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Thread: Edward Snowden -- Stateless Citizen

  1. #41
    m!<god
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    Obama speaks with Putin on Snowden, but no sign of movement

    By Steve Holland and Arshad Mohammed
    Reuters

    WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama raised U.S. concerns directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday over Moscow's handling of former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, but there was no sign of a breakthrough on Washington's demand that Russia expel him.

    Obama and Putin spoke by phone in a discussion that White House spokesman Jay Carney said earlier would largely be about Snowden, who is wanted in the United States for disclosing secret surveillance programs. Carney had accused Russia of providing Snowden a "propaganda platform" to air his complaints about the United States.

    A White House statement about the Obama-Putin call offered no indication that Putin was prepared to send Snowden back to the United States.

    "The two leaders noted the importance of U.S.-Russian bilateral relations and discussed a range of security and bilateral issues, including the status of Mr. Edward Snowden and cooperation on counter-terrorism in the lead-up to the Sochi Winter Olympics," the statement said. The Sochi Olympics are in 2014.

    The high-level contact came during intense diplomatic wrangling over Snowden, who has been holed up in a transit area at a Moscow airport since arriving from Hong Kong on June 23. He is seeking asylum in either Russia or in one of three countries in Latin American that have offered to take him: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

    Snowden, 30, is wanted on espionage charges, accused of taking records about secret U.S. surveillance of internet and phone traffic and releasing them to the news media. The disclosures have raised Americans' concerns about domestic spying and strained relations with some U.S. allies.

    Putin has so far refused all U.S. entreaties to return Snowden to the United States.

    'DOING THE RIGHT THING'

    The case presents Putin with an international headache as he prepares to host Obama and other world leaders at a G20 summit in St. Petersburg.

    "I can't imagine Mr. Putin wants this thing hanging around as it is necessary to get ready for the summit in September," said James Collins, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who is director of the Russia and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said it would raise concerns in the U.S.-Russian relationship if Moscow were to accept an asylum request from Snowden.

    "However we are not at that point yet. They still have the opportunity to do the right thing and return Mr. Snowden to the United States and that's what our hope is," she told reporters.

    The White House and the State Department complained that the Russian government had permitted Snowden to meet with human rights groups at the Moscow airport. Snowden told activists on Friday he was seeking temporary asylum in Russia and had no regrets about spilling U.S. spy secrets.

    "Providing a propaganda platform for Mr. Snowden runs counter to the Russian government's previous declarations of Russia's neutrality," Carney said.

    He said it was "also incompatible with Russian assurances that they do not want Mr. Snowden to further damage U.S. interests."

    In Moscow, Putin's spokesman repeated earlier conditions that Snowden should stop harming the interests of the United States if he wants asylum.

    The drama has tested U.S.-Russian relations, although no lasting damage has been apparent so far.

    "My sense is that both Washington and Moscow have lots of experience in compartmentalizing these kinds of issues when you've got spies or … defectors," said Steven Pifer, a Russia expert who is director of the Brookings Institution's Arms Control Initiative. "They can fence that off from the rest of the relationship."

    (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

  2. #42
    m!<god
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    Snowden wants freedom of movement, says he is fine at Moscow airport

    Contrary to expectations, the meeting of former U.S. intelligence officer Edward Snowden with human rights activists at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport was not a stunt. The fugitive American met with human rights activists indeed and requested asylum in Russia. He agreed on the condition of Vladimir Putin to be able to stay in Russia.

    During the meeting, Snowden thanked all countries that sent him their offers - Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

    Snowden said that he could not fly anywhere from Sheremetyevo, so he could not address to international organizations, because in this case his personal presence would be required, which is impossible under present conditions.

    Snowden wants to stay in Russia and the only way to do it is to receive political asylum. In particular, it goes about temporary refuge in Russia, which would allow Snowden to fly to Latin America.

    "No actions I take or plan are meant to harm the U.S. .. I want the U.S. to succeed," Snowden said, RT reports.

