The F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).(Reuters / Tom Reynolds)

 The US will not try to intercept NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s flight, President Barack Obama said during his tour to Africa.

Obama announced that US will not be using military jets to go after Snowden, rejecting reports that America might force down a plane carrying the NSA leaker.

The president specified that the US will not engage in "wheeling, dealing and trading" to extradite Edward Snowden, adding that extradition will be carried out through legal channels.

"We've got a whole lot of business that we do with China and Russia, and I'm not going to have one case of a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues," Obama said.

Obama said he has not spoken to Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping or Russia’s President Vladimir Putin about whistleblower Edward Snowden’s extradition, adding that he “shouldn’t have to,” Reuters reported.

The president added he is "still concerned about the other documents" Edward Snowden may have, saying "not all of them have been released."

Edward Snowden was charged with espionage by US federal prosecutors on Friday and currently remains in an airport limbo in Russia’s transit zone after he flew to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport from Hong Kong.

Snowden hasn’t been seen on the latest flight from Moscow to Havana, reports RT’s Irina Galushko, who is among the many journalists hunting for the whistleblower at Moscow’s airport.

Earlier, there were reports that Snowden will be on an Aeroflot’s flight to Havana, Cuba, that will pass through American airspace and that the plane might be forced to land.

Snowden needs to reach Ecuador to get asylum – Interior Minister

 At the same time, Ecuador says it cannot grant asylum to Edward Snowden, since he has not reached “any of its diplomatic premises,” i.e. the country itself or the embassy, Interior Minister revealed in a press conference in the capital city, Quito.

However, entering Ecuadorian soil, including the embassy in Moscow is now impossible for Snowden. The US government revoked his passport, which means he neither has a Russian visa nor can he buy a new flight ticket to Ecuador or Havana, a second transit point, RT’s Lucy Kafanov reports from outside Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Earlier, there were reports that Snowden would be on an Aeroflot’s flight to Havana, Cuba, that will pass through American airspace and that the plane might be forced to land.

The government of Ecuador has also renounced US trade benefits to prevent Washington from pressuring the country as it decides over asylum for NSA leaker, Edward Snowden.

"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," Fernando Alvarado, the Ecuadorian government’s spokesman, said.

Alvarado said that Ecuador has “unilaterally and irrevocably” given up the customs benefits, offering $23 million per year to finance human rights training in the US in return.

The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture and other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado explained.

The statement comes after US senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, promised that he would seek to end benefits if Ecuador grants Snowden asylum. 

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom may be suing server hosting company Leaseweb over a “data massacre." The Dutch company says it deleted files from 630 servers due to lack of interest in them, but Dotcom has revealed letters proving otherwise.

The revelation comes a week after Dotcom accused the US government and Leaseweb of deleting millions of personal files without warning, including “petabytes of pictures, backups, personal & business property.”

Most of the permanently deleted data came from European users, with servers then re-provisioned to other customers – despite the fact that Megaupload had specifically requested that the hosting provider preserve the information.

“They deleted petabytes of data in the face of Megaupload’s data preservation notices. Our legal team asked them multiple times not to delete the data while the US court is deciding the pending cases including the rights of our users,” TorrentFreak quoted Dotcom as saying.

But Leaseweb’s senior regulatory counsel, Alex de Joode, said his company deleted the data and re-provisioned the servers “after a year of nobody showing any interest” in them.

“We did inform Megaupload about our decision to re-provision the servers,” de Joode said in a June 19 statement, thus disputing Dotcom’s accusation that the decision was made "without warning.” De Joode said that Leaseweb received no answer from the Megaupload team, so they “commenced the re-provisioning of the servers in February 2013.”

“To minimize security risks and maximize the privacy of our clients, it is a standard procedure at Leaseweb to completely clean servers before they are offered to any new customer,” he said.

To back up his accusations, Kim Dotcom has published an email which was sent from Megaupload’s legal counsel to Leaseweb in March 2012. The letter allegedly shows that Megaupload did, in fact, request preservation of the files.

"Megaupload continues to request that Leaseweb preserve any and all information, documentation and data related to Megaupload - as destruction by Leaseweb would appear to be in violation of amongst other things the applicable civil litigation data preservation rules and would interfere with evidence in a criminal matter [...]," said the letter. The email is signed by Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken and addressed to Leaseweb’s A.H. Bram de Haas van Dorsser.

The email adds that “the Mega data on the servers at Leaseweb contain private and sensitive customer data and is subject to applicable privacy and data retention laws.”

“Megaupload is negotiating with the United States to discern feasibility of consumer data access and the conditions for the same," Rothken wrote in the letter. 

 The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) representing the file-sharing website in court made a similar request to Leaseweb USA in April.

“We now write to formally request that you preserve that material both for purposes of contemplated future litigation and as a matter of obligation and courtesy to the innocent individuals whose materials have unfortunately been swept up into this case,” the EFF letter reads.

According to Dotcom, Megaupload’s legal team is analyzing whether Leaseweb violated the law.

“I can tell you that we are contemplating legal action against Leaseweb,” he told TorrentFreak on Wednesday.

“We believe that Leaseweb acted inappropriately under the circumstances when they destroyed data,” Rothken told the blogging website. “Ultimately we blame the United States who exercised constructive control over Megaupload’s assets and who had the obligation, resources, and ability to preserve all relevant and exonerating evidence including the data located at Leaseweb and failed to do so,” he added.

