reserve which is an unelected cabal of private bankers who have wrestled the financial power of this country away from Congress and control the nation’s money. It is the same in every country. And of course, if an entity controls the money of a nation, they also control those who use their money through the establishment of a predatory debt enslavement system. You learned this principle of finance as a teenager when your parents told you, “For as long as you live under this house, you will do what I say.” The power of the purse determines who controls behavior. The world’s central banks take their marching orders from the Bank for International Settlements because the monetization of the fiat currency that each central bank controls is determined by the BIS.

It can be accurately stated that the central banks are rulers of nations and represent mid-level management in the hierarchy of the process. 

Level Three: The National Banking Industry

The third level of power in this unholy system are the financial institutions of a nation. In our case, this would be institutions such as Goldman Sachs, other lesser Wall Street investment houses as well as the megabanks (e.g. Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, etc.). Policies that are developed in Basel are implemented by these institutions.

The investment houses conduct the day to day management of the polices which flow downhill from the BIS.

Finally, there is everybody else and that would be the sheep of this country who know nothing of how any of this works. Don’t hold your breath on a sudden level of developing awareness, most of us are all too brainwashed by the system to achieve this level of awareness.

The Game Plan for Building a New World Order

Since the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement which established the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and the US was made the de facto world policeman as a result, Americans have enjoyed economic dominance because in order to buy energy, the world needed to purchase dollars from our Federal Reserve. After the world departed from the gold standard for the fiat currency standard, the US is the only country that truly enjoyed a solvent currency and our standard of living has reflected this status.

Americans have been allowed to enjoy this most favored status because it became our task, on behalf of the BIS, to put together coalitions of central banks to force unwilling nations into this system. And when a nation, such as Libya and Iraq, attempted to swim upstream against the debt enslavement policies of these banks, the leaders were murdered and the people become indentured debt slaves. The cost to America is endless war, massive debt and a reputation for being the “Great Satan”.

Virtually, all nations have succumbed to this tyranny, with two notable exceptions, Russia and China. To a lesser extent, India has also become problematic for the BIS since they have joined Russia and China in using national currency and/or gold to conduct trade among each other rather than using the “required” dollar.

If the BIS is going to realize its dream of New World Order, Russia, China and the United States economies must all be crushed. For when the world lies in ruin, out of chaos will come order. Putin is the main driving force in making this a reality.

Putin Has Checkmated the Central Banks At Level Two

Putin is defeating the world’s central banks at two levels. One, he is spearheading an effort to move the world away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. This is what the Syrian and Iranian crisis was all about (e.g. selling oil for gold rather than the Petrodollar) and Putin exposed Obama’s false flag event (i.e. gassing the Syrian rebels) for what it really was. Further, Putin now has the power to refuse to accept the dollar as payment for his gas flowing into Europe. If the Petrodollar dies, what will happen to the US economy? If this does happen, we will find out very quickly why DHS purchased 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with its 2700 armored personnel carriers.

Second, Putin is threatening to become the main supplier of energy on the planet. With the consummation a recent gas deal between the Russians and the Chinese, Putin is undermining the control of energy that the central banks have enjoyed since the early days of the creation of Saudi Arabia to oversee oil production.

Putin is spitting in the face of the Federal Reserve and the other G7 central banks by encouraging Iran to sell its oil for gold. This is turning international finance on its head. Putin also has enough of a military presence, along with nuclear weapons, to stave a direct conventional invasion of his country. Putin has positioned himself to control the energy needs of Europe as the Europeans will be forced to choose between heating their homes or remaining a military ally of the US. This will eventually lead to a disintegration of NATO, thus enhancing Putin’s military power by comparison.

Has Putin Really Killed the New World Order?

The march of the G7 toward consolidating national power under the central banks has stopped dead in its tracks. Russia, China, India and to a lesser extent, Brazil and South Africa are now charting their own independent economic course. When Libya refused to regionalize and weaken its currency and they were adamant about avoiding the debt slavery, their leaders were murdered and their country was conquered by al-Qaeda proxy forces supported by the funds of the G7.

However, Russia and China are not Libya and Iraq. Both nations possess nuclear weapons and sizeable armies. For the moment, the dream of a New World Order appears to be dead. Or is it?