    Vladimir Putin earlier stated that Snowden could receive asylum in Russia only if he "no longer harms American partners." In other words, Snowden is not going to stop revealing more information, but he is convinced that it should not prevent him from seeking asylum in Russia.

    "He said that he needed to take refuge in Russia to move freely. He is quite satisfied with his stay at the airport, because everything is fine there. The only thing he would like to be given is the freedom of movement," an unnamed participant of the meeting told Interfax already after the conversation was over.

  3. #43
    m!<god
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    Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport

    Transcript of Edward Joseph Snowden statement, given at 5pm Moscow time on Friday 12th July 2013. (Transcript corrected to delivery)


    Hello. My name is Ed Snowden. A little over one month ago, I had family, a home in paradise, and I lived in great comfort. I also had the capability without any warrant to search for, seize, and read your communications. Anyone’s communications at any time. That is the power to change people’s fates.

    It is also a serious violation of the law. The 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution of my country, Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous statutes and treaties forbid such systems of massive, pervasive surveillance. While the US Constitution marks these programs as illegal, my government argues that secret court rulings, which the world is not permitted to see, somehow legitimize an illegal affair. These rulings simply corrupt the most basic notion of justice – that it must be seen to be done. The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

    I believe in the principle declared at Nuremberg in 1945: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."

    Accordingly, I did what I believed right and began a campaign to correct this wrongdoing. I did not seek to enrich myself. I did not seek to sell US secrets. I did not partner with any foreign government to guarantee my safety. Instead, I took what I knew to the public, so what affects all of us can be discussed by all of us in the light of day, and I asked the world for justice.

    That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets.

    Since that time, the government and intelligence services of the United States of America have attempted to make an example of me, a warning to all others who might speak out as I have. I have been made stateless and hounded for my act of political expression. The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists. It demanded Hong Kong return me outside of the framework of its laws, in direct violation of the principle of non-refoulement – the Law of Nations. It has threatened with sanctions countries who would stand up for my human rights and the UN asylum system. It has even taken the unprecedented step of ordering military allies to ground a Latin American president’s plane in search for a political refugee. These dangerous escalations represent a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America, but to the basic rights shared by every person, every nation, to live free from persecution, and to seek and enjoy asylum.

    Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. It is my intention to travel to each of these countries to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders.

    I announce today my formal acceptance of all offers of support or asylum I have been extended and all others that may be offered in the future. With, for example, the grant of asylum provided by Venezuela’s President Maduro, my asylee status is now formal, and no state has a basis by which to limit or interfere with my right to enjoy that asylum. As we have seen, however, some governments in Western European and North American states have demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law, and this behavior persists today. This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights.

    This willingness by powerful states to act extra-legally represents a threat to all of us, and must not be allowed to succeed. Accordingly, I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as these states accede to law and my legal travel is permitted. I will be submitting my request to Russia today, and hope it will be accepted favorably.

    If you have any questions, I will answer what I can.

    Thank you.

  4. #44
    m!<god
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    Russia says no asylum request yet from fugitive Snowden

    By Steve Gutterman
    Reuters

    MOSCOW - Russia kept former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden at arm's length on Saturday, saying it had not been in touch with the fugitive American and had not yet received a formal request for political asylum.

    Remarks by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signaled Russia is weighing its options after Snowden, who is stranded at a Moscow airport, broke three weeks of silence and asked for refuge in Russia until he can secure safe passage to Latin America.

    Washington urged Moscow to return Snowden to the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges after revealing details of secret surveillance programs, and President Barack Obama spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Snowden's leaks about U.S. spy methods, including eavesdropping on global email traffic, have upset Washington's friends and foes alike. Stuck at Sheremetyevo airport with his passport revoked, he has become an irritant in relations between the United States and Russia.

    "We are not in contact with Snowden," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying in Kyrgyzstan, where he attended a foreign ministers' meeting.

    He said he had learned of Snowden's meeting with Russian human rights activists and public figures at the airport on Friday from the media, "just like everyone else."

