Original article (in Croatian) was published on 21/03/2023
Journalist Gordan Malic calls out Communication Days for hosting Edward Snowden, whom he unfoundedly claims is a Russian agent.
Edward Snowden, a former employee of the CIA and associate of the National Security Agency (NSA), one of the most famous and important whistleblowers in world history, has been reduced to the label of a propagandist of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and a Russian spy. In the words of journalist Gordan Malic on Facebook (archived here):
PUTIN’S PROPAGANDIST THE CHIEF GUEST OF THE ROVINJ COMMUNICATION FESTIVAL
The star of this year’s Communication Days in Rovinj is Edward Snowden, a former American and now Russian intelligence officer. His guest appearance via video link is announced as the main attraction, which is confirmed by a series of billboards in the city of Zagreb with Snowden’s face in the foreground. Why exactly in the metropolis and why in so many places, it is not entirely clear to me?
In my opinion, an overrated whistleblower, he received honorary Russian citizenship last year, personally signed by Vladimir Putin. If there were any doubts about who Snowden is working for when he calls out the US for abuses of the secret services, mass surveillance and human rights violations, since last year they are gone. Snowden is in the function of spreading anti-Western and anti-American hysteria, which is carried out as an alibi for the occupation of Ukraine by Putin’s regime, in which journalists function and die like soldiers.
So, friend, welcome to Croatia, even virtually!
HURA, the Croatian Association of Market Communication Companies, must be acknowledged for a well-chosen moment and place.
The text was also reported by some Croatian media [1, 2, 3, 4], and the comments explain why Snowden is “overrated”.
Citizenfour, a documentary about Snowden that was filmed in “real time” ahead of his public release, is, as usual, an exaggeration of the subject. It won the Oscar, and it deserved it because it is current, filmed before the event itself, well edited, but everything in it is exaggerated. First of all, they are talking about the possibility of mass surveillance, and not about surveillance, in order to create a moral panic, something like the fear of chipping, only much more real. You cannot provoke this if you mention high-profile cases, for example, the wiretapping of the German chancellor, because it does not reach people. Competition of the powerful, so what… But if you convince them that Big Brother is watching them surf Pornhub or send threatening messages to their ex-wife, it makes sense and has an effect. This is precisely what Snowden insisted on. In my experience, that exaggeration has a purpose. Not all spies are fools or anarchists. Some are just spies.
In his publication, Malic does not provide a concrete basis for the claims that Snowden is a “Russian intelligence agent” and “Putin’s propagandist”. We, therefore, asked Gordan Malic on what basis he says that Snowden is a Russian spy.
“When we talk about Snowden, we have to ask what is the democratic achievement of what he did, which justifies him for revealing state secrets, on a moral, not just a principled level. The result of breaking the law must be the exposure of irregularities and the fight against abuses. That justifies him before the law and the public, and that gives him meaning. Snowden’s declared intention was to fight against abuses of the intelligence system and state institutions. And then, when the matter was published and when the hearing was supposed to start in court, which is the best place for the hearing, where you get the opportunity to explain in front of the public what your basic idea was, you go to a country that has become synonymous with human rights violations, whose institutions abuse both existing laws and international laws, are at the forefront of violating human rights, and you seek and receive protection from that regime, blessed from the highest place. If your role is to bear witness to the violation of human rights by abuses of services and institutions of the state, then in my opinion Snowden is currently in the ideal place to do that. And at the time he came to Russia, spies like him were being killed abroad. So you fled from a state that judges you for your law-breaking to one that kills you; that country gives you both citizenship and patronage, and that’s the only reason you call out American institutions. I don’t know if you get paid, if you work officially or if you’re just an agent of influence, and it’s impossible to know because there are no official signatures on contracts even for the greatest spies in history like Kim Philby“, Malic told us.
In an interview with Faktograf, Malic eased his original thesis, stating that it is impossible to know whether Snowden really works officially for the Russian state or is “just an agent of influence” – someone who takes advantage of his position to exert a certain influence on public opinion.
