Snowden looks to Iceland as US says surveillance foils terror plots

US National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden sought asylum in Iceland as Washington continued to defend its surveillance programs, saying they have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots.

A US spy chief said on Tuesday that secret surveillance has foiled more than 50 terror plots since 2001, including a planned bomb attack on the New York Stock Exchange, Agence France-Presse reported.

With Snowden's disclosures causing heated debate over public security and privacy, a poll on Tuesday indicated that most US citizens think he should be prosecuted.

Observers said although most Americans think the surveillance is understandable due to national security concerns, the revelations have dealt a heavy blow to US President Barack Obama's administration, which has vowed to make changes to the policies of the previous government.

Snowden, a former employee of government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton who worked at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, made international headlines after exposing the US government's secret surveillance programs to the media and fleeing to Hong Kong.

Iceland was approached informally by an intermediary who said Snowden was asking for asylum there, but it declined to say whether it would grant his wish, Reuters reported.

Iceland has no extradition treaty with the US, and could be a possible choice for Snowden, said Wang Honggang, assistant director of the Institute of American Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Respondents to the poll, conducted by USA Today and the Pew Research Center, were divided over whether they approve of the surveillance programs.

Obama defended the programs in an interview shown on Monday, and rejected comparisons with former president George W. Bush.

"The revelations have damaged Obama's image," Wang said.

He said that some US politicians have called Snowden a spy for the Chinese government out of concern for US domestic politics and with the aim of demonizing Snowden.

"At government level, the two countries are trying to prevent this single case from jeopardizing their overall relations. But it is a fact that China and the US have deep contradictions over cybersecurity, which need to be handled carefully," Wang said.

Professor Peter Ferdinand, an expert in comparative governance in East and Southeast Asia at Warwick University in Britain, said: "Obviously, it does make for a problem about cooperation between the US and some other countries. ...

"Clearly, the idea that American companies, not just in the United States but also operating abroad, may also have been pressured by the US government into giving information about users of services is going to make governments elsewhere more nervous and cautious about how they deal with those companies in the future."

Robin Niblett, director of the Chatham House independent policy institute in London and an expert on US-European foreign policy, said he understands why Snowden exposed the telecoms program concerning privacy rights for citizens, but the fact he has gone public about foreign intelligence collections is a "betrayal of his job".

Contact the writers at chengguangjin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/20/2013 page12)