    Snowden, who had previously kept out of sight since arriving in the airport's transit zone on June 23, told the activists that he would submit his asylum request the same day.

    Lavrov said that under Russian law, asylum seekers must first make an official appeal to the Federal Migration Service. But its director, Konstantin Romodanovsky, said on Saturday the agency had not yet received such a request from Snowden.

    DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

    Snowden, who worked at a National Security Agency facility, in Hawaii, revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of data such as emails and chat rooms from companies including Facebook and Google, under a government program called Prism.

    He fled to Hong Kong and then flew to Moscow, where he and Russian officials say he has remained in the airport transit zone. He has no visa to enter Russia.

    Snowden is useful as a propaganda tool for Putin, who accuses the U.S. government of preaching to the world about rights and freedoms it does not uphold at home. But his presence on Russia's doorstep is a double-edged sword.

    Putin has invited Obama for a bilateral summit in Moscow in September, and asylum for Snowden could jeopardize that, even though both countries have signaled they want to improve ties that have been strained in Putin's third presidential term.

    And while pro-Kremlin politicians have been avidly casting Snowden, 30, as a rights defender, former KGB officer Putin said last month that the surveillance methods he revealed were largely justified if applied lawfully.

    Putin has said twice that Snowden should choose a final destination and go there, and on July 2 he said Russia could only take Snowden in if he stopped activities "aimed at harming our American partners".

    Putin's spokesman said on Friday that the condition, which prompted Snowden to withdraw an earlier asylum request, still stood.

    Snowden has asked some 20 countries for asylum and received offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, but he said on Friday that Western states had made it "impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there".

    The United States has urged nations not to give him passage, and a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia last week was denied access to the airspace of several European countries on suspicion Snowden might be on board.

    (Editing by Alessandra Prentice and Mark Trevelyan)

  5. #45
    m!<god
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    Russian editorial examines jurisdictional dilemma of digital content


    Digital Sovereignty is the Right to Spy on Citizens

    By Vladimir Frolov
    The St. Petersburg Times

    It would be perversely ironic if Edward Snowden’s crusade against the U.S. government Internet surveillance programs resulted in less Internet freedom in Russia.

    State Duma deputies reacted with outrage to Snowden’s revelations that U.S. Internet giants like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter provided the National Security Agency with information on their foreign clients’ online activities. Sergei Zheleznyak, deputy Duma speaker from United Russia, promised to introduce legislation that would protect the personal data of Russian citizens by requiring international Internet companies to locate their computer servers under Russian jurisdiction as a condition of continuing their operations here. He called this a defense of Russia’s “digital sovereignty.”

    Let’s get a few things straight here.

    Spying on foreigners, as opposed to spying on your own citizens, is not a violation of human rights or a breach of international laws. It is called collecting foreign intelligence. For any intelligence service, foreigners and their personal communications are fair game. It’s what taxpayers pay their spooks to do.

    Sharing personal data with an Internet service is a private decision. If you want to use the service, and you agree to share your personal data as a condition of usage, there is nothing for the government to “protect.”

    The real objective of the “digital sovereignty” plan is to obtain the technical capability to quickly establish the true identities of Russian account holders on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, YouTube and Skype and monitor in real time their online activities. Or to create legal grounds for forcing the U.S. Internet giants out of the Russian market if they do not comply. On similar pretexts, China bans Facebook and Twitter, while Google withdrew from the Chinese market in 2010.

    The desire to create a Russian version of PRISM reflects the government’s concern with the quick mobilization capabilities that U.S. social networks provide to the opposition. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov have publicly warned against the subversive influences of foreign social networks. Others called for banning the use of Gmail by government employees.

    Building up domestic cloud storage and restricting the use of foreign cloud services at sensitive government agencies are reasonable ideas. Harassing international Internet giants into facilitating spying on Russian citizens is not. “Digital sovereignty” will not protect our privacy but will limit our choices and freedom.

    Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government relations and PR company.

