Lonnie Snowden, the father of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, has said he believes his son would return to the U.S. if there were “ironclad assurances” that his son’s constitutional rights would be respected.
Mr. Snowden sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder outlining conditions he says must be met for his son’s return.
From BBC News:
The conditions, as the LA Times explains, are that Snowden “would not be held in jail before trial or subjected to a gag order, and would be allowed to choose where he would be tried on federal espionage charges.”
In an interview with NBC, Lonnie Snowden added that while his son had “betrayed his government,” he doesn’t “believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States.”
Plans for getting Snowden to Ecuador, which said this week that it would not be bullied or ‘blackmailed’ by the U.S. government over the possible asylum of the whistleblower, appear uncertain.
Some news agencies are casting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as contributing to halting the process. The Guardian reports:
The reports prompted WikiLeaks to dismiss reported tensions via Twitter, and question if this was a sign the NSA was hacking or intercepting the Ecuadoran government:
Meanwhile, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who begins a new role as national security adviser on Monday, dismissed any claims that the revelations brought to light by Snowden weakened either President Obama or the country’s foreign policy, saying that the U.S. empire still reigns supreme:
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