{"id":12363,"date":"2020-08-03T01:21:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T05:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=12363"},"modified":"2020-08-18T15:18:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T19:18:34","slug":"edward-snowden-ecuador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Snowden: Ecuador Said No to Asylum Request"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What was Snowdens plan for after he leaked the secret NSA documents? If What county made the most sense for asylum seekers? For Edward Snowden, Ecuador was the best choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ecuador is a nation that does not have the best diplomatic relationship with the US. The country has previously sheltered Julian Assange instead of allowing him to be extradited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more about Edward Snowden, Ecuador as a possible destination, and what went wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Edward Snowden: Preparing to Run<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>After Ed revealed his identity, two attorneys, Jonathan Man and Robert Tibbo, volunteered to take him on. They helped him get out of the Mira hotel when the press figured out he was staying there. Robert was good at finding safe houses, and Ed stayed with some of his other clients, refugees who had been unable to get permanent residency status. They were lovely, hospitable people and Ed was forever grateful for their help.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ed appealed to the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, but while the UN tried to get him protection in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong government decided to consider the US\u2019s request for extradition. Ed cleared his computers and prepared to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Edward Snowden: Ecuador Context<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ecuador and the US aren\u2019t on particularly friendly terms.<\/strong> Rafael Correa, when elected in 2007, rolled out policies intended to correct US interference in Ecuador, one of the major ones being that the country would consider its national debt \u201codious.\u201d Odious debt is national debt that\u2019s incurred while a country is being oppressed (in Ecuador\u2019s case, by the US). As a result, no one can force the repayment of odious debt. A lot of US foreign policy is made by financiers, and they weren\u2019t happy that Ecuador wouldn\u2019t have to pay debts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2013, Ecuador also supported political asylum and the Ecuadorian embassy in London hosted Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Edward Snowden: Ecuador Difficult to Reach From Hong Kong<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ed decided to head for Ecuador. However, there were no direct flights from Hong Kong, so getting to Ecuador was going to be a challenge<\/strong>\u2014even just passing through other countries could be dangerous. Ed would only be safe if he landed in non-extradition countries, and he shouldn\u2019t even cross the airspace of any countries the US could manipulate.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The route was to fly to Moscow, then Havana, then Caracas, then Quito. It was the only possible route and it wasn\u2019t perfect\u2014there was a 20-hour layover in Russia, and going from Russia to Cuba involved crossing NATO airspace and going over Poland. Poland had helped the US government in the past, notably by allowing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-cia-operations-technology-langley\/\">the CIA<\/a> to torture people at black sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What was Snowdens plan for after he leaked the secret NSA documents? If What county made the most sense for asylum seekers? For Edward Snowden, Ecuador was the best choice. Ecuador is a nation that does not have the best diplomatic relationship with the US. The country has previously sheltered Julian Assange instead of allowing him to be extradited. Learn more about Edward Snowden, Ecuador as a possible destination, and what went wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,24],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-12363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-society","tag-permanent-record","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Edward Snowden: Ecuador Said No to Asylum Request - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After leaking top secret government documents and revealing his own identity, Ed needed to get asylum. For Edward Snowden, Ecuador was the best choice..\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Edward Snowden: Ecuador Said No to Asylum Request\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After leaking top secret government documents and revealing his own identity, Ed needed to get asylum. For Edward Snowden, Ecuador was the best choice..\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-03T05:21:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-18T19:18:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-ecuador.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1205\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"629\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Edward Snowden: Ecuador Said No to Asylum Request\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-03T05:21:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T19:18:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/\"},\"wordCount\":456,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-ecuador.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Permanent Record\"],\"articleSection\":[\"History\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/\",\"name\":\"Edward Snowden: Ecuador Said No to Asylum Request - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/edward-snowden-ecuador\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-ecuador.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-03T05:21:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T19:18:34+00:00\",\"description\":\"After leaking top secret government documents and revealing his own identity, Ed needed to get asylum. 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