What the heck was Snowden’s letter if not a request for asylum ahead of the formal paperwork? It’s a mirror image of what he did ahead of getting asylum in Russia following his stopover in Hong Kong upon fleeing the US after his document dump became public via Greenwald.

And Brazil isn’t going to play this game:

Brazilian newspaper reports Edward Snowden won’t get asylum in the country http://t.co/IyZspX4tle

— lawhawk (@lawhawk) December 18, 2013

Greenwald knows that all of Snowden’s actions look atrocious and that he’s avoiding US justice because he’d be found guilty of espionage so Greenwald’s misdirecting and hoping to keep attention on the alleged crimes the US carried out in violating other countries’ laws (which doesn’t violate US law btw, because the US intelligence agencies are tasking with finding out this information just as surely as foreign intel agencies are tasked with finding out what is going on behind closed doors in US policy circles). Everyone spies, no one wants to admit it, and getting caught doing it - even with allies and neutral parties - causes a sticky wicket even though everyone knows that it’s done to confirm what is stated publicly with what’s going on behind closed doors.

Greenwald and Snowden wanted to disrupt US intel gathering, and by shopping around to countries that have interests antithetical to the US, he’s not a patriot or hero. He’s a criminal on the run. Greenwald knows this, which is why he’s bloviating.