[–] pacman2000 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago (edited ago)
If the US government wanted to get them at any cost, I am guessing they could. It has the means to track them down, it's just not worth the diplomatic blowback and terrible press it would cause. I could just imagine how Russia would feel if we sent in troops to get Snowden. It would probably start a war or get damn close to it.
[–] Thisismyvoatusername 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
With Snowden and Assange, we do know where they are, but they cannot be reached due to diplomatic considerations. With other similar figures we either know where they are or could if it was deemed important enough. However, sometimes you know where someone is but do nothing because doing so would reveal things about your abilities too important to risk on simply getting one person. Other times the amount of resources that would need to be devoted are simply not worth it. There are only a limited number of people to assign to trackong people down and also doing everything else. So a lot of people are left alone until they mess up and cause themselves to be noticed.
they have internalized servers that bounce signals from around the world thus blocking their location from being seen by the public
[–] MinorLeakage ago
They have given up their whereabouts. Those two are still "free" because of where those whereabouts happen to be.
[–] FullyBespokedTomato 0 points 9 points 9 points (+9|-0) ago
I was fairly certain that we have known their, Assange's at least, whereabouts this whole time. Its not about knowing, its about not pissing off the wrong people to get to them. Either way, using various VPNs ToR etc, there are plenty of ways to obfuscate your IP address, even more so for people with plenty of connections to parties that would prefer they continue operating.