  6. #46
    m!<god
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    The (spy) game’s afoot in hunt for NSA leaker Snowden

    By Rowan Scarborough
    The Washington Times

    One twist in the fugitive hunt for asylum-seeking Edward Snowden is that the man who has revealed the most secrets about the National Security Agency in history now is undoubtedly one of its chief targets.

    A subplot in this international thriller is a cat-and-mouse game: Will the NSA penetrate his communications or will the master leaker outwit all the agency’s high-tech gadgets — since he, as well as anyone, knows how they work?

    “NSA is probably doing what it does best, which is sweeping the ‘electronicshere’ for communications, voice and data, indicating his next chess move,” former CIA officer Bart Bechtel says. “They may also be looking at known and suspected collaborators.”

    A second analyst, a former intelligence operative, says that the same methods Mr. Snowden, an ex-NSA contractor, disclosed in documents leaks to the press are now being turned on him.

    The documents told of super-secret NSA programs to spy on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, bug computers, penetrate telephone cables and scoop up of billions of telephone call records.

    As Mr. Snowden stays based at the Moscow airport and works with the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the Obama administration has at its disposal a wide array of intercept tools for emails, Internet postings and messaging, and cell and land-line phone calls.

    And since Mr. Snowden is a fugitive, the Justice Department would have no problem in getting a federal court to approve all sorts of wiretaps on him, and perhaps, family members, to try to learn his next move.

    “Clearly, the courts would approve at this point, and we have a vested interest in finding out what he knows,” says the former operative, who worked with the NSA. “He may be smarter than that, though, and using couriers instead of phone and email. I think that’s what the Wiki clowns are helping with.”

    In other words, as as an adept in the NSA’s computer networks and how it listens in, Mr. Snowden, a computer whiz, is in a good position to avoid being heard.

    Glenn Greenwald, who first exposed Mr. Snowden’s leaked documents for stories in the British newspaper The Guardian, wrote that the leaker used an encrypted email computer program. He insisted that Mr. Greenwald install the same technology before he would engage in providing some of the U.S.’ most sensitive, top-secret intelligence collection methods.

  7. #47
    m!<god
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    Snowden Announces to FSB: Adopt Me, Please! I Got What You Need!

    AP Interview: Guardian journalist says Snowden has ‘blueprints’ to how NSA is built, operates

    RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Edward Snowden has highly sensitive documents on how the National Security Agency is structured and operates that could harm the U.S. government, but has insisted that they not be made public, a journalist close to the NSA leaker said.

    Glenn Greenwald, a columnist with The Guardian newspaper who first reported on the intelligence leaks, told The Associated Press that disclosure of the information in the documents “would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it.”

    He said the “literally thousands of documents” taken by Snowden constitute “basically the instruction manual for how the NSA is built.”

    “In order to take documents with him that proved that what he was saying was true he had to take ones that included very sensitive, detailed blueprints of how the NSA does what they do,” the journalist said Sunday in a Rio de Janeiro hotel room. He said the interview was taking place about four hours after his last interaction with Snowden.

    Greenwald said he believes the disclosure of the information in the documents would not prove harmful to Americans or their national security, but that Snowden has insisted they not be made public.

    “I think it would be harmful to the U.S. government, as they perceive their own interests, if the details of those programs were revealed,” he said.

    He has previously said the documents have been encrypted to help ensure their safekeeping.

    Snowden emerged from weeks of hiding in a Moscow airport Friday, and said he was willing to meet President Vladimir Putin’s condition that he stop leaking U.S. secrets if it means Russia would give him asylum until he can move on to Latin America.

    Greenwald told The AP that he deliberately avoids talking to Snowden about issues related to where the former analyst might seek asylum in order to avoid possible legal problems for himself.

    Snowden is believed to be stuck in the transit area of Moscow’s main international airport, where he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23. He’s had offers of asylum from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, but because his U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of reaching whichever country he chooses are complicated.

    Still, Greenwald said that Snowden remains “calm and tranquil,” despite his predicament.

