Edward Snowden Offered Asylum In Venezuela

Edward Snowden has been a man without a country since blowing the whistle on the NSA PRISM surveillance program last month, but that could be about to change. On Friday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he would grant asylum to the former intelligence contractor, according to a report from Reuters via Yahoo! News.

“I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to the young American, Edward Snowden, so that in the fatherland of (Simon) Bolivar and (Hugo) Chavez, he can come and live away from the imperial North American persecution,” Maduro said during a televised parade that marked the country’s independence day.

Snowden is rumored to be in the transit area at Moscow International Airport, and given the Friday announcement from Iceland, he may be running out of options.

A group of Iceland Pirate Party members introduced a bill on Thursday that would have granted Edward Snowden asylum. Members from Iceland’s parliament refused to comment on the bill until its summer recess.

On her blog, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an Iceland parliament member, who has worked with WikiLeaks in the past, wrote:

“It is with great grief I have to announce that Snowden will not be getting any form of shelter in Iceland because the current government doesnt [sic] even have enough spine for the parliament to discuss Snowden’s request.”

Meanwhile, in the US, Snowden’s popularity may be diminishing, if you believe a HuffPost/YouGov poll released on Friday. Results from the poll showed that 38 percent were now against his decision to leak information about NSA PRISM while 33 percent continue to support him.

Here’s the latest on the situation from President Obama:

Of course, that also means about 25 percent of respondents have no opinion at this time, which could mean they haven’t been following or they’re still weighing the information that is out there.

What do you think about the decision from Venezuela to grant Edward Snowden asylum?