Snowden asks for asylum in six more countries

WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) -- U.S. National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden has requested asylum in six more countries, WikiLeaks said Friday.

Snowden has applied for asylum in 21 countries in all, Politico reported.

None of the nations has granted Snowden's request and the United States has suspended his passport. He was last reported caught in a kind of diplomatic "no-man's-land" at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

Politico said Friday the former NSA private contractor's worst fear -- that nothing will have changed after his release of thousands of sensitive and top-secret documents on U.S. surveillance of private communications -- may be coming true.

"People will see in the media all these disclosures, they'll know the lengths the government is going to grant themselves powers, unilaterally, to create greater control over American society and global society," he told The Guardian in an interview in which he came out as the source of the document leak. "But they won't be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests."

Politico noted Congress has not undertaken action on telephone records tracking or Internet monitoring.

Instead, members of Congress specializing in intelligence matters -- including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- have defended NSA snooping.

"I feel I have an obligation to do everything I can to keep this country safe," Feinstein told The New York Times. "So put that in your pipe and smoke it."