    “I haven’t sensed an iota of remorse or regret or anxiety over the situation that he’s in,” said Greenwald, who has lived in Brazil for the past eight years. “He’s of course tense and focused on his security and his short-term well-being to the best extent that he can, but he’s very resigned to the fact that things might go terribly wrong and he’s at peace with that.”

    Greenwald said he worried that interest in Snowden’s personal saga had detracted from the impact of his revelations, adding that Snowden deliberately turned down nearly all requests for interviews to avoid the media spotlight.

    Asked whether Snowden seemed worried about his personal safety, Greenwald responded, “he’s concerned.”

  8. #48
    m!<god
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    Snowden, in my opinion, is no longer a disillusioned narcissistic criminal but is now a fully functional traitor committed to bringing harm to the US. How is advertising that he has documents that would sabotage the NSA's surveillance mission possibly be in line with Putin's ultimatum to not harm America's interests -- unless that wasn't what Putin actually meant, which some international poli-sci types/experts have observed.

    I wonder if Greenwald could be playing both sides of the field now trying to construct even parity with his pundits who have ridiculed his professional journalistic ethics. Greenwald's interview is reverse serendipity for Snowden in both content and timing.

  9. #49
    m!<god
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    Russia's Putin: signs Snowden is shifting on the U.S

    GOGLAND ISLAND, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he saw signs that Edward Snowden, the former U.S. spy agency contractor turned fugitive secrets leaker, was shifting towards stopping "political activity" directed against the United States.

    Putin, who previously refused to hand Snowden over to the U.S. authorities, said the fugitive's situation remained unresolved after Washington had blocked his further movements.

    Asked on an island in the Gulf of Finland about Snowden's future, Putin said: "How do I know? It's his life, his fate."

    "He came to our territory without invitation, we did not invite him. And we weren't his final destination. He was flying in transit to other states. But the moment he was in the air ... our American partners, in fact, blocked his further flight.

    "They have spooked all the other countries, nobody wants to take him and in that way, in fact, they have themselves blocked him on our territory," Putin said.

    Putin has stated Snowden should stop activity harmful to the United States if he wanted refuge in Russia and said he saw signs that the former contractor with the National Security Agency was moving in this direction.

    "As soon as there is an opportunity for him to move elsewhere, I hope he will do that. The conditions for granting political asylum are known to him. And judging by his latest actions, he is shifting his position. But the situation has not been clarified yet," Putin said.

    Breaking weeks of silence, Snowden on Friday said at a Moscow airport where he has been camped since late June that he was seeking temporary asylum in Russia before he can safely travel to Latin America. Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered him asylum.

    (Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Michael Roddy)

  10. #50
    m!<god
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    Stranded fugitive Snowden seeks temporary asylum in Russia

    By Steve Gutterman
    Reuters

    MOSCOW - Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday after three weeks holed up at a Moscow airport trying to avoid prosecution in the United States on espionage charges.

    The White House said Snowden is "not a dissident" and should be expelled and returned to the United States to face trial.

    Snowden is seeking refuge in Latin America after leaking details of U.S. government surveillance programs, but has not risked taking any flight that might be intercepted by the United States. He flew into Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.

    "He reached the conclusion that he needs to write an application for temporary asylum (in Russia), and this procedure has just been done," Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer who met Snowden on Friday along with human rights activists, told Reuters.

    "For now he is not going to go anywhere. For now he plans to stay in Russia," he said. If Snowden were granted temporary asylum, Kucherena said, he should have the same rights as other citizens and be free to work and travel in Russia.

    The asylum application could end Snowden's time in limbo but risks deepening U.S.-Russian tensions. Russia has refused to expel him to his homeland but has also kept him at arm's length, saying he has not crossed its border because he remains in the international transit zone at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

    President Barack Obama's administration repeated its call for Russia to send Snowden, 30, back to the United States.

    "He is not a human rights activist, he is not a dissident. He is accused of leaking classified information," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "He is a United States citizen who has been charged with crimes, and ... he should be afforded every bit of due process here in the United States. And he should return here to face trial."

