Lawmakers in Ecuador, where NSA leaker Edward Snowden has applied for asylum, are threatening to charge their own leakers for leaking state secrets.
While the Ecuadorean government appeared angry over U.S. threats of punishment if it accepts Snowden, there were also mixed signals about how eager it was to grant asylum. For days, officials here have been blasting the U.S. and praising Snowden’s leaks of NSA eavesdropping secrets as a blow for global human rights.
But they also have repeatedly insisted that they are nowhere close to making a decision on whether Snowden can leave Moscow, where he is believed to be holed up in an airport transit zone, for refuge in this oil-rich South American nation.
Imagine that. Snowden’s actions have produced significant PR victories for countries that can’t decide if they really care about him or not.
But here comes the really good point.
Officials on Thursday acknowledged that the Ecuadorean Embassy in London had issued a June 22 letter of safe passage for Snowden that calls on other countries to allow him to travel to asylum in Ecuador. But Ecuador’s secretary of political management, Betty Tola, said the letter was invalid because it was issued without the approval of the government in the capital, Quito.
She also threatened legal action against whoever leaked the document, which she said “has no validity and is the exclusive responsibility of the person who issued it.”
Irony aside, this international incident is now poised to cost multiple countries business and jobs. And for what? To expose legal activity, some of which was discontinued years ago?