The BIS Employs the Sun Tzu Strategy of “Death’s Ground”

The G7 central banks are impotent against Putin as he has outmaneuvered them at every turn. But for the big boys at Basel, things are proceeding according to plan. If the BIS has to sacrifice some of its central banks to get what it wants, so be it. The BIS will also think nothing of fermenting the conditions for the next world war.

Over 2,000 years ago, Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, imparted a knowledge of military strategy which is still being taught in our service academies and in our war colleges. One of the primary principles of Sun Tzu consists of the concept of placing one’s soldiers on “death’s ground” if you want them to fight hard and achieve victory against all odds. The best military example that comes to mind is what happened to the WWII Normandy invasion force at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. These men were thrown onto a beach where there was no retreat and they were only going to leave the beach dead or victorious. The BIS has employed a Sun Tzu strategy of placing its second level of power, the central banks, on death’s ground. The G7 central banks will conquer Putin, or they will die. However, before rigor mortis sets in, the G7 nations will commence a world war based on economic survival. Again, out of chaos will come order.

World War III Is Inevitable

The failure of the central banks to corral and control Putin has made World War III a likely scenario. As Putin continues on the path of destroying the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, what will the Federal Reserve do? There will be a war to preserve the status quo. As China, Russia and the United States are drawn into a confrontation, the world’s economy will be obliterated along with billions of lives. In the aftermath of the coming global holocaust, the supreme financial rulers of the planet will be waiting to create order, the New World Order, out of chaos.

A willing pawn of the NWO, or not, Putin is no hero. He is doing exactly what is expected. Make no mistake about, the BIS controls the central banks, world finance and Putin. The New World Order is very much alive.

Source:  War is Crime

by

If I was President of the World, I Would | The Global Conversation

TheGlobalConversation

By Neale Donald Walsch

NDWThe people of the Crimean Peninsula have spoken, in an election that the world must assume was largely untainted by coercion or ballot-box stuffing or other corruptions. The result was never in doubt in any event, as more than 60% of the residents of Crimea are Russian speakers and are deeply embedded in the Russian culture. That majority wants to be part of Russia. It never favored being separated from Russia in the first place.

So the people of the Crimean Peninsula have spoken, voting overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and become an independent republic, the government of which, all the voters knew, will immediately request membership in the Russian Federation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made an astonishing statement of agreement with them on Tuesday when, if an NBC News report  by Albina Kovalyova is correct, he said that Crimea was “stolen” from Russia when it was handed to Ukraine in the first place, half a century ago.

The NBC News report said that Putin, addressing a joint session of the Russian parliament, “described the 1954 allocation of Crimea to Ukraine by then Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev as a mistake and said that the wishes of the local people had been ignored.”

The NBC report goes on to quote Putin as saying that Russia was going through a difficult period at that time, and that “the people of Crimea were not asked about anything. It was hard to imagine then that Russia and Ukraine would be different countries. But it happened. The U.S.S.R. collapsed.”

The result of this was that “When Crimea became part of a different state, Russia felt it was stolen,” NBC quoted Putin as saying. “A million people went to bed in one country and woke up in another,” the report said he added.

The network said that Putin told the Russian parliament that Russia thought Ukraine would be a friendly neighbor, but that the situation “developed differently.”

On Tuesday Putin apparently went even further, describing Kiev, which is the capital of Ukraine, as “the mother of all Russian cities,” again according to yet another report from NBC News.

President Putin says he would think that Americans would understand and support the vote for independence by the people of Crimea, just as Americans support the whole idea of freedom of choice and independence, having declared its own independence from England many years ago.

Mr. Putin also said that he hoped that Germany and the rest of Europe would understand the desire of Russia to embrace Crimea again as a part of the Russian Federation, just as East and West Germany joined together once again a few years ago to form one nation — a move that, Putin said, Russia supported. He did not point out that this was even though Russia then “lost” East Germany as a satellite region under Russian control.

These words, reportedly from Putin as quoted by NBC News, are being placed here in order to put the entire Crimea/Ukraine situation in a new and larger context, allowing, perhaps, for a deeper understanding of why Russia is taking the position it is now taking regarding Crimea and Ukraine.