But Leaseweb claims it done nothing wrong. In a June 26 statement, the company stressed that “the contract between Leaseweb B.V. and Megaupload was governed by Dutch law.”

“This means the termination, and subsequent data retention needs to be valid under Dutch law. As there was no claim from the Dutch authorities on the data, the data was not subject to evidence rules. Also Dutch and European Privacy legislation prohibit giving third parties (i.e. MegaUpload customers, or Instra) direct access to their data,” the statement read.

Dotcom, who made a fortune from his file-sharing service Megaupload, is currently under a federal investigation, launched by the US Department of Justice after police raided his home. He is currently free on bail in New Zealand, with an extradition trial set for August.

The US has charged the Megaupload founder with facilitating copyright fraud on a massive scale, racketeering, and money-laundering, which carries maximum sentence of 20 years in jail.

Authorities claim Megaupload has cost copyright holders upwards of $500 million in lost revenues, due to content being illegally uploaded to its servers. The Department of Justice also believes Dotcom illegally earned $175 million by selling ads and subscriptions on the site.

On the anniversary of his arrest last January, Dotcom launched a new file-hosting site called ‘Mega.’

AFP Photo / Paul J. Richards

 Sir Tim Berners-Lee has lashed out at Western governments, calling them hypocritical for spying on the internet while reproaching other oppressive nations for doing the same; adding that the revelations may change the way people use computers.

The British computer scientist, who invented the Web in 1989, accused the West of "insidious" online spying after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked details of the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet telephone and internet surveillance programs, implicating US and UK in a wave of international criticism.

"In the Middle East, people have been given access to the internet, but they have been snooped on and then they have been jailed," Berners-Lee told The Times newspaper in an interview.

"It can be easy for people in the West to say 'Oh, those nasty governments should not be allowed access to spy.' But it's clear that developed nations are seriously spying on the internet," he added.

Berners-Lee believes that the new revelations about Western government spying could change the way people, especially teenagers, use the internet and their computers.

"Teenagers who are unsure about their sexuality, who need to contact others, or people being abused trying to find helplines... There are things that happen on the net that are very intimate, which people are going to be loath to do if they feel there is somebody looking over their shoulder."

Another concern that Berners-Lee raises is around the safety of the already collected information.

British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web.(AFP Photo / Carl Court)

  The web’s inventor spoke out before accepting a US$1.5 million joint engineering prize awarded by Queen Elizabeth to five men, who are considered to be the fathers of the internet, including Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf, Louis Pouzin and Marc Andreessen.

Berners-Lee argues that internet freedom must be safeguarded against companies or governments trying to take over control.

"When you make something universal … it can be used for good things or nasty things … we just have to make sure it's not undercut by any large companies or governments trying to use it and get total control," he said at the award ceremony.

One of the award recipients, Google Vice-President Vint Cerf, suggested companies should come up with ways to go around the surveillance, such as developing encrypted web communication.

Snowden blew the whistle on an NSA program called PRISM that collects correspondence and video conversations of foreigners using internet services like Google, Skype, Yahoo and Facebook.

He also provided documents showing the intelligence agency collects data on phone calls handled by the major US telephone companies.

On top of that the whistleblower exposed British spy agency GCHQ’s access to the global network of communications, storing calls, Facebook posts and internet histories, and revealed that it shares this data with the NSA.

Snowden was charged with espionage by US federal prosecutors on Friday and currently remains in an airport limbo in Russia’s transit zone after he flew to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport from Hong Kong.

Snowden’s stopover in the transit zone could be prolonged indefinitely, as his passport, which was annulled by the US on Saturday, leaves him without the necessary documentation with which to travel, a source reportedly connected with Snowden told Interfax.

 Facebook says it has not provided any user data to Turkish authorities in response to protest-related requests. It comes after a Turkish minister said the social media site has been cooperative “for a long time,” and that Twitter will likely comply too.

“Facebook has not provided user data to Turkish authorities in response to government requests relating to the protests,” the company said in a statement. “We reject all government data requests from Turkish authorities and push them to formal legal channels unless it appears that there is an immediate threat to life or a child.”

Facebook has expressed concerns over a draft bill on social media which would require companies to share data with Turkish authorities. Executives plan on raising the issue during this week’s meeting with Turkish officials in the US.

Earlier on Wednesday, Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications, Binali Yildirim, said the country’s government was satisfied with Facebook’s assistance.

“Facebook has been working in coordination with the Turkish authorities for a long time. They have a unit in Turkey. We don’t have any problem with them,” Yildirim said. The statement sparked outrage among Turkish social network users.

Turkish protesters stand in Red Crescent square during a 'duranadam' (standing person) protest in Ankara (AFP Photo / AdemM Atlan)

  Yildirim added that Twitter has not shown such “positive approach” despite “necessary warnings” from Turkey. He said that the Turkish government has asked Twitter, along with other social media sites, to set up a representative office inside the country.

“We have told all social media that...if you operate in Turkey you must comply with Turkish law…When information is requested, we want to see someone in Turkey who can provide this...there needs to be an interlocutor we can put our grievance to and who can correct an error if there is one,” he said.

