Snowden in Ecuador?

It has been rumored that NSA contractor Edward Snowden has sought asylum in Ecuador. This was after he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow after he spilled out surveillance programs of the agency to reporters saying that these programs violate privacy rights and put too much power in the hands of government officials.

Ecuadorian Political Affairs Secretary Betty Tola confirmed that Snowden applied for asylum to them but denied that they have granted him the refugee travel papers saying that request has not yet been “dealt with” because Snowden is not in the country. She said that it is not true what Julian Assange, founder of whistleblower WikiLeaks as Assange told reporters this week.

Assange said Snowden traveled from Hong Kong to Moscow on Sunday using documents provided by Ecuador.

US President Barack Obama said that he’s not going to take extraordinary measures to capture the NSA leaker despite his enormous concern of the information Snowden may yet spill.

“I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,” he told reporters during a news conference in Senegal, his first stop on a tour of several African nations.

Obama hadn’t talked to leaders of China and Russia about Snowden in part because he didn’t want to amp up the issue and have to start “wheeling and dealing” in order to get the fugitive in U.S. custody.

In a speech Thursday, National Security Agency director Keith Alexander ceded he’s worried there may be more leaks from Snowden.

He said that these leaks have caused significant and irreversible damage to our nation’s security.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, said he would move to block Ecuador from two U.S. free-trade programs should Snowden go there. He said that the government will not reward countries for bad behavior.

Ecuador, through its presidential spokesman Fernando Alvarado responded to the statements addressed to them  by saying that his nation would spare Menendez and his Senate colleagues the trouble as they will not accept threats or pressure from anyone nor deal or trade in their principles, regardless of the importance of the trade.

The two countries have been at odds publicly, but have remained linked economically like Ecuador sending about $9.6 billion of goods to the United States in 2011. The information is from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Ecuador, where NSA contractor Snowden is rumored to be hiding after spilling secret surveillance programs

Roberto Aspiazu, head of the Ecuadorian Business Committee said he’s worried that “very important” commerce between the two nations could be negatively impacted as a result of the tiff.

U.S. officials have accused China of deliberately letting Snowden leave and they have expressed frustration with Russia’s refusal to detain a man they portray almost as a common criminal.

Snowden and others in previous reports have contended that he did America and the world a service by revealing information on secret programs, which they say wrongly impinge on people’s right to privacy in furtively giving too much information to the U.S. government.

Alexander, as he’s done repeatedly in recent weeks, says that the programs both protect civil liberties and help keep America and its allies safe.

Alexander pointed to 54 related cases that Congress was informed about, of which 50 led to arrests or detentions. Most of these were centered overseas, with 13 exceptions such as a foiled 2009 plot to bomb New York City’s subway system. Exposing the programs, he and others have said, makes it harder to spot terrorists and thus puts lives at risk.

“I believe the irresponsible release of classified information about these programs will have a long-term detrimental impact on the intelligence community’s ability to detect future attacks,” Alexander said. “These leaks have inflamed and sensationalized, for ignoble purposes, the work that (the) intelligence community does lawfully, over strict oversight and compliance.”

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/27/politics/nsa-leak/index.html?hpt=wo_c2