This does not make the Russian position “right” (nor does it make it “wrong”) — it simply makes it, perhaps, more understandable to people in the West.

All of which brings us to a remarkable idea placed in the Comments Section beneath the last headline story on this webpage, which also focused on the situation in Crimea, and invited readers to offer their suggestions on how to deal with the apparent impasse between Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and Europe.

A reader named Cate Grieves wrote…

“If I was the President of the world, I would get all the Presidents together. They then sit around a large ROUND table. They would then have to stick a large white piece of paper to the front of their clothes. On this piece of paper would be their name — in LARGE black ink in capital letters. Then each person hands the person on their left, their name badge. They then put it on.”

“Then, each person has to believe they are the person whose name they have. They then explain to the group, to the best of their ability, why they believe they are right. They are only allowed to speak for the name they have on.”

“After they have all spoken, they move the names along again, one more person to the left.When they have all had a turn at each name badge, they can then discuss an outcome. The other rules for this event are: that no-one is allowed to interupt or criticise what anyone has said. They are all allowed to speak for as long as they want. They do not get to speak with their own name badge.”

Now there’s a fascinating idea. It would be an exercise in wearing the other shoe, and it could offer a remarkable format for creating a solution to more than a few problems around the world. (And in people’s homes!)

It would probably never happen, because “role playing” would probably be considered too “New Agey” or too much like a “psychological game” for world leaders (or couples in a marriage, for that matter) to actually engage in it. But it is an idea that could change the world.

In any event, now having heard more from Vladimir Putin on this whole subject, your own additional comments and observations are invited below. What does our contemporary spirituality invite us to say and do about all of this?

Source: The Global Conversation

by

Russia’s New Ability To Evade NSA Surveillance Is Either A Crazy Coincidence Or Something Much Worse | Business Insider

By Michael Kelley

Snowden1U.S. officials think that Russia recently obtained the ability to evade U.S. eavesdropping equipment while commandeering Crimea and amassing troops near Ukraine’s border.The revelation reportedly has the White House “very nervous,” especially because it’s unclear how the Kremlin hid its plans from the National Security Agency’s snooping on digital and electronic communications.

One interesting fact involved is the presence of Edward Snowden in Russia, where he has been living since flying to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.

In July, primary Snowden source Glenn Greenwald told The Associated Press that Snowden “is in possession of literally thousands of documents that contain very specific blueprints that would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it.”

So it’s either a coincidence that the Russians figured out how to evade NSA surveillance while hosting the NSA-trained hacker, or else it implies that Snowden may have provided the Russians with access to the NSA’s blueprint.

Snowden told James Risen of The New York Times that he gave all of the classified documents he had taken from the NSA’s internal systems to the journalists he met in Hong Kong and kept no copies himself. However, there are clear issues with that claim and it is still unknown when he gave up access to the cache.

It is also unclear how many documents Snowden ended up taking — officials say he accessed 1.7 million files — or whether the “vast majority” of the intel he took is related to military operations (as opposed to strictly surveillance).

One official told The Wall Street Journal that the Russian camouflage in Ukraine situation is “uncharted territory,” and that a primary concern now is the question of whether Russia could cloak their next move by shielding more communications from the U.S.

Snowden’s detractors seem to have made up their minds about how Russia learned to evade the NSA leading up to and during the invasion of Crimea.

Source: Business Insider

by

US Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich says US instigated Ukraine Crisis | Intellihub News

KucinichWhile speaking to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich dropped information on the situation that is rarely heard in the mainstream media.

In the interview, Kucinich revealed that the United States government was guilty of funding some of the violent rebel groups who have overrun the country.

When asked how he would handle the crisis if he were president, Kucinich replied by saying that:

“What I’d do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers’ money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine, which is what they did. I wouldn’t try to force the people of Ukraine into a deal with NATO against their interest or into a deal with the European Union, which is against their economic interest.”

So, it’s the USA’s fault that Putin rolled in? We made them do it?” O’Reilly replied. “Bill O’Reilly, if you don’t believe in cause and effect, I don’t know what I can do for you,” Kucinich said.

Kucinich is known to be staunchly anti-war, he has also been an outspoken critic of trade agreements like NAFTA and organizations like the EU.