At the same time, Malic does not respect arguments that do not support his thesis, for example, that Snowden did not receive honorary citizenship, but met the criteria for naturalization, which is why Putin signed the decision on citizenship for him, as well as for 75 other people at that time. He does not appreciate Snowden’s argument that he could have ended up in prison like Julian Assange, nor that his goal was to go to Ecuador and not get stuck in Russia. He considers the US court’s ruling that Snowden’s revelations truly proved unconstitutional mass surveillance a good argument in a hypothetical Snowden trial, but he still doesn’t consider it particularly important.
How Snowden ended up in Russia
The circumstances in which Snowden ended up in Russia do not support the thesis that he went there after a job well done in America. Here is what Snowden himself had to say about it:
“If they really wanted to catch me, they would have allowed me to travel to Latin America, because the CIA can work there with impunity. They didn’t want that, they decided to keep me in Russia… They waited until I left Hong Kong to cancel my passport to trap me in Russia because that’s the most effective attack they have against me, given the political climate in the United States. So I can wear t-shirts with the inscription ‘I love Putin’…
Snowden’s claims that he is not in Russia of his own free will, but due to the decisions of the US authorities, coincide with media reports about the cancellation of Snowden’s passport and the chronology of the struggle between the US Department of Justice and the Hong Kong authorities over his arrest at the end of June 2013. Snowden’s international travel document was indeed revoked when he arrived in Moscow, where he was supposed to transfer to another flight. He had bought a seat on the plane to Havana, Cuba.
When he landed in Moscow, Snowden spent 39 days at the airport. He was detained at the airport in Moscow precisely because of the decision of the American authorities to cancel his passport. As he did not have valid travel documents, he was not allowed to leave the terminal. After 39 days at the airport, he was granted temporary asylum in Russia.
While American politicians called him a Russian spy, he remarked that he would certainly have received better treatment if he had truly been a Russian spy. Neither the FBI nor the NSA, after all, were able to find evidence that he cooperated with the Russian authorities. The same was confirmed by some politicians.
The role of WikiLeaks
According to what Snowden wrote in his autobiography, “Permanent Record”, he was assisted by a small group of people that included lawyers, journalists, technologists and activists. It is also known that people from the WikiLeaks organization helped Snowden escape from the American indictment, first and foremost, the editor at the time, Sarah Harrison. She was with Snowden during 39 days at the airport but also helped him apply for asylum in 21 different countries [1, 2]. WikiLeaks, thanks to the problems in which its founder Julian Assange found himself, had experience and connections in diplomatic missions sympathetic to whistleblowers on the run from the US. As she told Democracy Now!, the reason they went via Russia was that they needed a safe flight route:
“You can’t really get directly from Hong Kong to Latin America. Usually, flights to Latin America go through the United States or Western Europe. Obviously, that was not an option in this case, hence the seemingly bizarre route via Russia and Cuba to Latin America”.
They did not have a visa for Russia, precisely because they did not plan to stay there. However, according to Snowden’s statements, the role of WikiLeaks and Assange was misinterpreted in those days. On DN!, he was asked if Assange helped him get that ticket from Hong Kong to Russia, Snowden said no.
“There is a lot of confusion about this. People are talking – oh, Julian Assange, you know, got him asylum in Russia, and all these conspiracy theories. Assange was helpful. WikiLeaks was helpful. And Sarah Harrison was especially helpful. But the things that WikiLeaks, as an organization, was doing had nothing to do with Russia.
[Assange] spoke to the Ecuadorian consul at the embassy, where he was being held, and got him to sign an emergency document, a type of safe passage document, which was used mostly in World War II. Unfortunately, the document was not official, because the protocol was violated when it was issued. It actually had no legal meaning. But the man who signed this, Fidel Narváez, is extremely brave.
And having that document, in the right way, even though it had no legal force – is what gave me the confidence, and the courage to get on that plane and start the journey. So the whole story about Julian Assange somehow managing my arrival in Russia… is simply untrue”, Snowden claims.
Assange himself stated that he advised him to stay in Russia, even though he thought it would pose a problem in public perception.