“Twitter will probably comply too. Otherwise, this is a situation that cannot be sustained,” Yildirim stressed. His statement was presumably referring to social media’s role in the country’s recent anti-government protests. He added that the government seeks only to “turn down the volume of the social media,” rather than restricting it.

Another ministry official told Reuters that Turkey has asked Twitter to reveal the identities of users who posted messages which were considered insulting to Prime Minister Erdogan or the Turkish government. It was not immediately clear if Twitter responded.

Prime Minister Erdogan called social networking sites a “nuisance” during the anti-government protests in June, after local media reported that dozens were arrested for “inciting unrest” via social media.

The country's interior minister previously announced that Ankara was working on new regulations that would target so-called "provocateurs" on social media. A source told Reuters that the justice ministry had proposed that any Turk wishing to open a Twitter account would have to enter his or her national identification number. This was reportedly turned down by the transport ministry for being technically infeasible.

Turkey has a long record of legislative moves which rights groups believe fall under internet censorship. Ankara banned YouTube for more than two years in 2008 after a video clip ‘insulted’ the Turkish Republic’s founder, Ataturk.

 Edward Snowden is not booked to fly out of Moscow over the next three days, and with no valid passport, the NSA whistleblower might be stuck in airport limbo indefinitely.

The hot pursuit of Snowden has ground to a halt three days after the former CIA technician, wanted in the US on espionage charges, flew into Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport from Hong Kong.

Washington, which wants Snowden for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) dragnet telephone and Internet surveillance programs, charges that there is a clear legal basis for Moscow to hand him over.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who confirmed that Snowden had arrived in Moscow as a transit passenger despite speculation to the contrary, rebuffed US demands on Tuesday.

“We can only extradite any foreign citizens to such countries with which we have signed the appropriate international agreements on criminal extradition,” Putin said, adding that as Snowden had committed no crime on Russian soil, he is free to travel at will.

"Snowden is a free person. The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it is for him and Russia," Putin continued.

However, the former NSA contractor appears to be staying put, as neither him nor his WikiLeaks-affiliated legal adviser Sarah Harrison have made travel plans over the coming days.

"They are not flying today and not over the next three days," an Aeroflot representative at the transfer desk at Sheremetyevo told Reuters.

"They are not in the system."

Snowden’s stopover in the transit zone at Sheremetyevo could be prolonged indefinitely, as his passport, which was annulled by the US on Saturday, leaves him without the necessary documentation with which to travel, a source reportedly connected with Snowden told Interfax.

“Snowden’s American passport is void and he is not in possession of any other document with which he can prove his identity. For this reason, he has to stay in Sheremetyevo’s transit zone and cannot leave Russia nor buy a ticket,” the source said.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told RT that Snowden had been given special refugee documents by the Ecuadorian government which facilitated his travel to Russia. Still, the country's top Foreign Ministry official, Galo Galarza said on Wednesday that Ecuador has not granted Edward Snowden any refugee documents.

"He [Snowden] does not have a document issued by Ecuador, such as a passport or a refugee card, as speculated," said Galarza, as quoted by Ecuadorian television channel CT. So now it is unclear whether the whistleblower can continue traveling at all.

WikiLeals warned via Twitter on Wednesday that "cancelling Snowden's passport and bullying intermediary countries may keep Snowden permanently in Russia.”

#Snowden still in #Moscow airport, free to go anywhere... http://t.co/tdZ4vzmBXt #Navorski via http://t.co/Sc5lY73vVi pic.twitter.com/d87DGewJ32
— Egor Sheremet (@Sheremet_RT) June 25, 2013

Snowden, who has applied for asylum in Ecuador, was expected to make the next leg of his journey on Monday, as he had booked two tickets to Havana, Cuba. Snowden never showed for the flight, and according to RIA-Novosti, two tickets which he later booked for a Tuesday flight to the Cuban capital were returned just hours before departure. The next flight to Havana leaves on Wednesday.

If he ever makes it to Cuba, the next stop in his journey would be Caracas, Venezuela. President Nicolas Maduro, who coincidentally is expected in Moscow next week for an energy summit, has said Caracas would also consider an asylum request from the whistleblower.

Although dozens of Moscow-based journalists have been staked out at the airport since Sunday, not a single image of Snowden has surfaced.

A receptionist at the Air Express Capsule Hotel in Terminal E of Sheremetyevo Airport told RIA-Novosti that Snowden had in fact spent several hours in one of the suites, “but left a long time ago.”

Several journalists attempted to make contact with Snowden during his stay at the hotel, but were unsuccessful, the hotel employee continued.

It has been speculated that Snowden, who remains at an undisclosed location within the transit zone, is purposely being held up by Russian security services for interrogation.

WikiLeaks has refuted the accusation, saying Harrison "is escorting him at all times."

Kim Dotcom (Reuters / Nigel Marple)

 Tech mogul Kim Dotcom announced that he plans to be involved in next New Zealand general election while lobbying against a new legislation which would give spy agencies more powers to retrieve internet users’ personal information.

"I'm going to get engaged. I'm going to help as much as I can during the next election to make sure there is a government that takes the internet more seriously," said the founder of the file-sharing service Megaupload at the "Mega Breakfast" annual meeting of the Institute of IT Professionals , the New Zealand Herald reports.

