* Snowdon revealled much about GCHQ so you can't really expect the UK government to be any more supportive of his activities than the US one was. I don't know enough detail but suspect other countries were implicated too. In those cases they're not in thrall to the US, they're simply responding according to their own interests.
* For European countries not specifically mentioned, why would any government antagonise the US when they're probably doing similar things themselves.
* Let's not kid ourselves what the Russians are really doing. This is basically trolling on an international government scale. Putin certainly doesn't believe Snowdon is a freedom fighter, and his actions around support for Snowdon are hypocritical in the extreme given the sorts of activities Russia are almost certainly engaged in themselves.
It's unrealistic to assume any government will support Snowdon as a matter of principal. They'll do so if it is popular enough with the people of their country but to me at least this doesn't feel like something that your average person is going to get worked up about compared to more domestic issues such as jobs, the cost of living and Kim Kardashian's ass.
>Let's not kid ourselves what the Russians are really doing. This is basically trolling on an international government scale. Putin certainly doesn't believe Snowdon is a freedom fighter, and his actions around support for Snowdon are hypocritical in the extreme given the sorts of activities Russia are almost certainly engaged in themselves.
Not only that, but you also have to ignore the things the current Russian government could, would, and has done to people like Snowden to think this has every been some altruistic move on their part.
This is one the benefits (among many costs) of not having a world state, the interests of nations balance against each other creating room for successful dissent.
>This is basically trolling on an international government scale.
Do you also think that giving the refuge to the dissidents form the USSR was trolling as well?
Generally dissidents have more in common with the country they're fleeing to than the one they're fleeing from but that's not the case with Snowdon. He's not a communist sympathiser, he's closer to being an American patriot who has done something his government may disagree with because he wants his country to be better. Simply put he's in Russia because it's there or Guantanamo Bay.
On the Russian side Putin has no sympathy whatsoever with the principals Snowdon stands for. Putin is a former spy with a penchant for locking up or oppressing those who oppose him. His logic runs no further than my enemy's enemy is my friend. If Snowdon was had revealed similar information about Russian intelligence Putin would be first in line to have him locked up or worse.
You have an extraordinary ability to read Putin's mind.
For one thing, Putin don't seem to have the ambition to dominate the world like the US does and for which the NSA's global eavesdropping is an important tool.
You don't need to read anyone's mind, he's a world leader with a public history - just a bit of reading will tell you enough about him to make a pretty good guess at what's happening here.
A European country could give him a permit, the problem is that doing so would cause a massive diplomatic incident with the US, and most countries would rather not have to deal with that fuss. Russia (actually also European, just not EU European) had nothing to lose in that department, though.
I imagine it's tricky for any EU member wanting to take him due to the EU having an extradition treaty with the US and the fact that Europe wide arrest warrants are a thing.
All other european nations have declined to host him, that is until now.
So much about being independant countries...