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[XXSockXX]

Snowden is seeking asylum in Finland.

Also:

The requests were made to a number of countries including the Republic of Austria, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Finland, the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of India, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Ireland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Kingdom of Norway, the Republic of Poland, the Russian Federation, the Kingdom of Spain, the Swiss Confederation and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

http://wikileaks.org/Edward-Snowden-submits-asylum.html

[Sheb]

Soa t this point, where didn't Snowden demand asilym, outside the US?

[DG]

I expect he's requesting asylum, rather than demanding it.

There's roughly 170 more countries he could try.

[PanH]

Most of them refused (Poland, India, Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Ireland, Austria, Germany, afaik).

[palsch]

He also withdrew the application to Russia (apparently the conditions were too much) and doesn't seem to have actually applied to France or Venezuela.

Honestly, I don't know what country will actually process a request for asylum before you are in their territory. Ecuador offered him asylum already, if he could reach their embassy. If any nation were to grant asylum when he isn't in their territory, what the hell would that mean? Would they be responsible for extracting him from Moscow airport? Would they have to extend some special status to him to enable him to travel? That would be incredible if it happened.

[PanH]

Well, the reason most countries refused is because he wasn't at the border or in the territory. Though, I guess something like the safe pass Ecuador delivered (but was an "accident") could happen.

[XXSockXX]

Germany hasn't completely refused yet. He can't get asylum if he isn't here, but an exception could be made on humanitarian grounds. That is still being discussed apparently, though it seems unlikely since the US has rule of law and all that, it's not a typical humanitarian exception. Ultimately it's a political question. Some opposition politicians are for it, but I seriously doubt they would piss off the US that much.

edit:
Ok, from what I read now, they have refused him. Not very surprising.

[Robot Parade Leader]

http://news.yahoo.com/bolivian-presidents-plane-diverted-over-snowden-suspicion-012100277.html

What's that? You're the President of a sovereign nation? Don't care, we're gonna ground your flight with absolutely 0 proof of anything.  Reason? Logic? Diplomatic Immunity? Don't you go bringing that stuff in here. There's a rumor somebody we don't like is on your plane. We won't say where we heard it first really. We may not have made up the rumor....

[Guardian G.I.]

http://news.yahoo.com/bolivian-presidents-plane-diverted-over-snowden-suspicion-012100277.html

What's that? You're the President of a sovereign nation? Don't care, we're gonna ground your flight with absolutely 0 proof of anything.  Reason? Logic? Diplomatic Immunity? Don't you go bringing that stuff in here. There's a rumor somebody we don't like is on your plane. We won't say where we heard it first really. We may not have made up the rumor....

It shows how desperate the United States are to get Snowden.

[palsch]

After the stories about France's own data collection schemes this piece is interesting reading.

The fact that nations like France, a fairly central and active figure in world diplomacy, see industrial espionage on companies within closely allied nations as a valid use of the state is almost more disturbing to me than the idea of spying on other governments.

[da_nang]

Vive la révolution?

[Sheb]

French are quite statist and tends to believe it is the state's job to push national champions. They did declare yoghurt a protected industry for national security.

[Zangi]

Industrial espionage?  I am meh about it, at least compared to spying on citizens. 
There is copyright and patents that can be used against the more blatent benefits of industrial espionage though... and I think France is in on that copyright stuff with America?  If so... yea...

[palsch]

Industrial espionage?  I am meh about it, at least compared to spying on citizens. 
There is copyright and patents that can be used against the more blatent benefits of industrial espionage though... and I think France is in on that copyright stuff with America?  If so... yea...

It's more of a philosophical point.

The USA might have expansive espionage systems but they are nearly exclusively for national security purposes. Any other applications are (with very few exceptions) illegal abuse of the programs. Not saying that such abuse is impossible or doesn't happen, or that the laws of what counts as national security are always draw in the right place, but ideologically and legally even law enforcement is quite constrained in it's applications of surveillance.

The acceptance that such spying is acceptable for commercial gain is opening up a whole new realm of spying. Once you accept financial gain as a valid reason for (legal, state) espionage it's easy to justify nearly any spying you feel grants any sort of advantage, with very few lines left to cross.

As a very simple example, if using state surveillance for commercial purposes is justified, wouldn't gathering information about the officers and staff of a company for blackmail or exploitation purposes be justified? Or direct sabotage using the information gathered? Or market manipulations using insider trading information? There are dozens of damaging options beyond just stealing trade secrets (which are usually those pieces of IP not covered by patent protections, otherwise they wouldn't be secret - often patent pending or raw research before a patentable product).

One of the early reports I saw about the Snowden leak was that countries who do see such espionage as acceptable are unlikely to believe that the US system is solely for national security purposes and see its revealed extent as a declaration of economic war, encouraging more of this sort of economic espionage in the future.

[XXSockXX]

The press here kind of speculates that industrial espionage is kind of a main point of all this surveillance. It's not only stuff that can be patented, it's simply numbers and data. We have seen what insider knowledge can do in the whole Eurocrisis and the American mortgage crisis before that.
The one (maybe) good thing that might come out of the whole thing is that, since we have an election in September and people are upset, Germany reconsiders the implemetation of the EU law that would require ISPs and phone companies to store data for 6 months (currently it's only 3 in Germany).