"Edward Snowden, the Booz Allen Hamilton staffer with a top-secret security clearance who leaked details of NSA surveillance, is welcome to seek asylum in Iceland, according to lawmaker Birgitta Jónsdóttir and Smari McCarthy, executive director of the International Modern Media Institute, an organization dedicated to protecting whistleblowers. Snowden is currently staying in a Hong Kong hotel. In an interview appearing in the Guardian, the 29-year old intelligence analyst said his “predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values. The nation that most encompasses this is Iceland. They stood up for people over internet freedom.” Hong Kong shares an extradition treaty with the United States. “The only thing I can do is sit here and hope the Hong Kong government does not deport me,” Snowden told Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian. “I have no idea what my future is going to be.” “Over the last few days we at the International Modern Media Institute have watched alongside the rest of the world as the US government’s enormous encroachments on privacy and information security have been exposed in the media,” a statement issued by Jónsdóttir and McCarthy’ reads. “These exposures have verified our greatest fears about the state of global intelligence gathering, and yet again highlighted the need for strong privacy protections and government transparency.” “Whereas IMMI is based in Iceland, and has worked on protections of privacy, furtherance of government transparency, and the protection of whistleblowers, we feel it is our duty to offer to assist and advise Mr. Snowden to the greatest of our ability,” the statement continues. “We are currently attempting to get in touch with Mr. Snowden to confirm that this is his will and discuss the details of his asylum request … and will over the course of the week be seeking a meeting with the newly appointed interior minister of Iceland, Mrs. Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, to discuss whether an asylum request can be processed in a swift manner, should such an application be made.”"
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:42:56 +0000