Who is Sarah Harrison and why is she holed out with Edward Snowden in Moscow?

LONDON -- Holed up with a fugitive computer expert and negotiating a legal minefield to avoid the US authorities -- WikiLeaks staffer Sarah Harrison has been here before.

As one of Julian Assange's closest aides, the blonde, willowy Briton is uniquely qualified to help US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden avoid extradition to the United States for exposing a massive surveillance program.

Snowden and Harrison have been stuck together in the transit zone of a Moscow airport since the weekend, after she accompanied him on a flight from Hong Kong as part of efforts by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks to help the American.

Harrison has been closely involved in Assange's own battle to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault, which he fears will lead to transfer to the United States and possible prosecution over his whistleblowing activities.

She virtually lived with the Australian WikiLeaks founder when he was under house arrest in the English countryside, and there have been reports that they were in a relationship.

Harrison now acts as a kind of gatekeeper at the Ecuadorian embassy in London where Assange sought asylum last year -- a move that personally cost her £3,500 ($5,300, 4,100 euros) she had put up for his bail.

Friends said the researcher, believed to be in her late 20s, was an obvious choice to help Snowden.

"She's completely trusted," said Vaughan Smith, a video journalist who owns the house in Norfolk in eastern England where Assange lived under strict bail conditions between December 2010 and June 2012.

Harrison had her own room and was at the house most of the time, but Smith rejected suggestions she was simply Assange's adoring lackey.

"I don't think I ever saw her washing socks," Smith told AFP, referring to one newspaper report from the time.

"She's a key part of the team, she's one of the people who makes everything happen.

"She was very committed to the idea of greater government openness, very hard-working -- and put up with conditions of a very difficult job under great pressure."

Smith refused to comment on rumors that Harrison was Assange's girlfriend.

"I know everything about it, but I'm not prepared to talk about that," he said.

Both are fiercely committed to their cause and Harrison appeared to complement Assange during a recent visit to the embassy by AFP, seeming organized and efficient where he is dreamy and remote, and helping him to find documents he has misplaced.

Harrison has worked for WikiLeaks since late 2010 as a researcher, media organizer and occasional spokeswoman, and is now Snowden's constant companion as he seeks refuge from US law.

A former WikiLeaks intern who asked not to be named described her as "formidable."

"Miss Harrison has courageously assisted Mr. Snowden with his lawful departure from Hong Kong and is accompanying Mr. Snowden in his passage to safety," WikiLeaks said of her role.

Questions have been raised about how a journalist with no formal legal training can help Snowden, but one of Harrison's former employers said she had unique insight into his situation.

"This is all new territory, when you're treated like some kind of enemy of the state," Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism, told AFP.

"WikiLeaks has been treated like that now for two years, and everybody who's been through it would have much more experience than [someone] who's never been there, hasn't heard the legal arguments, hasn't been subjected to the attacks."

Harrison shares Assange's well-documented concerns that WikiLeaks is under surveillance, making careful arrangements for encrypted communications with journalists about any of the group's projects.

She spent 18 months working for CIJ, located at City University London, sifting through WikiLeaks data and contributing to an as-yet-unpublished report on multinational corporations.

Harrison then worked for a couple of months at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, also based at City, analyzing classified US documents from the war in Iraq published by WikiLeaks.

"She came very highly recommended," recalled Rachel Oldroyd, deputy editor of the bureau. "She was very, very young, in her early 20s. She was a good researcher, very diligent."

Harrison's job is demanding and badly paid, but like everyone else working with WikiLeaks, money was never a factor. "She believes what she is doing is in the public interest," Smith said.

source: interaksyon.com

Snowden still at Moscow airport; Ecuador asylum decision may take weeks

MOSCOW - A former US spy agency contractor facing charges of espionage remained in hiding at a Moscow airport on Wednesday while the prospect grew of a protracted Russian-US wrangle over his fate.

Ecuador, where Edward Snowden has requested asylum, said a decision could take weeks and asked Washington to argue its case for extradition.

Russia said Snowden, whose flight is proving a growing embarrassment for President Barack Obama, was still in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport.

Snowden fled to Hong Kong after leaking details of secret US government surveillance programs, then flew on to Moscow on Sunday. There was no sign on Wednesday of him registering for onward flights out of Russia.

"They are not flying today and not over the next three days," an Aeroflot representative at the transfer desk at Sheremetyevo said when asked whether Snowden and his legal adviser, Sarah Harrison, were due to fly out.

"They are not in the system."

The logical route for Snowden to take out - and one for which he at one point had a reservation - would be an Aeroflot flight to Havana and a connecting flight to Ecuador.

The choice of alternative flights, while the United States presses other countries not to take him in or to arrest him on arrival, would appear to be be limited.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated Putin's stated opinion that he should choose a destination and fly out as soon as possible, state-run Itar-Tass news agency reported.

But Ecuador's foreign minister indicated a decision on Snowden's asylum request could take two months.

"It took us two months to make a decision on Assange so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time," Foreign Minister Richard Patino said in Kuala Lumpur, referring to the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

He added that Ecuador would consider giving Snowden protection before that if he went to Ecuador's embassy - but Russian officials say Snowden does not have a visa to enter Russia, and the United States has revoked his passport.

Snowden, with his surveillance information, remains within the grasp of a Russian state clearly not in a hurry to dispatch him from its territory. Ecuador, which has not in the past flinched from taking on Western powers, is similarly not rushing to banish the uncertainty now plaguing US authorities.

Behind the scenes US officials have been meeting Russian counterparts on a resolution.

‘Ravings and rubbish’

Snowden has not been seen in the transit area - the zone between the departure gate and formal entry into the country.

Putin denied he was being interviewed by Russian intelligence and said any US accusations that Moscow was aiding him were "ravings and rubbish".

That prompted a new extradition demand by Washington, which said there was a clear legal basis to do so.

Putin says he will not extradite Snowden. By declaring that he is in the transit area, albeit unseen, Russian authorities maintain the position that he has not formally entered Russia - a step that would take the dispute to another level.

The row could, however, further fray ties between the United States and Russia, which have argued over human rights and Putin's treatment of opponents in a third term and have squared off over the Syria conflict in the UN Security Council.

Snowden, who worked as a systems administrator at a US National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, has been called a "traitor" in the United States for revealing its secrets.

Putin, a former KGB officer, may feel little sympathy for someone who has broken the secrecy code. He has suggested the surveillance methods revealed by Snowden were justified in fighting terror, if carried out lawfully.

But Snowden could be a useful propaganda tool for Moscow, which accuses the United States of violating rights and freedoms it vocally urges other countries, including Russia, to protect.

Russia's upper parliament house said it planned to investigate whether US intelligence agencies had violated the rights of Russians by collecting data from Internet companies.

Snowden was the source of disclosures about US government surveillance, including details about a program that collected emails, chat logs and other types of data from companies such as Google Inc., Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. - all widely used in Russia.

Upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko said a working group would be formed to look into the Russian operations of Internet companies to determine "whether human rights have been violated, whether there has been interference in the personal lives of citizens," Itar-Tass reported.

A member of the Kremlin's advisory Human Rights Council, anti-corruption activist Kirill Kabanov, appealed to colleagues to ask Putin to invite Snowden to remain in Russia.

"We have shown that we are a weak country," state-run RIA quoted Kabanov as saying. "We could provide him with some kind of asylum. Surely we are not weaker than Ecuador." (Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow and Siva Sithraputhran in Kuala Lumpur)

source: interaksyon.com