When it comes to anti-American chutzpah, there’s no beating Rafael Correa, the autocratic leader of tiny, impoverished Ecuador. Mr. Correa and his foreign minister said Monday that they were considering an asylum request by Edward Snowden. If he can find his way to South America, it appears likely that the former National Security Agency contractor would receive the same welcome as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent the past year in Ecuador’s London embassy.
For years, Sr. Correa has been known for his prosecutions of his own country’s journalists and his attempts to destroy the Organization of American States’ office on press freedom. But this month he outdid himself: The country’s rubber-stamp legislature passed a new media law, widely known as the “gag law,” that was aptly described as “the most serious setback for freedom of the press and of expression in the recent history of Latin America.”
Mr. Snowden should be particularly interested in Section 30 of the law, which bans the “free circulation, especially by means of the communications media” of information “protected under a reserve clause established by law.”
Some might find it awkward to be granting sanctuary to one country’s self-proclaimed whistle blower while stifling their own. Not Rafael Correa, who for years has been campaigning against the United States while depending on it to prop up his economy with trade preferences. Thanks to the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Protection Act, Ecuador-which uses the dollar as its currency-is able to export many goods to the United States duty-free, supporting roughly 400,000 jobs in a country of 14 million people.
As it happens, the preferences will expire next month unless renewed by Congress. If Mr. Correa welcomes Mr. Snowden, there will be an easy way to demonstrate that Yanqui-baiting has its price.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 06/27/2013