Russian strongman Vladimir Putin this week granted U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden full citizenship in that country.
Putin and Snowden. You might say they deserve each other.
In 2013, Snowden was a National Security Agency subcontractor. He released highly classified information about several global surveillance programs the agency was running, some with the cooperation of telecommunications companies.
Some see Snowden as a hero. We do not.
In releasing the information, Snowden violated the law and the agreement he made in taking up a U.S. security clearance. He was indicted on charges of espionage and theft of government property, but fled the country for Russia before he could be apprehended and tried.
He remains a fugitive to this day.
Snowden has married -- an American woman who also now lives in Russia; they have two children -- and built a new life in the years since he fled to Russia. And as long as he chooses to remain there, he may never spend a day in prison for his crimes.
That would be an injustice. But perhaps having the privilege of citizenship in Putin's Russia is not quite as nice a life as Snowden expected it to be. Trading freedom in America for the dangerous rule of an increasingly mad dictator can't make a man -- especially one with a wife and two children -- secure about the future.
So maybe, maybe justice is coming for Edward Snowden. One way or another.