Snowden ‘may meet whoever he wants’ over Merkel phone hack – Kremlin

[Lee J <lee () riskbasedsecurity com>]

http://rt.com/news/snowden-meeting-german-kremlin-125/

The Kremlin, which granted the Edward Snowden asylum in Russia, does not
see the whistleblower's contacts with the German parliamentary probe into
the alleged NSA surveillance of Chancellor Merkel as a violation of the
pledge not to hurt America.

Snowden, who got stranded in a Moscow airport after the US revoked his
American passport, was allowed entry to Russia in August. He was given
political asylum there on the condition that he would not further damage
the US.

But his latest contacts with German investigators, who are looking
into the alleged
wiretapping <http://rt.com/news/obama-nsa-spying-merkel-808/> of Angela
Merkel’s phones, are *“clearly damaging US national interests,”* a senior
White House official told the Russian Kommersant daily on Friday.

Snowden has given assurances many times that he has handed over the entire
cache of classified documents to the press, which he took from the US
National Security Agency’s networks, while he was in Hong Kong. Washington
suspects this may not be true. US officials believe that while staying in
Russia, Snowden keeps in touch with journalists around the world and
provides them with more material, exposing secret surveillance practices.

The accusations have been dismissed by presidential spokesman, Dmitry
Peskov, who assured the newspaper that *“nobody allows”* Snowden to violate
his pledge.

*“But he is in Russia after legally obtaining temporary asylum and he is
free to meet whoever he wants to – it’s not up to us to obstruct this,”* he
added in a reference to Snowden’s meeting with German Greens lawmaker,
Hans-Christian Stroebele, in Moscow on Thursday.

The Germans are investigating the alleged wiretapping of its leader by
American secret services, which was reported by Der Spiegel and Die Welt
last week. The reports caused outcry in the country, with many critics
branding the NSA’s actions as those worthy of the Stazi, the notorious
secret police of Eastern Germany during the Cold War.

Snowden may serve as key
witness<http://rt.com/news/snowden-merkel-testify-nsa-051/> in
the investigation, and may testify in person, if Berlin guarantees that he
would be safe from arrest and deportation to the US. Several top German
officials, including Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, said they
thought that bringing the whistleblower to the country would greatly
benefit the investigation.

This, however, is likely to require a lot of judicial consideration, since
his temporary status as refugee in Russia does not allow him to leave the
country, his Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said.

Snowden, a former NSA contractor, leaked top secret materials to a select
number of journalists, to expose what he believes as unlawful actions of
the US government and its allies. The documents, which have been the basis
of many scandalous reports in the past few months, detail dragnet gathering
of phone and internet data, spying on world leaders, alleged cases of
economic espionage by the US and other issues.

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