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As Edward Snowden, the employee who revealed the extent of the illegal surveillance of the US National Security Agency, finally obtained asylum in Russia this week, distracting story-lines have been thrown around.
One of those story-lines, featured on Friday and put out with no actual evidence, is that Snowden is appeasing Russia by praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for supporting free speech and human rights.
Another is that Russia’s granting of one-year asylum to Snowden will damage US-Russian relations. Fed by a White House press conference, media are speculating that President Obama will snub Putin at the meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) next month or even skip the summit altogether.
Appearing with Politico’s Josh Gerstein on Monocle 24’s The Daily on Friday night, I explained why that threat is all posture and no substance and why there will be little effect on US-Russian relations.
The discussion also returned to the original story — the extent of the NSA’s illegal activity — explaining how Obama’s victory, as that story has been pushed aside, might now lie in leaving Snowden alone.