He urged the IT community to carry out a campaign to improve government policy concerning internet business and issues. At the meeting he called to lobby against a new legislation that would require internet and telecoms companies to provide backdoor government access and approval for new technology.

The new proposed  bill would allow the New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to spy on its citizens on behalf of another agency, if they have a warrant.

The GCSB carried out domestic surveillance for the Security Intelligence Service, police and other agencies until last August, when the Kim Dotcom case raised questions about its legality. It was found that the GCSB were illegally spying on the Megaupload founder, a German national with New Zealand residency, prior to his arrest in January 2012 for alleged copyright violation.

Dotcom was subsequently arrested by the authorities who were aiding a US investigation into copyright violation. In March, Dotcom was granted the right to sue the secret services agency. According to an inquiry released in April, another 88 New Zealand citizens may have been illegally spied on.

Along with his Mega founder Mathias Ortmann he told the IT colleagues at the meeting that the recent revelations of the US NSA mass surveillance program by former CIA employee Edward Snowden, including New Zealand’s GCSB, had boosted the demand for his company’s encrypted cloud storage system.

At the Breakfast meeting Dotcom dismissed  Prime Minister John Key’s  statement that the spying law had been misunderstood.

"The law says you can't spy on New Zealanders. John Key stands in front of cameras and says 'we misunderstood the law'. How stupid can you get?"

The revelation of illegal spying by government agencies had created a potential shift in responsibility for the Megaupload business, said Dotcom.

"The potential settlement or damages situation has changed quite a bit since we discovered what went on. Potentially, at some point, we could go after the New Zealand government for full damages. I've said before I don't want to be a burden to New Zealand. The majority of that (settlement) would be reinvested in submarine cables, rural broadband."

The internet tycoon announced that he is currently involved with two investor groups and is set to start work on a second submarine cable to bring faster internet to New Zealand within 12 months.

The Institute billed Dotcom and Ortmann’s addresses as a chance to engage with those behind "New Zealand's largest tech start-up this year" said the NZ Herald.

The US government pulls out all stops to prosecute, hound, and capture those who reveal classified data. This plus constant control and surveillance makes it impossible to keep anything private or secret, Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges told RT.

RT: The US is focused on chasing Snowden, which seems to have distracted from his revelations - is anyone in the States asking whether the surveillance system prism was constitutional?

Chris Hedges: Some people are, but not many, which is quite distressing. You have Glenn Greenwald, the journalist from The Guardian who broke the story. You have lawyers Michael Ratner from the Center of the Constitutional Rights asking those kinds of questions, but I think that for those of us who care about freedom of information, about protecting sources, about stopping wholesale government surveillance, I think it’s been a very lonely time. And I think one of the things that’s been so distressing is that the serious questions that should be asked are not being asked.

RT: Does that play into the hands of the government and what Washington would like to keep secret?

CH: Well they can’t keep it a secret anymore, it’s exposed. But I think what they have done is divert attention to that kind of a mini-soap opera that is now taking place, as Snowden leaps from Hong Kong to Moscow, to ostensibly Cuba, Ecuador. They knew we saw the same thing happening to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, to Bradley Manning, who exposed war crimes and is now on trial in military court in Maryland. It’s a very similar and oppressing kind of scenario, where the state propaganda machine has quite effectively diverted attention away from where it should be, which is the effect that there is no more privacy anymore left in the United States, and focused attention on character, on activities of Snowden. Through their lens, it’s not a dispassionate view of either Snowden or what he’s done.

 RT: When do you think Snowden might reveal his whereabouts and where do you think he will go?

CH: He doesn’t have many options: Cuba, Ecuador, maybe Venezuela, that’s about it. He has of course asked for political asylum as [Assange did], although the British government isn’t allowing him to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London. I mean these kinds of questions, again, for me are not the paramount questions as a journalist. The fact that the government sees virtually all the communications, electronic communications of American citizens, means that I can’t work. I think one of the reasons that Snowden went public with his disclosure is that he knew quite well that the US government has all the communications that Glenn Greenwald has made, and there was no way to hide those kind of contacts between himself as a traditional whistleblower and the journalist who wrote up this story of the wholesale spying on most American citizens by the National Security Agency. And that means that in essence you’re shutting down any capacity to shine a light on the internal workings of power. It becomes impossible to challenge the official narrative - and let’s not forget that the government quite selectively leaks classified information all the time to make themselves look good. But once information is exposed, that tarnishes them, and I think it’s quite clearly unconstitutional. Then the security and surveillance state pulls out all stops to prosecute, hound and capture those person or persons who made those revelations, and that’s precisely what we’re seeing, it’s not an uncommon scenario judging by what we’ve seen happening to Julian Assange and given of course what’s been happening to Bradley Manning.

RT: The authorities say surveillance is essential to counter terrorism. But does it justify daily spying on people, including on heads of state?

CH: I covered Al-Qaeda for the New York Times and spent seven years in the Middle East with a variety of Jihadist groups. These people are well aware, acutely aware of the fact that all of their communications is closely monitored by American security and intelligence officials. So there’s nothing new in these revelations to them. What is new is that we as Americans essentially have no privacy left, no capacity to communicate without the eye of the government upon every form of communications that we make – that’s what’s new. And that has nothing to do with terrorism, that has nothing to do with national security, that has to do with control of the population, as we see greater and greater effects - catastrophic effects - from climate change as the very fragile global economy again teeters on the brink of collapse, the security in surveillance state wants the capacity to shut down any form of dissent, and this mechanism of the wholesale surveillance gives them precisely that.