“While Venezuela and Ecuador could protect him in the short term, in the long term there could be a change of government. In Russia, he is safe, he is respected and it is unlikely that this will change. That was my advice to Snowden, that he would be physically safest in Russia”, said Assange, who at that moment was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Assange’s thesis was confirmed by his own example. He was arrested shortly after the change of government in Ecuador and has now been waiting for extradition to the USA for four years in the “British Guantanamo”, the Belmarsh prison.
The search for evidence that he worked for the Russians
If Snowden worked for the Russian services, the American authorities who are pursuing him have not been able to prove it in the last ten years. Media reports that he visited the Russian consulate in Hong Kong have never been confirmed. Even today, stories such as the one that he was housed in a KGB safe house occasionally appear, but without specific evidence.
There is also no evidence that the computers he took with him when fleeing the US contained data that would be of interest to the Russian or Chinese secret services.
Even the US authorities do not charge him with spying for an enemy government, although he is being prosecuted under the Espionage Act. He is being prosecuted for unauthorized disclosure of national defence information, unauthorized disclosure of classified communications and theft of state property. If in 10 years there had been evidence that he was a Russian spy, it is hard to believe that they would not have been exploited publicly, let alone legally.
We note a recent example in which such evidence would be useful for the US in 2020 when the American judiciary tried to prevent Snowden from making legal money from his autobiography. Even then, however, he was not called out as a foreign agent, but the reason given was Snowden’s violation of the confidentiality agreement he signed with the intelligence agencies he worked for.
Putin on Snowden
When Snowden ended up in Russia, Putin’s initial reaction was that he would rather see him on a flight out of the country, due to the already damaged relations with the USA. Putin said that “the sooner he goes where he intended, the better it will be for us and for him”. In early July 2013, while Snowden was looking for a country to accept his asylum request, Putin made the following statement:
“If he wants to go somewhere and someone will take him, go ahead. If he wants to stay here, there is one condition – he must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as it sounds coming from my mouth”.
After this, Snowden withdraws his request for asylum in Russia. But by August, he changed his mind. While Snowden was still at the airport, according to Putin, the US tried to arrange his extradition. But since the US and Russia do not have an extradition treaty, and Snowden did not break any Russian laws, this did not happen.
In an interview with the American director Oliver Stone, Putin also said about Snowden that Snowden is not a traitor, because he did not betray the interests of his country “nor did he hand over any information to any other country that would be threatening to his country or people”. “Everything Snowden does, he does publicly”, Putin said. However, he said that he did not agree with his choice to go public.
“If he didn’t like what he was doing, he should have just quit. But he went further than that. And that is his right. But if you ask me if I think it’s okay or not, I don’t think so”.
Citizenship only after nine years of residence, five years of marriage and two children
After a temporary, one-year refugee asylum granted in August 2013, Snowden was granted a three-year temporary residence permit in Russia in 2014. Only then could he move freely in Russia, but he was not granted political asylum. Three years later, his residence permit was extended, when he married his partner Lindsay Mills.
Due to changes in the law in 2019, Snowden has the right to permanent residence in Russia in 2020, without the need to renew the application, but he refuses to comment on the citizenship application.
In the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, Russia also changes the law according to which dual citizenship can be obtained, that is, the applicant does not have to give up his or her original one to apply for Russian citizenship. The Snowdens submit their application in November 2020, explaining that they will have their first child in December.
Their second child was born in mid-2022, a few months after the start of a large-scale Russian military invasion of neighbouring Ukraine. In the autumn of the same year, Putin signed their citizenship with his own hand. A few months later, Snowden’s lawyer confirms that Snowden took the oath of citizenship. The oath is common for immigrants receiving citizenship, and the wording varies by state. Snowden’s oath to Russia read as follows:
“I, Edward Snowden, voluntarily and knowingly accepting the citizenship of the Russian Federation, swear to respect the Constitution and legislation of the Russian Federation, the rights and freedoms of its citizens, fulfil the duties of a citizen of the Russian Federation for the benefit of the state and society, protect the freedom and independence of the Russian Federation, to be loyal to Russia, to respect its culture, history and traditions”.