Kucinich is the only congressional representative to vote against the “9/11 Commemoration” resolution. In a press statement he defended his vote by saying that the bill did not make reference to “the lies that took us into Iraq, the lies that keep us there, the lies that are being used to set the stage for war against Iran and the lies that have undermined our basic civil liberties here at home.”

Like all politicians, Kucinich certainly isn’t perfect, despite his views against war and drug prohibition, Kucinich is in favor of heavy taxation and regulation, including strict gun control regulations.

Kucinich drafted legislation that included a ban on the purchase, sale, transfer, or possession of handguns by civilians.

Kucinich pushed for gun control, in the U.S. Congress as well as during his time as a city councilman. He kept a pistol in his house for a period in 1978 (under the recommendation of the police) when he was the target of a Mafia plot. He reportedly no longer keeps the pistol, but you can be certain that his body guards have heavy fire power.

Source: Intellihub News

by

BBC Now Admits: Armed Nazis Led “Revolution” in Kiev, Ukraine | New Eastern Outlook

By Tony Cartalucci

Ukraine Nationalist RallyLike the West’s support of sectarian terrorists across the Middle East, including Al Qaeda, it has found the most despicable elements in Ukrainian society to lead “revolution” for the sociopolitical reordering of Eastern Europe. As the dust settles and the West’s proxy regime finds itself safely entrenched in Kiev, Ukraine – the Western media can now finally recuperate some of its lost legitimacy after months of denying the obvious – that armed Neo-Nazis led the so-called “Euromaidan” uprising.

A BBC Newsnight short titled, “Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine,” reveals xenophobic Jew-hating nationalists, armed and leading the mobs in Kiev, directly contradicting months of Western media narratives portraying the rabble as aspiring for “freedom,” “democracy,” and “closer ties with the West,” with the most absurd example being  the “I am Ukrainian” propaganda reel.

Far from a “pro-democracy” uprising, the “Euromaidan” was yet another case of Western engineered regime change leveraging the good intentions of the ill-informed to mask the covert backing of ugly armed extremists, just as it had done all across the similarly engineered “Arab Spring” in 2011.

In light of the BBC’s report, confirmed intercepted phone conversations between the EU and Estonia regarding the Ukrainian opposition’s hiring of snipers deployed against both police and protesters takes on a new degree of veracity with deepening implications. It also reframes US Senator John McCain’s taking to the stage in Kiev, side-by-side with these overt Nazis as an abhorrent, shameful act bordering on treason and material support of terrorism.

The BBC’s exposure of armed Nazis in Kiev leading the mobs and the overthrow of an elected government, with the overt backing and blessing of the West exposes the Western narrative as outright fabrications. A prime example of this narrative was the Daily Beast’s article, “Putin’s Crimea Propaganda Machine,” which ironically attempts to twist accusations of skewing reality around onto Russia. In it, it states:

Russia invaded Ukraine over the weekend, justifying its incursion by claming it needed to protect Crimea’s ethnic Russian population from supposed neo-Nazi extremists. This was pure propaganda, of course—Vladmir Putin has been keen to annex land that used to be part of Russia, as he did in Georgia in 2008, and seems to think that the Ukrainian army will and should immediately surrender to the Russian one. 

Still, Putin needed a story to spin, no matter how full of holes, and thus the neo-Nazi claims. But as it turns out, Crimea’s streets are not exactly paved with extremists—a fact that has proven troublesome for Russian state TV channels looking to find token far-right bogeymen.

While the Daily Beast claims Russian state TV is having trouble finding Neo-Nazi extremists in Crimea, it appears the BBC is falling all over them in Kiev. Their existence in the capital of Ukraine, the fact that they are confirmed to be armed and poised to seize and consolidate greater power, is an overt threat to both the people of Kiev, and the rest of the Ukrainian population, and is cause of grave concern for Ukraine’s neighbors – considering the Nazis’ blood-soaked, genocidal origins.

In this light, we see precisely what Russia is attempting to counter, but is being wholly condemned by the West for standing up against. For the West, its ability to ally itself with the most abhorrent ideologies ever conceived by mankind indicates that the supposed principles its society is based upon are merely facades behind which it couches its true ambitions – hegemonic expansion, no different than the violent extremist helping-hands it regularly finds itself collaborating with around the world.