The release of data about US hack attacks on China has deprived the West of the moral high ground in the cyber-war, Hong Kong City University Professor Joseph Cheng told RT. This could give China diplomatic ammo in future negotiations with the US.

RT: Nations have been spying on each other for as long as we can remember. Do you think there is any surprise here on China’s part?

Joseph Cheng: I don’t think it is a surprise for the Chinese authorities. Basically, China and all major powers in the world understand that internet capabilities and capabilities in outer space will be crucial in future warfare. It is very likely that the major powers would like to test their own capabilities, as well as those of their opponents and competitors. So China is probably a bit relieved at this stage that the Western governments and the Western public opinion no longer enjoy the moral high ground to criticize China.

RT: There's the opinion that goodwill between the US and many nations worldwide may have been degraded. But there is the argument to be made that China needs the US as much as it is vice-versa. What do you think?

JC: I agree with that. The recent summit between [President] Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama was a very important symbol, demonstrating that both leaders want to reduce mutual distrust and that they certainly would not like to see a deterioration in bilateral relations. In the handling of this incident it was obvious that the Chinese authorities did not want to further publicly embarrass the Obama administration. The Chinese authorities chose to allow Mr. Snowden to leave. And of course domestically the commentaries were very critical, but they were not the official position of the Chinese government. The Chinese government also did not make any attempt to exploit the presence of Mr. Snowden to extract information from him. So I think that the Chinese authorities would like to demonstrate that they value good relations with the US.

RT: Do you think China will play this to its advantage in the future armed with sympathy and confirmation that it is being spied upon by the US? How do you think China will use this going into the future?

JC: China will probably let it die down. But when Western governments pick up the issue again, China will feel it has a strong case for criticizing the double standards of Western governments. Ideally, it can be hoped that various governments throughout world will come together eventually to establish a set of norms governing surveillance of the internet. But this is of course a very idealistic view.

A wave of outraged comments have swept the German media after it was revealed Monday that British secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) wiretapped the dataflow of Germany’s major transatlantic cable.

The northern German public broadcaster NDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported late on Monday that Germany’s external intelligence service BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) has been in the dark about GCHQ wiretapping Transatlantic Telephone Cable No. 14 (TAT-14) connecting Germany with the US via UK, in the framework of its Tempora data collection project.

The TAT-14 fiber optic cables entered service in 2001. It is operated by private consortium German Telekom and used by around 50 international communication companies for phone calls, internet connection, data transfer etc.

Countries like Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and the UK itself also use this cable for internet connection to North America.

The capacity of the 15,000km TAT-14 is enormous; it transfers hundreds of gigabytes of data per second in both directions. The report claimed British GCHQ has already had access to 21,600 terabytes of private and business German data transferred through the cable.

The initial reaction from official Berlin concerning Edward Snowden’s revelations about British intelligence straddling Germany’s major fiber optics cables without Berlin’s knowledge was rather moderate.

Senior German Interior Ministry official Ulrich Weinbrenner admitted to the Bundestag committee that it was known “in general form” that foreign tapping programs - like American PRISM and British Tempora - existed.

Having met American President Barack Obama last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautiously commented that collecting information needs ‘proportionality’ and that “the free democratic order is based on people feeling safe.”

However, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert announced that Berlin wanted explanations from NATO allies “on what legal basis and to which extent” surveillance had been conducted. 

 The head of the Free Democratic Party parliamentary group, Rainer Brüderle, demanded an investigation.

"A comprehensive monitoring of citizens in the network cannot and will not be accepted ," he told Passau Neue Presse.

"We need to step back here and say clearly: mass surveillance is not what we want," said Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green member in charge of a planned overhaul of the European Union's data protection laws.

"We urge the Federal Government and the EU Commission to  initiate an infringement proceedings against the UK government," which would have to deal with the matter, Albrecht said to Berliner Zeitung.

"The Federal Government and the Commission must take the issue of protecting fundamental rights seriously," the rapporteur added in the Judiciary Committee.

Albrecht’ thoughts were echoed by CSU MEP Manfred Weber who told Berliner Zeitung that "If European law has been broken, such as in relation to the retention, the Commission must act." The harshest comment came from German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who dubbed the total eavesdropping from a NATO ally a “Hollywood nightmare.”

Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar called on the federal government to proceed on an international level against data espionage from abroad.

"The federal government must insist that our emails will not be penetrated by foreign intelligence services," he demanded according to Bild newspaper.

The methods used by the American NSA and British GCHQ agencies are “secret, but lawful” and “subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards,” stated UK Foreign Secretary William Hague.

But such statements have produced little effect on the public or within expert communities. “How much and which data of German citizens and companies had been secretly accessed by the Anglo-American intelligence services NSA and GCHQ, for example by tapping glass fiber cables?” questioned Greens party parliamentarian Hans-Christian Ströbele, as quoted by Deutsche Welle (DW).

