A week in Moscow was enough for Edward Snowden to change his plans completely. No one has seen the National Security Agency leaker since he landed at Sheremetyevo Terminal E on June 23, intending to go on to Ecuador, where he had requested political asylum. Now he isn’t going there: On July 1, the Russian consul at Sheremetyevo reported that the night before, Snowden asked for asylum in Russia.
Dithering by the Ecuadorean authorities and, apparently, some prompting from the Russian special services have transformed the former NSA contractor full of romantic notions about Internet privacy and information freedom into a modern-day Kim Philby, destined to live out his life in a country waging a cold war against his homeland.
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