    Unlike political asylum, granting Snowden temporary asylum would not require a decree from President Vladimir Putin, who may hope it is the best option for minimizing the damage to U.S. ties without looking weak in the eyes of Russians.

    DAMAGE CONTROL?

    The Kremlin sought to distance Putin from the asylum decision, which is formally up to immigration officials but is widely expected to be in the president's hands.

    "If we are talking about temporary asylum, this is an issue not for the president but for the Federal Migration Service," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in the Siberian city of Chita.

    The head of the FMS, Konstantin Romodanovsky, confirmed the agency had received Snowden's application. Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which has been helping Snowden, said on Twitter that he had applied for "a temporary protection visa".

    Snowden, 30, is trapped in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport, an area between the runway and passport control which Russia regards as neutral territory.

    He said on Friday he would seek refuge in Russia only until he can travel to one of the three Latin American countries ready to give him political asylum - Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

    He said the United States and its allies were preventing him from reaching those countries. Washington has revoked Snowden's passport and urged other countries not to help him reach an asylum destination.

    Kucherena said he expected a decision on Snowden's asylum request "soon", though the FMS has up to three months to decide on the application. Temporary asylum is granted for up to a year, with the possibility of extension.

    After Snowden met lawyers and activists at the airport on Friday, many pro-Kremlin politicians went on state television to say Russia should grant him asylum.

    "He fears torture or the death penalty may be applied to him (if extradited)," said Kucherena, who said he had been advising Snowden since the airport meeting.

    PUTIN'S CONDITIONS

    Putin has rebuffed U.S. calls to send Snowden home but has said he does not want the fugitive to harm relations with Washington. Ties have been strained over issues ranging from the Syrian conflict to Putin's treatment of opponents since he started a six-year third term in 2012.

    Snowden is useful as a propaganda tool for Putin, who accuses the U.S. government of preaching to the world about rights and freedoms it does not uphold at home. But Putin has invited Obama for a summit in Moscow in early September and both countries have signaled they want to improve relations.

    Putin has said twice that Snowden must stop all activities "aimed at harming our American partners" if he wants political asylum in Russia, but he has not made clear whether the condition applies to temporary asylum as well.

    Kucherena, who said he met Snowden twice in the past two days in the Sheremetyevo airport transit zone, said that Snowden had given him a verbal promise that he would stop activities directed against the United States.

    "We did not formalize this in written form ... but he reassured me that the request of our president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, not to tarnish the U.S. government will be fulfilled," he said. It was unclear whether that meant Snowden would stop leaking information.

    Others who met Snowden on Friday said he told them he would find it easy to abide by Putin's conditions. But a Human Rights Watch representative who was at the meeting said he simply meant he did not believe his actions had harmed the United States.

    Kucherena said Snowden clearly understood the terms that Putin was setting but added: "I have not discussed the details of his conduct with him. ... If this question arises in the future, I will of course talk that through with him."

    State-run Rossiya-1 television aired a video of Kucherena showing a picture of Snowden's asylum application on his iPad, written in black ink on a sheet of paper.

    The application, filed to the Federal Migration Service by "Edward Joseph Snowden, United States citizen", read:

    "I hereby request your considering the possibility of granting to me temporary asylum in the Russian Federation."

    Kucherena, who said he communicated with Snowden by email, confirmed the authenticity of the picture to Reuters.

    Putin said on Monday he hoped Snowden would leave as soon as he could, but left the door open for granting him asylum, saying there were signs the American fugitive was moving towards meeting the conditions he has set.

    "As the president has said, we want our relations with the United States of America to develop in a progressive, positive way," Peskov said.

    He dismissed the U.S. State Department's accusation that Russia had provided Snowden with a "propaganda platform" at the meeting with lawyers and activists, saying Snowden had asked for the meeting and that no country should reject such a request.

    (Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk, Alessandra Prentice and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow, Denis Dyomkin in Chita, Deborah Charles and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Mark Heinrich)

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