“The shoulder-shrugging explanation by Washington and London that they have operated within the law is absurd. They are not our laws. We didn't make them. We shouldn't be subject to them,” Spiegel online columnist Jakob Augstein. “We have not asked the NSA and GCHQ to ‘protect’ us,” he said.
Gisela Pilz, a data protection expert with the parliamentary group of the liberal FDP, the junior partner in the governing coalition, agrees.

"We observe with a great deal of concern and dismay the amount of data that has been collected and stored," she told DW.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government was caught in the crossfire of criticism for not ensuring national digital security.

It is the responsibility of the German government to see that foreign agencies no longer process the data of German citizens and companies, Augstein stressed, because “a government that cannot make that assurance is failing in one of its fundamental obligations: to protect its own citizens from the grasp of foreign powers,” he concluded. “Germans should closely observe how Angela Merkel now behaves.”

The head of the Bundestag's intelligence supervisory committee, opposition Social Democrats deputy Thomas Oppermann, called to speed up the elaboration of data privacy legislation currently being drafted in the EU.

Amnesty International urges the US not to hunt down Edward Snowden since “no one should be prosecuted for disclosing human rights violations by the government.” They also said the NSA leaker cannot be extradited while his asylum bid is underway.

“No one should be charged under any law for disclosing information of human rights violations by the US government. Such disclosures are protected under the rights to information and freedom of expression,” said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.

Snowden, who is behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA history, was charged under the Espionage Act in the US. "It appears he is being charged by the US government primarily for revealing its and other governments’ unlawful actions that violate human rights,” the human rights watchdog’s official pointed out.

As the American authorities’ world-wide chase for Snowden continues, Washington has called on states in the Western Hemisphere to surrender the NSA whistleblower to US jurisdiction. Snowden – who turned 30 four days ago – arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday and has since then remained in a transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport in the Russian capital. His arrival “came as a surprise” for Russian authorities, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday. The Russian leader also dismissed all accusations against Russia in connection with the Snowden case as “rubbish and nonsense.”

“As a transit passenger he is entitled to buy a ticket and fly wherever he wants to. He does not cross [Russia’s] state border, therefore he does not need a visa,” Putin underlined.

Snowden requested political asylum in Ecuador and the country’s government vowed to analyze his bid and then make a decision on the matter.  Additionally, WikiLeaks  – which has remained in contact with the NSA leaker and provided him with assistance - approached Iceland and other countries with a formal request for Asylum for Snowden. 

Earlier, the whistleblower’s American passport is thought to have been revoked – which, according to Amnesty International, interferes with the NSA leaker’s rights to freedom of movement and seeking asylum elsewhere.

“Regardless of where Snowden ends up he has the right to seek asylum. For such a claim to succeed, he must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. Even if such a claim failed, no country can return a person to another country where there is a substantial risk of ill-treatment,” said Amnesty International’s Brown.

The organization believes Snowden’s forced transfer to American soil would put him at risk of human rights violations and “must be challenged.” Michael Bochenek, Director of Law and Policy at the activist group, told RT they “raised a lot of concerns” about the crimes for which he is being sought and the treatment he might receive upon his surrender to the US.

“With respect to the treatment, we know from other cases – for e.g. from the case of Bradley Manning – that individuals have been subjected to what, not just we, but also UN officials have called “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” And that is yet another potential violation of human rights law to which somebody should not be subjected. It’s a reason not to extradite,” he said. 

In his view, there is nothing wrong with governments keeping secret information on international security, and particularly information that can hurt anyone if disclosed. But, Bochenek went on to say, that was not what the Obama Administration or his predecessor President Bush’s administration were trying to do.

“What we are really seeing now is a continuation and argumentation of the policies that began with President Bush really to extend government power to the utmost and beyond and also to use all the tools at their disposal to enforce a vision of the world in a sense of the projection of the US power that too often is disregarding [of human rights],” he stated.

Now that it is getting harder for governments around the world to keep information classified, they should keep in mind that when they “invade the privacy” of their own or foreign citizens without any cause or suspicious bit only “in order to get information you think might be useful someday in some sense” - questions will be asked.

“The chickens will come home to roost, as they say in the US,” Bochenek pointed out.

A state-run internet provider in a central Russian region has blocked two leading media web-sites after a court ruled that they were publishing instructions on how to offer bribes to civil servants. Popular Russian internet daily Gazeta.ru reported on Tuesday that access to its web-site had been blocked by Rostelecom in central Russia’s Ulyanovsk Region.

Rostelecom replied to the newspaper’s enquiry that it had limited the access to 15 internet resources, including Gazeta.ru and web-site of another popular newspaper - Komsomolskaya Pravda after a district court in Ulyanonsk ruled that these sites were distributing materials that “promoted bribery and undermined the authority of the state power”. The case was instigated by local prosecutors who demanded action citing the Law on Information that allows to selectively block internet content “in order to protect the basics of the constitutional state, morals, rights and lawful interests of third persons as well as the protection of national defense and security potential”.

Prosecutors claimed that they had discovered information on ways to give bribes and on conditions under which bribing is necessary as well as advice on various ways to evade responsibility for this crime. However, neither the prosecutors’ lawsuit nor the court verdict contained precise links to the content in question.

Both Gazeta.ru and Komsomolskaya Pravda said they were unaware of the hearings and of the verdict and learned about the blocking from their readers. Some of the readers who reported the problems said they had to change their internet provider to continue reading their favorite news sites. Apparently, other ISPs in the region did not heed the court decision.