The West Drawing the Long Knives Already? 

 The BBC’s sudden “honesty” regarding brigades of armed Nazis infesting western Ukraine, however, is not the result of the British state propaganda arm examining its journalistic conscience, but rather an attempt to throw off extremist thugs that will only, from now on, become a liability for the West’s ambitions in the Eastern European nation.

The West would most likely prefer to replace armed Neo-Nazis with NATO forces, professional mercenaries, and a proxy force of Ukrainians trained and led by Western special forces and intelligence operatives.

Just as the West has done in Afghanistan, where it used sectarian extremists and terrorists to wage a proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1980′s, only to end up turning on their “allies” from 2001 onward – the West will use the Neo-Nazis of Kiev only for as long as absolutely necessary before turning on them and dumping them. The BBC’s short piece exposing the repugnant nature of the forces that in fact led the so-called “Euromaidan” uprising is perhaps the first step toward achieving this goal.

Those watching the Ukrainian crisis closely will want to monitor the posture the West takes regarding their fascist armed, militant proxies, and be aware of preparations the West might be making to replace them with a more professional, as well as presentable, armed front to consolidate and hold gains made during the violence and chaos that has consumed Kiev for the past several months.

Source: New Eastern Outlook

by

Why Russia No Longer Fears the West | Politico Magazine

By Ben Judah

Barack Obama, Vladimir PutinThe West is blinking in disbelief – Vladimir Putin just invaded Ukraine. German diplomats, French Eurocrats and American pundits are all stunned. Why has Russia chosen to gamble its trillion-dollar ties with the West?

Western leaders are stunned because they haven’t realized Russia’s owners no longer respect Europeans the way they once did after the Cold War. Russia thinks the West is no longer a crusading alliance. Russia thinks the West is now all about the money.

Putin’s henchmen know this personally. Russia’s rulers have been buying up Europe for years. They have mansions and luxury flats from London’s West End to France’s Cote d’Azure. Their children are safe at British boarding and Swiss finishing schools. And their money is squirrelled away in Austrian banks and British tax havens.

Putin’s inner circle no longer fear the European establishment. They once imagined them all in MI6. Now they know better. They have seen firsthand how obsequious Western aristocrats and corporate tycoons suddenly turn when their billions come into play. They now view them as hypocrites—the same European elites who help them hide their fortunes.

Once Russia’s powerful listened when European embassies issued statements denouncing the baroque corruption of Russian state companies. But no more. Because they know full well it is European bankers, businessmen and lawyers who do the dirty work for them placing the proceeds of corruption in hideouts from the Dutch Antilles to the British Virgin Islands.

We are not talking big money. But very big money. None other than Putin’s Central Bank has estimated that two thirds of the $56 billion exiting Russia in 2012 might be traceable to illegal activities. Crimes like kickbacks, drug money or tax fraud. This is the money that posh English bankers are rolling out the red carpet for in London.

Behind European corruption, Russia sees American weakness. The Kremlin does not believe European countries – with the exception of Germany – are truly independent of the United States. They see them as client states that Washington could force now, as it once did in the Cold War, not to do such business with the Kremlin.

When Russia sees Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal outbidding each other to be Russia’s best business partner inside the EU (in return for no mention of human rights), they see America’s control over Europe slowly dissolving.

Back in Moscow, Russia hears American weakness out of Embassy Moscow. Once upon a time the Kremlin feared a foreign adventure might trigger Cold War economic sanctions where it hurts: export bans on key parts for its oil industry, even being cut out of its access to the Western banking sector. No more.

Russia sees an America distracted: Putin’s Ukrainian gambit was a shock to the U.S. foreign policy establishment. They prefer talking about China, or participating in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Russia sees an America vulnerable: in Afghanistan, in Syria and on Iran—a United States that desperately needs Russian support to continue shipping its supplies, host any peace conference or enforce its sanctions.

Moscow is not nervous. Russia’s elites have exposed themselves in a gigantic manner – everything they hold dear is now locked up in European properties and bank accounts. Theoretically, this makes them vulnerable. The EU could, with a sudden rush of money-laundering investigations and visa bans, cut them off from their wealth. But, time and time again, they have watched European governments balk at passing anything remotely similar to the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which bars a handful of criminal-officials from entering the United States.

