“Heroic” Edward Snowden applies for membership in KGB veterans group

**Posted by Phineas

This just getsΒ better and better:

Renegade National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has applied to join a group of former Russian intelligence and security officials, according to the group’s director.

Participation in a union of former KGB security, intelligence, and police officials, would likely change Snowden’s status from that of a whistleblower seeking to expose wrongdoing, to an intelligence defector who has changed sides.

Alexei Lobarev, chairman of the group called β€œVeterans of the Siloviki”—literally β€œmen of power”—told a Russian news outlet on Monday that Snowden, who has been staying in a Moscow airport transit lounge for a month, applied for membership in the group.

(…)

Ariel Cohen, a Russia specialist with the Heritage Foundation, said joining the former KGB officers’ group would be a significant development in the Snowden affair.

β€œIt could be a spoof or a deliberate attempt to tarry the former NSA contractor,” Cohen said in an email. β€œHowever, if proven true, this puts Snowden squarely into the defector category. Whatever the whistleblower rhetoricβ€”if indeed it is Snowdenβ€”the man is seeking to join a group whose livelihood was to spy on and harm, the United States. There is hardly a more anti-American group in Russia than ex-security officials. They would want nothing more than to coddle Snowden.”

Other experts think Snowden is being played by the Russians, rather than being a “traitor aforethought.” And there could be another reason for this farce. Who knows? What we do know is that he’s done tremendous damage to our national interests, the Obama administration looks like fools, and Putin is laughing his head off at us.

Great work by the man some callΒ a hero, no?

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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