After the story broke Ulyanovsk prosecutors said they were surprised that the provider blocked the resource as a whole instead of only blocking the pages with violating materials. They also added “the screen shots of all materials had been made in the witnesses’ presence and passed to the judge”. In turn, Rostelecom told Gazeta.ru that it could only block the web-site as a whole. A company representative also expressed bewilderment over the fact that in this and similar cases prosecutors targeted Rostelecom and completely ignored other internet providers.

Rostelecom covers about 39 percent of the internet services market in Ulyanovsk Region. Gazeta.ru lawyers said in a statement that their daily never breached any law, saw no reasons for content blocking and did not exclude that they would appeal the court decision. Gazeta.ru is one of the most popular news sites in Russia with about 10 million visitors monthly. Komsomolskaya Pravda is the heir of the superpopular Soviet-era newspaper with about 18 million monthly visitors.

When it comes to the whereabouts of Edward Snowden, there has been far more conjecture than concrete fact. While Washington would do anything to get its hands on the whistleblower, tracking down Snowden has turned into a full on cloak and dagger affair.

On Sunday Edward Snowden left Chinese territory two days after espionage charges were leveled against him, setting off an international game of cat and mouse which has the United States’ massive global intelligence apparatus trying to cut the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor off at the pass.

The White House for its part seemed to be certain that Snowden did in fact reach Moscow after taking off from Hong Kong on Sunday.“We have known where he is and believe we know where he is now,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said during a Monday afternoon briefing. “It is our assumption that he is in Russia.”

“I’m not going to get into specifics, but it is our understanding that he is still in Russia,” Carney continued. "We have asked the Russians to look at all the options and expel Snowden to the US,” he said.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said on Monday that Snowden was in a “safe place.” Assange, who was unable to give further information as to Snowden’s whereabouts, claimed that Snowden had left Hong Kong on June 23 “bound for Ecuador via a safe pass through Russia and other states."

Shortly after Snowden allegedly arrived in Moscow, the government of Ecuador announced it had received an asylum request from the fugitive whistleblower. Assange claimed Snowden, whose passport was reportedly revoked one day prior to his departure from Hong Kong, was further granted a refugee document of passage.

It has been reported that Snowden was snaking his way around the globe to avoid capture, with a complicated route which would have seen him fly from Moscow to Caracas via Havana, with the expectation that he would later travel on to the Ecuadorian capital Quito.

While the state-controlled Russian airline Aeroflot said that he had checked in for flight SU150 to Havana with two seats (17A and 17C) in his name on Monday, seemingly half the world’s press corps was on board, but Snowden was conspicuously absent.  

The fact that hefailed to board a Moscow-to-Havana flight on Monday following his hasty escape from Hong Kong one day prior begs the question: did the world’s most infamous whistleblower step foot on Russian soil at all? 

 Wikileaks and unnamed sources

The government of Hong Kong never specified Snowden’s destination, only stating that he had in fact left Chinese territory for “a third country” on Sunday. The Russian government has made no official comment regarding the whistleblower either.

Although reporters noted the heavy presence of Russian security services at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov disavowed any knowledge of Snowden’s arrival in the Russian capital.

“I don’t [know if he's planning to stay in Moscow]. I heard about his potential arrival from the press. I know nothing,” Peskov told the Guardian on Sunday.

When RT contacted Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) regarding the matter, the agency declined to comment.

With no corroborating video footage, the only actual proof that Snowden arrived in Moscow on Sunday evening stem from three primary sources: WikiLeaks, the government of Ecuador and anonymous sources working within the airport.

Wikileaks, whose representative Sarah Harrison reportedly accompanied Snowden on the flight, regularly sent out tweets up until flight SU213 touched down in the Russian capital around 5:00 p.m. local time. 

The anti-secrecy group said in a statement that the former CIA technician is on his way to Ecuador "via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks."

A source from within WikiLeaks, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to RT that the rogue NSA leaker was indeed on the flight, passing on the names of Ecuadorian officials who were slated to meet Snowden at the airport.

An unnamed Aeroflot official also told Russia’s ITAR-Tass news agency that the former CIA technician was indeed on board Flight SU213 which landed in Moscow.

Shortly after flight 213 landed, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino tweeted that “The Government of Ecuador had received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden.” Cars baring license plates for the Ecuadorian diplomatic mission were spotted at Moscow International Airport Sheremetyevo. 

Ecuador's ambassador to Russia, Chavez Zavala, was also seen at the airport. Just moments before stepping into a hotel on the airport’s premises, he reportedly told journalists: "We're waiting for [Sarah] Harrison. We're going to talk to them."

Although Snowden had reportedly taken a suite at the «V-Express» Capsule Hotel in Terminal E of the airport’s transit area, no visual confirmation of the former contractor has surfaced despite the myriad passengers and swarm of journalists staking out quite possibly the world’s most wanted man.
A source at Aeroflot told Interfax news agency that Snowden had checked into the hotel, noting that “he cannot leave the terminal as he has no Russian visa." Harrison, he added, did have a Russian visa.

Another source told the agency of the unprecedented security measures which had been taken “to maintain Snowden's security and to guarantee his safe departure.” “Everything has been done to allow Snowden to spend the night peacefully at the airport's capsule hotel and to fly quietly to Cuba," the source continued.