All this has made Putin confident, very confident – confident that European elites are more concerned about making money than standing up to him. The evidence is there. After Russia’s strike force reached the outskirts of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, in 2008, there were statements and bluster, but not a squeak about Russia’s billions. After Russia’s opposition were thrown into show trials, there were concerned letters from the European Union, but again silence about Russia’s billions.

The Kremlin thinks it knows Europe’s dirty secret now. The Kremlin thinks it has the European establishment down to a tee. The grim men who run Putin’s Russia see them like latter-day Soviet politicians. Back in the 1980s, the USSR talked about international Marxism but no longer believed it. Brussels today, Russia believes, talks about human rights but no longer believes in it. Europe is really run by an elite with the morality of the hedge fund: Make money at all costs and move it offshore.

Ben Judah is author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In And Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin.

Source: Politico Magazine

by

Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished | The Washington Post

By Barton Gellman

Snowden1MOSCOW — The familiar voice on the hotel room phone did not waste words.

“What time does your clock say, exactly?” he asked. He checked the reply against his watch and described a place to meet. “I’ll see you there,” he said.

Edward Joseph Snowden emerged at the appointed hour, alone, blending into a light crowd of locals and tourists. He cocked his arm for a handshake, then turned his shoulder to indicate a path. Before long he had guided his visitor to a secure space out of public view.

During more than 14 hours of interviews, the first he has conducted in person since arriving here in June, Snowden did not part the curtains or step outside. Russia granted him temporary asylum on Aug. 1, but Snowden remains a target of surpassing interest to the intelligence services whose secrets he spilled on an epic scale.

Late this spring, Snowden supplied three journalists, including this one, with caches of top-secret documents from the National Security Agency, where he worked as a contractor. Dozens of revelations followed, and then hundreds, as news organizations around the world picked up the story. Congress pressed for explanations, new evidence revived old lawsuits and the Obama administration was obliged to declassify thousands of pages it had fought for years to conceal.

Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations. One of the leaked presentation slides described the agency’s “collection philosophy” as “Order one of everything off the menu.”

Six months after the first revelations appeared in The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Snowden agreed to reflect at length on the roots and repercussions of his choice. He was relaxed and animated over two days of nearly unbroken conversation, fueled by burgers, pasta, ice cream and Russian pastry. Read more…

Source: The Washington Post

by

Edward Snowden asylum: US ‘disappointed’ by Russian decision | The Guardian

Edward Snowden's lawyer

By in Moscow, , and in Washington

Edward Snowden’s lawyer Anatoly Kucherena shows a copy of a temporary document allowing the whistleblower to cross the border into Russia. Photograph: AP

The White House expressed anger and dismay on Thursday after Russia granted temporary asylum to the American whistleblower Edward Snowden and allowed him to leave the Moscow airport where he had been holed up for over a month.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US was “extremely disappointed” by the decision, almost certainly taken personally by President Vladimir Putin. He said Moscow should hand Snowden back and hinted that Barack Obama might now boycott a bilateral meeting with Putin in September, due to be held when the US president travels to Russia for a G20 summit.

Carney added that Snowden had arrived in both China and Russia carrying with him thousands of top secret US documents. He said: “Simply the possession of that kind of highly sensitive classified information outside of secure areas is both a huge risk and a violation.

“As we know he’s been in Russia now for many weeks. There is a huge risk associated with … removing that information from secure areas. You shouldn’t do it, you can’t do it, it’s wrong.”

With US-Russian relations now at a cold war-style low, Snowden slipped out of Sheremetyevo airport on Thursday afternoon. His lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, said Russia’s federal migration service had granted him temporary asylum for one year. Snowden had left the airport to stay at an undisclosed location with expatriate Americans, he added.

Putin made no immediate comment. But having weighed Russia’s options for some weeks, he appears to have decided that Snowden’s propaganda value outweighs any possible US repercussions. Obama’s already floundering attempts to “reset”, or improve, relations with Moscow are in effect over.

In a statement released by WikiLeaks, Snowden thanked the Russian authorities and accused the US of behaving illegally. He made no explicit mention of the trial of Bradley Manning, who this week was convicted of espionage and faces 136 years in jail.

