Андрей Солдатов - The Red Web - The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries

Snowden’s revelations had a huge impact. Today the Internet is ubiquitous, connecting everything from dating to purchases to the exchange of the most sensitive and personal information. Many people have questioned whether there is such a thing as privacy anymore. Human rights organizations around the world supported Snowden as a way to push back against the surveillance state, to reclaim some privacy, and to allow information to flow freely without the threat of being monitored by the state. Snowden’s revelations touched off a campaign around the globe to reexamine the issues of digital freedoms and surveillance.

But just as he made the disclosures, Snowden landed in a country with a long tradition of secrecy and suppressing freedom of speech, a landscape roiled by the secret control and surveillance he claimed to despise.

At first Snowden was stuck in the airport terminal because his passport had already been revoked by the United States and he did not have valid documents. He was supposed to be in a special transit zone, but no one could find him. What at first looked like a bad joke turned into long, dreadful weeks as Russian and international journalists scoured the airport looking for him. The journalists bought plane tickets in order to be admitted to secure areas, and some even flew to Cuba on a plane Snowden was rumored to be taking—he was not on the flight. It became obvious to the journalists that Snowden was well protected. Unlike other Moscow airports, Sheremetyevo had a special FSB detachment, established there in Soviet times when it was the only international airport in the country, as well as a normal section made up of the border guards. Snowden spent thirty-nine days, invisible, supposedly somewhere in the Sheremetyevo Airport.

On June 25, at a meeting with the president of Finland, Putin insisted that “our special services never worked with Mr. Snowden and are not working with him now.” He called Snowden a “transit passenger” who “remains in the transit hall.” Putin ruled out extraditing Snowden to the United States, where he was charged with leaking classified information, and declared that Snowden “has committed no crimes in the Russian Federation.” [15] Transcript of the press conference of Vladimir Putin with president of Finland Sauli Niinistö, June 25, 2013, http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/5646 . A week later Putin insisted, “Snowden is not our agent, never was, and isn’t today.” [16] News conference following the working meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) summit, the transcript on the site of the Kremlin, July 1, 2013, http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/5666 . Putin seemed in these early weeks to be attempting to keep his distance from Snowden, saying he was a free man, comparing him to dissidents and human rights activists. Putin said Snowden could leave Russia if he wanted to. But was that the truth?

On July 11 Tanya Lokshina, the head of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, was at her office in Moscow, busy preparing for a business trip to New York. Although she appears to be a fragile woman with delicate features under a mop of fiery red hair, Lokshina was a fearless human rights activist who had carried out investigations of brutal abuses in Chechnya and Dagestan and during the Russian war with Georgia.

The Kremlin was never very pleased with her organization or Lokshina personally. She received menacing phone calls, and in October 2012 anonymous threats were sent to her cell phone that included details that could have been obtained only by eavesdropping on her. At the time, she was six months pregnant. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, declared that the people threatening her “knew where she lived, what she was doing. They made explicit reference to the fact of her pregnancy. They threatened harm to herself and to her unborn baby.” [17] Andrew E. Kramer, “Rights Group Says Its Researcher in Moscow Is Threatened,” New York Times , October 4, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/world/europe/human-rights-watch-says-its-moscow-researcher-threatened.html .

Lokshina had left Russia for a while, but now she was back in Moscow and focused on her work. Her son, Nikita, was six months old.

At 5 p.m. that day her assistant, Masha, opened the door and said, “Tanya, you have a phone call from Snowden.” [18] The account below is based on Tanya Lokshina, interview with authors, August 2014. Lokshina for a moment thought it had to be some sort of joke, but Masha insisted that a man on the phone said he is calling from Sheremetyevo, represents Snowden, and that Snowden wanted to meet her; the man on the phone was providing details of the meeting. Lokshina told Masha to give the caller her e-mail but still didn’t think it was really Snowden.

In five minutes she got an e-mail from ed.snowden@lavabit.com:

To: edsnowden@lavabit.com

From: edsnowden@lavabit.com

Date: 07/11/2013 04:12PM

Subject: Invitation to Edward Snowden statement TOMORROW 12 July 2013 @ 5:00PM Moscow Time

I have been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world. These nations have my gratitude, and I hope to travel to each of them to extend my personal thanks to their people and leaders. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world. Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the U.S. Government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [19] The e-mail was provided to authors by Lokshina.

The letter went on, inviting the human rights organizations and “other respected individuals” to join Snowden the next day at the airport, promising a discussion about “the next steps forward in my situation.” Lokshina was instructed to meet at Terminal F, in the “centre of the arrival hall,” and “someone from airport staff will be waiting there to receive you with a sign labeled ‘G9.’” Lokshina thought that “9” could mean the number of people invited. An identical e-mail arrived for Sergei Nikitin, director of Amnesty International’s office in Moscow. [20] Sergei Nikitin, interview with authors, August 2014. Nikitin had directed Amnesty in Russia since 2003 and was also a target of the Russian authorities, who, a few months earlier, raided the organization’s office, a few small rooms hidden in an obscure courtyard in a derelict old building. [21] Andrew Roth and David M. Herszenhorn, “Russian Authorities Raid Amnesty International Office,” New York Times , March 25, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/world/europe/russian-authorities-raid-amnesty-international-office.html?_r=0 .

Lokshina thought the e-mail looked strange. It was also very formal, addressed to no one. “I thought it was false. The letter was written in strange and awkward language.” She had spent years in the United States in her youth, and it looked to be written in British English: “in the centre of the arrival hall…” The telephone number was also unusual—a mobile number. Most Russian mobile numbers are registered to people, not organizations, so it was impossible, from the number, to discern anything about who was behind it. Lokshina forwarded the e-mail to her colleagues at the headquarters of Human Rights Watch as well as to a pair of friends, the Moscow correspondents of the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph . Nikitin had also sent it to his headquarters. Both were skeptical and uncertain.

Impulsively Lokshina then put the e-mail on her Facebook page. It made a huge and immediate splash in the media. The rest of the day and the next morning she felt under siege—the phone rang constantly, her son demanded her attention, and she still didn’t know whether to go to the airport. When she got another call from the same person who had first phoned and was now asked for passport details to get to the secure area, she realized the invitation was for real.