However, on Monday evening a source at the hotel later told RT that Snowden had in fact never checked in or out of the facility.

It bears recalling that WikiLeaks, which did everything possible to draw attention to Snowden’s location between takeoff and landing, has a vested nterest in concealing the fugitive whistleblower's actual movements.

Ecuador has already shown its willingness to take big political risks by granting Assange diplomatic asylum at its London embassy, where the Wikileaks founder has remained holed up for over a year. With round the clock police surveillance and a diplomatic standoff with the UK government set to last for years, Quito might have decided on avoiding another diplomatic showdown by facilitating Snowden’s safe passage before he arrives in Ecuador.

Destination unknown

Once Snowden failed to show for his Havana-bound flight, RT’s Irina Galushko noted there were at least four flights leaving on Monday that could put Snowden on route to Ecuador. A source familiar with the situation earlier told Interfax that Snowden might take the next flight to Latin America via Cuba.

“He’s probably got another ticket also via Cuba, as there are no direct flights [from Moscow] to Caracas or Quito.”

Like so much other information that has leaked out of Moscow’s international hub, nothing ever materialized. The same source later told Interfax that Snowden was probably already outside of the Russian Federation.

Speaking at a joint press conferred with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi, Secretary of State John Kerry said he had no knowledge of Snowden’s final destination, adding he would be deeply troubled if Moscow or China had prior notice of Snowden’s travel plans, Reuters reports.   

More baffling to Washington is how Snowden ever left Hong Kong as his passport had been revoked one day prior. On the same day, the US asked Hong Kong to hand over Snowden under the terms of a 1998 extradition treaty with the Chinese territory.

However, The Hong Kong special administrative region [HKSAR] government said their decision not to block Snowden’s departure stemmed from the fact that “the documents provided by the US government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law.” “As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong. The HKSAR government has already informed the US government of Mr Snowden's departure,” the statement continued.

On Friday, federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Snowden for leaking a trove of documents regarding the NSA’s clandestine surveillance programs.

Snowden was charged with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.” The last two charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act, which allow for the issuance of an international arrest warrant against him.Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the US, said it would be under no obligation to hand over a US citizen. Foreign Minister. Sergey Lavrov has previously said Russia would be willing to consider an asylum request from Snowden. However, an unnamed security official told RIA-Novosti news agency on Monday that no orders for Snowden's arrest have been dispatched through Interpol to Russian law enforcement agencies. Speaking from Hanoi on Monday, Patino said he did not know Snowden’s current whereabouts, or where the whistleblower planned to travel next.

The Ecuadorian FM, who read a letter in which Snowden likened himself to Bradley Manning, the US army private who is currently on trial for leaking classified information to Wikileaks, intimated that the former NSA contractor’s asylum request would be considered on human rights grounds.
Following news that Snowden’s passport had been revoked, State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said he "should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States."

That Snowden could leave Hong Kong on an invalidated passport despite the charges leveled against him speaks volumes about the fallout from the United States sweeping surveillance activities.
And despite the massive troves of information the US government continues to cull both at home and abroad through PRISM and related surveillance programs, one critical fact remains elusive: where in the world is Edward Snowden?

A lawyer for the former spy agency contractor has pointed out that Edward Snowden was told to flee Hong Kong by a middleman claiming to represent the Chinese controlled territory – which evidently could mean the advice was Beijing-backed.

Lawyer Albert Ho, who is also a Hong Kong legislator critical of China, indicated that he was approached by Snowden several days ago, according to Reuters.

The American asked the Hong Kong government if he could leave the city freely if he chose to do so, and tried to find out the Hong Kong government’s position on his situation.

After that, Ho met a senior Hong Kong official, who did not offer any comment.
However, Ho claims Snowden later told him an individual supposedly representing the Hong Kong authorities had contacted him and indicated he should leave the city, and wouldn't be stopped by the authorities.

Ho said he believed the middleman was acting on Beijing's orders. However, he had no solid evidence to prove it.

"They (Beijing) used someone behind the scenes to get Snowden to leave. And the Hong Kong government didn't have much of a role. Its role was to receive instructions to not stop him at the airport," Ho told Reuters.  

Ho stressed that in his opinion the case was clearly monitored and controlled by Beijing. 
"From seeing the nervousness with which the Hong Kong government didn't even give me any details at all <...>I have grounds to believe that the Hong Kong government had no authority over this case. That's to say the whole case was decided by Beijing."

Hong Kong is a former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 and although it retains an independent legal system and its own extradition laws, China is believed to have control over Hong Kong's foreign affairs. The Hong Kong government didn’t immediately comment on Ho's claims.

The Chinese government has expressed “grave concern” about the revelations of the US government's cyber attacks on Beijing.

“This once again proves that China is a victim of cyber attacks," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.

On Sunday, the NSA leaker fled from Hong Kong to Russia, and was supposed to board a plane for Havana, Cuba.

However, he wasn’t seen during the boarding which took place at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Monday.

The White House expressed objections to authorities in Hong Kong and China that the countries let the whistleblower flee, and to Russia, urging Moscow to extradite Snowden to the US as soon as possible.

"We expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the US to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged."

Snowden has been charged by the US authorities with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person. The last two charges fall under the US Espionage Act.