Snowden said: “Over the past eight weeks we have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law, but in the end the law is winning.”

He added: “I thank the Russian Federation for granting me asylum in accordance with its laws and international obligations.”

Snowden has been given a temporary Russian travel document, with his name in Cyrillic and a fresh passport photo. “This gave him the right to temporary asylum on the territory of the Russian Federation, Kucherena said, holding up a copy of the document. US authorities had cancelled his American passport.

Security officials said Snowden officially crossed the border into Russia from the airport’s transit zone at about 3.30pm local time. Russia had apparently not informed the US of the move in advance. The state TV channel Rossiya 24 showed a photograph of Snowden’s departure, as he clambered into a grey unmarked car.

Despite being pictured from behind Snowden was instantly recognisable wearing his trademark grey shirt and carrying a black backpack. Next to him was Sarah Harrison, the WikiLeaks representative who accompanied him last month on his flight from Hong Kong.

Kucherena declined to provide details on where Snowden was heading, citing safety concerns. “Since he is the most hunted person in the world, he will address the question of security today,” he told journalists.

The former NSA employee will himself choose his place of residence and forms of protection, he added. Previously, some speculated that the Russian government was keeping Snowden hidden, although the whistleblower and his lawyer have denied that, adding that he has had no contact with Russian security services.

The whistleblower’s father, Lon Snowden, had reportedly been planning to visit his son. Kucherena said on Wednesday that he was sending an invitation to Snowden’s father so he could obtain a Russian visa. Kucherena told Rossiya 24 on Thursday that he would be speaking to the father later in the day to arrange his visit.

US authorities have repeatedly called on Moscow to return the fugitive to face charges in America. Last week America’s attorney general, Eric Holder, sent a letter to Russia’s justice minister promising that Snowden would not be tortured and that he would not face the death penalty if handed over to the US.

Russian officials previously said they had no jurisdiction to return Snowden, as he was not officially located on Russian territory, and that the US had not filed an official extradition request.

The Kremlin did not immediately comment on Snowden’s temporary asylum. Putin has previously said repeatedly that to remain in Russia, Snowden must stop activities harming the United States. His lawyer suggested that fresh revelations published by the Guardian on Wednesday and Thursday had come from documents that Snowden had already given the paper before Putin made his comments.

Russia’s decision has emboldened hawkish critics of the White House, who have long dubbed Obama’s attempts to improve relations with Putin as naive and inappropriate. In a statement on his website, Senator John McCain said: “Russia’s action today is a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States. It is a slap in the face of all Americans. Now is the time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin’s Russia.”

He proposed in response to expand the Magnitsky Act list of banned Russian officials, push for Georgia’s acceptance into Nato and implement US missile defence programmes in Europe.

At the White House, Carney made it clear that President Obama was frustrated by the decision by Russia to allow Snowden to enter the country, and that a planned presidential summit was now in jeopardy.

Obama is scheduled to travel to Russia in September for at meeting of G20 leaders in St Petersburg. He also planned to meet Putin for a bilateral summit during the trip in what would have been a sign of improving relations between the two powers.

That meeting is now under review. “Obviously this is not a positive development,” Carney said. “We have a wide range of interests with the Russians. We are evaluating the utility of the summit.”

Amnesty International called for the focus to switch from Snowden’s asylum plight to the “sweeping nature and unlawfulness” of the US government’s surveillance programmes.

Widney Brown, senior director for international law and policy at Amnesty, said in a statement: “Now that Edward Snowden has left the airport and has protected status in Russia, the focus really needs to be on the US government’s surveillance programs. Snowden would not have needed temporary asylum but for revealing the sweeping nature and unlawfulness of a massive system of domestic and international surveillance by the United States government.”

A survey showed that 43% of Russians supported granting Snowden asylum and 51% approved of his whistleblowing activities. Kucherena said he had received numerous letters from Russians offering Snowden lodging, protection and money, as well as from women interested in Snowden romantically.

Pavel Durov, the founder of Russia’s most popular social network, VKontakte, invited Snowden to come work as a programmer at the network, in a post on his VKontakte page on Thursday.

Source: The Guardian