U.S. urging Snowden’s expulsion
WASHINGTON • The U.S. assumes National Security Agency leaker edward Snowden remains in Russia and officials are working with Moscow in hopes he will be expelled and returned to America to face criminal charges, President Barack Obama’s spokesman said Monday.
Jay Carney declared that a decision by Hong Kong not to detain Mr. Snowden has “unquestionably” hurt relations between the united States and China.
The president said the u.S. was following legal channels to bring Mr. Snowden to America and was working with other countries to make sure “the rule of law is observed.”
Mr. Snowden left Hong Kong, where he has been in hiding, and flew to Moscow but then apparently did not board a plane bound for Cuba as had been expected. His whereabouts Monday were a mystery. The founder of the WikiLeaks organization, Julian Assange, said he wouldn’t go into details about where Mr. Snowden was but said he was safe.
Mr. Snowden has applied for asylum in ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries, Mr. Assange said.
At the White House, Mr. Carney said the u.S. was expecting the Russians “to look
The Chinese have emphasized the importance of … mutual trust
at the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden back to the united States to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.”
“The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust,” he added. “And we think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. If we cannot count on them to honour their legal extradition obligations, then there is a problem. And that is a point we are making to them very directly.”
Mr. Snowden has given highly classified documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers disclosing u.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, often sweeping up information on American citizens.
He also told the South China Morning Post that “the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data.”
Mr. Snowden still has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend.
He had been in hiding in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a degree of autonomy from mainland China. The united States formally sought Mr. Snowden’s extradition but was rebuffed by Hong Kong officials who said the u.S. request did not fully comply with their laws. The Justice department rejected that claim, saying its request met all of the requirements of the extradition treaty between the u.S. and Hong Kong.