There is no sign that it was honorary citizenship. Given his nine years of residence in Russia, Snowden met the requirements for citizenship by naturalization, for which there is a legal minimum of five years. In addition, Snowden stated that he was employed in Russia, although he did not reveal where, which is another condition for naturalization.
Invasion of Ukraine
When we talk about whether he is a propagandist, we should keep in mind that for nine years before obtaining citizenship, Snowden appeared (virtually) at various conferences, wrote a blog and posted on social networks. It is impossible to find a single praise for Putin, or even for Russia. When he was explicitly asked if Russia was the safest place in the world for him, he only reminded that he did not choose Russia as his place of residence.
Ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he expressed his disbelief that it would happen and criticized the media for incitement. Thus, on February 15, he writes:
“If the invasion happens tomorrow, nail me for making a spectacular mistake.
But remember that the source of my scepticism is that the US intelligence community has (again) made truly spectacular claims without presenting any evidence — because you didn’t ask them to”.
When the attack happened seven days later, it took him five days to come forward. He admitted that his assessment was wrong and said that he will no longer participate in the public discussion about the war in Ukraine:
“I’ve just lost any confidence I had that sharing my thoughts on this topic is useful, because I was wrong”.
He stuck to that, with only rare exceptions. In October 2022, he said that he was against “fighting in Ukraine”, sharing his announcement before the invasion that he did not want the fate of Sarajevo to happen to Kyiv. In this way, he attracted a lot of criticism because he did not explicitly call out Russia for its attack on Ukraine.
Continued to criticize the US
At the same time, he did not hold back from criticizing the American authorities, especially President Joe Biden [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. During the invasion, Snowden continued to warn about the planting of disinformation in the media by the intelligence services. For example, he repeated the publication with a clip of an interview with former CIA operative Frank Snepp from 1983.
From a series of his recent posts, it is clear that he advocates the thesis that the United States blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. He argues this with a set of events that preceded the sabotage, which was mentioned in an extensive report published on Substack by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh [1, 2, 3]. He retweeted Hersh’s story several times but did not address the factual inaccuracies and illogicalities that were quickly identified in it. While there is currently no conclusive evidence to unequivocally attribute responsibility for the Nord Stream sabotage to anyone, Snowden did not share information about alternative theories that have appeared in the media, such as reports from the NYT or Germany’s Tagesschau, which consider the possibility that the sabotage was carried out by a small a group of divers close to Ukraine. The same applies to earlier claims by Russian officials who blamed the attack on the Nord Stream on the intelligence services of the United Kingdom, as well as claims from the German government that Russia was actually behind the attack (although American intelligence services, according to information from anonymous sources reported by The Washington Post, have no evidence of Russia’s involvement, nor do they consider it likely).
He repeatedly states that the military-industrial complex controls American policy decisions. He has expressed the view several times that Julian Assange is being silenced and imprisoned for speaking out about the economic calculus of endless war, which includes money laundering. He has repeatedly drawn parallels between his case and Assange’s, claiming that he would be in prison with a muzzle over his mouth like the founder of WikiLeaks if he were not in Russia.
There is no doubt that Snowden, like Julian Assange when he was able to communicate with the public, primarily criticizes the country that persecutes him – the USA. Challenging the most economically and militarily powerful country in the world undoubtedly brought a complex political fate to both of them. However, it is flat and decontextualized to claim that his persistent criticism of the USA is therefore less valid and that this automatically classifies him among propagandists, intelligence agents or agents of influence of the opposite party, in this case, Russia. Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence that Snowden was working as a Russian agent when he decided to expose the mass surveillance practices of the American intelligence services, while the chronology of events suggests that his claims that he ended up in Russia unplanned are correct. The motivation behind Snowden’s public claims is also fairly simple to explain without invoking the influence of intelligence agencies; his repeated criticism of the American state, which prosecutes him, seems quite logical, as does his silence about the actions of the authorities of the Russian state, which he cannot leave without risking extradition and imprisonment, and whose regime is known for its aggressive silencing of critical voices.
By refusing to openly distance himself from Russia and its government, he probably lost many sympathizers, but not the determination of some prominent civil society organizations for the protection of human rights advocating that the American authorities should abandon his persecution. Their appeal did not change after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.