Where can an American go to avoid being extradited back to the US?

Edward Snowden, the contractor identified as the source of leaks about the US electronic surveillance program, may face extradition to the US wherever he goes. Here are six places that have proven that extradition to the US isn't easy.

4. Russia

In an ironic turn of events, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that Russia – with its own history of persecuting whistleblowers – would consider granting asylum to Snowden. Russia has been making a name for itself by denying extradition requests. This lack of cooperation stems, in part, from the fact that they have not signed a bilateral extradition treaty with the US, and that the Russian Constitution forbids extraditing nationals to foreign countries. This most recently came up during discussions of extraditing Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, mother of the alleged Boston bombers.

If Snowden requests it, Russia might welcome him with open arms and maybe even give him the Depardieu treatment. While fleeing allegations of tax evasion, President Vladimir Putin personally granted Gerard Depardieu, the prolific and outspoken French actor, Russian citizenship and protection from his pursuers. But it is unclear whether Snowden, with his much-touted ideals, would accept sanctuary in a country notorious for its treatment of political dissidents.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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