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Comment by andrewljohnson | Hacker News Reader

The US wants him in custody, and they think he's a criminal. I don't credit the administration for a devious plot here.

The political staff may be agonizing over talking points, but the real chess game is about catching the king. I don't think Obama and Putin were chatting about smearing Snowden, but rather about what the US will give Russia if Snowden is sent home, or prevented from going to South America.

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Exactly. And as evident by the US/Russian spy swap in 2010 [1] a transfer isn't out of the question. In the coming months, we may even see several undercover SVR operatives rounded up in the United States as bargaining chips.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program

Is Snowden really that valuable to the US? Prosecuting him isn't going to be a PR coup in the way killing Osama Bin Laden or prosecuting war criminals is (quite the opposite in fact; it can only be damaging to the US govt image inone way or another), he doesn't know anything the US doesn't already know, and the "don't give away our secrets unless you want to rot in Russia" message is well and truly sent.

>Prosecuting him isn't going to be a PR coup in the way killing Osama Bin Laden or prosecuting war criminals is

This; ironically prosecuting Snowden hurts the administrations relationship with subsections of both parties.

It's not a PR coup, they want to discourage possible whistleblowers by telling them: "if you reveal big stuff about us, we'll hunt you anywhere you go and eventually we'll find you and you'll pay".

What about dropping Syria from our current agenda with Russia?

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