Michael Collins

President Rafael Correa changed his tune on Edward Snowden's appeal for asylum after talking with Vice President Joe Biden.

From the Guradian 11:44 EDT

Ecuador is not considering Edward Snowden's asylum request and never intended to facilitate his flight from Hong Kong, president Rafael Correa said as the whistleblower made a personal plea to Quito for his case to be heard.

Snowden was Russia's responsibility and would have to reach Ecuadorean territory before the country would consider any asylum request, the president said in an interview with the Guardian on Monday.

"Are we responsible for getting him to Ecuador? It's not logical. The country that has to give him a safe conduct document is Russia."

I wonder what deal Correa made to abandon the initial offer. It looked like he was preparing to grant asylum having dropped out of a trade pact with the United States in anticipation of problems while he considered asylum or if he granted it. Image: Mike Herbst

Correa Caves

Four days ago, Ecuador's president was singing another tune. He cancelled a trade pact with the U.S. to avoid blackmail for "considering and asylum request." This didn't sound like the "unintentional mistake Correa referenced about

Ecuador Scraps Trade Pact Over U.S. Threats in Snowden Case
By Nathan Gill - Jun 27, 2013

Ecuador, the South American nation considering an asylum request from fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, renounced its U.S. trade benefits today, saying they were being used as "blackmail."

"Ecuador doesn’t accept pressure or threats from anyone and doesn’t barter its principles and sovereignty or submit to mercantile interests,” President Rafael Correa said today in a speech in the central province of Los Rios. What Snowden revealed "is a terrible case of massive espionage, both nationally and internationally that clearly threatens the right to intimacy and the sovereignty of states."

Where there's smoke, there's fire, maybe. From the Miami Herald, February 13, we heard:

In case you missed the recent headlines from Ecuador, Correa’s cousin Pedro Delgado resigned as head of the Central Bank Dec. 19 after press reports that he had lied about having an economics degree. More importantly, Delgado allegedly used a government agency created by Correa to give loans to government friends for projects that never materialized.

That was only the latest corruption scandal involving Correa’s inner circle. The president’s own brother, Fabricio Correa, has publicly confirmed that he received huge government contracts — for as much as $300 million, according to press reports — from the Correa administration and that the president was aware of such transactions.

Vice President Biden knows well how the political shakedown works. He has a few skeletons in his closet and one on very public display. During the 1988 presidential primaries, Biden was found plagiarizing a speech by a British Labour MP. That lead to another discovery. Biden handed in a law review article as his own work while a law student at Syracuse University. Joe knows how it's done from being caught to being told to back off. He's learned his political restraint lessons well representing DuPont and the many corporations headquartered in his home state of Delaware.

Things started going South for Snowden when he hooked up with Wikileaks' Julian Assange a few days ago. If Correa continues his offer of asylum to Assange while tossing Snowden under the bus, what do you think that means?

Let's think it through. Assange is in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, granted asylum by Correa. Snowden connects up with Assange recently or even before the events that lead to his departure from the U.S. It looks like Ecuador will grant Snowden asylum but the president backs out with a silly story of "unintentionally" helping Snowden get from Hong Kong to Moscow.

Why would Ecuador keep Assange and dump Snowden?

If Ecuador turns Assange out on the streets of London, then both cases of betrayal by Correa make sense. But if Assange stays in the embassy in London and Snowden gets hauled back to the U.S. for trial, one has to wonder Why is Julian so special? Maybe Bradley Manning is wondering the same thing.

Correa's storyline

The Independent just published the storyline according to President Correa. Assange is portrayed as a loose cannon for snookering Ecuador's ambassador to the UK into granting Snowden a travel visa. The ambassador failed to contact the president to clear this. That lack of contact, as the story goes, explains Correa's claim to Biden that he "unintentionally" aided Snowden's transit from Hong Kong to Moscow.

Correa speaks out of both sides of his mouth but with a single purpose. He doesn't want whatever trouble Biden promised if he allows Snowden asylum. In fact, at this point, he doesn't even want to think about it.

Snowden's options

Business Insider, July 1 10:07 PM, listed the nations that Snowden has contacted for asylum. That's a scoop since the Independent said it didn't know the alternate nations. I underlined those nations that might say yes to the request. It's a pretty short list of four Latin American countries and China.

Republic of Austria, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Finland, the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of India, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swiss Confederation and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Business Insider, July 1

Russia's Vladimir Putin has so much on the table with the United States, he's not likely to do anything dramatic like take Snowden in. However, he wouldn't mind a constant reminder of Obama's failure and paranoia on display at Moscow's international airport.

Edward Snowden made real the ongoing disregard for public trust and individual privacy by exposing his policies, remarkably similar to those of his predecessor. In addition, before the Snowden whistle blowing, Obama had already adopted the Insider Threat Program reported by the McClatchy News Washington Bureau.

President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of “insider threat” give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct. McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 20

That's the real story - Snowden's confirmation of a general pattern and the president's adoption of an "unprecedented initiative" for government secrecy.

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