Edward Snowden Leaves Hong Kong 536
hazeii writes "Ed Snowden, the U.S. whistleblower responsible for exposing the degree to which the U.S. watches its own citizens (as well as the rest of the world) is reported as having left Hong Kong for Moscow. According to the South China Morning Post, he is on a commercial flight to Russia but intriguingly it seems this is not his final destination. It's not clear whether this move is in response to the U.S. request to extradite him."
BBC and NYT confirm this news (Score:2, Informative)
Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:4, Informative)
That, of course, could all be misdirection.
Arrived in Moscow...left with Venezuelan diplomat (Score:3, Informative)
According to Interfax.
God speed. Enjoy the hot Venezuelan women. There is no justice for you in the US...not anymore.
Re:Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:5, Informative)
That's what I've heard reported elsewhere as well. But just now I saw that the Norwegian Pirate Party claims he's en route to Oslo [twitter.com].
Rough translation of the tweet: "#Snowden has landed in Moscow on the way to Oslo, Gardermoen. The Pirate Party will mobilize support in Oslo when he arrives."
No idea if that's legit.
Re:Going to Russia for safety from the US. (Score:5, Informative)
Eh, it's happened now and then [wikipedia.org]...
He is not entering Russia. (Score:5, Informative)
"Russia’s Interfax news service, citing a “person familiar with the situation,” reported that Mr. Snowden would remain in transit at an airport in Moscow for “several hours” pending an onward flight to Cuba, and would therefore not formally cross the Russian border or be subject to detention."
Re:How strange. (Score:4, Informative)
How strange it is that Russia has become the bastion of human rights and the right to expose corruption.
I don't know what news you have been ready but this is hardly the case. The Russian government cracks down hard on anyone who does anything to embarrass it. If Snodew was a Russion who had leaked KGB info they'd go every bit as hard on him as are government has; and then not even consider stopping there.
No they see this as an opportunity to score diplomatic leverage of some kind, or maybe its just an ego thing for Putin to "Stick it to the man" who knows; in any case this is just an enemy of my enemy is a friend situation, nothing especially virtuous on the part of the Russians. Rainbows and moon beams have not suddenly replaced the usual shit from Vladamir's ass.
Re:How strange. (Score:5, Informative)
How strange it is that Russia has become the bastion of human rights and the right to expose corruption.
Tell that to Pussy Riot. I'm sure that will comfort them while they are either imprisoned in Russia or living elsewhere to avoid prosecution in Russia.
Re:Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:5, Informative)
Whether you think what he did was good aside, he's absolutely guilty of distributing confidential information and has admitted it.
He has admitted to violating a contract, but contracts are superseded by the laws of the land. He is accused of treason, for which he has not admitted to nor has what he admitted to indicate treason. What he has admitted to is that he observed the government breaking the law.
Re:Going to Russia for safety from the US. (Score:5, Informative)
Russia isn't the same old USSR any more.
Take what you hear through western media with a pinch of salt - I highly recommend reading/viewing RT [rt.com] as well as western media to get both perspectives. The different spin each side give the same story is interesting and you can bet the truth is maybe there somewhere in the middle.
Re:BBC and NYT confirm this news (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, lets get this idea of In Transit [wikitravel.org] in front of your Average American. In most countries, you can land at an airport and 'not be in the country' - you are in transit. You don't have to show your passport, you don't need a Visa, you don't need much except directions to the next flight.
In the current Soviet States of America, you may need all of those things and some additional paperwork.
The upshot is that Snowden is likely just connecting to somewhere else without the annoying hassles he would if he tried it in the US. Russia isn't necessarily the good guys, it's just that the US is turning out to be the obese 1600 pound poorly trained gorilla.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
Re:How strange. (Score:4, Informative)
No, you fools! Russia has nothing to do with this. He's just IN TRANSIT. He is just wandering through an airport. In the civilized world, that is international territory for the purposes of free transit. He's not 'visiting' Russia.
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry; I tried to follow your advice by reading the Pravda (English version; I can't read Russian), but I couldn't keep a straight face:
(...) Obama nervously looked over his notes as Putin spoke clearly from his memory and intelligence. At meetings end Obama then went on to try and slap a handshake. It was met with President Putin's stone hand which withered Obama's smile away. Putin's firm grip declared who's top dog in this world.
And this wasn't in the Opinions section!
Re:Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:5, Informative)
the problem is, intent is a major part of espionage, and what is on the table so far, has no indication of that.
Nixon's DoJ filed espionage charges against Ellsberg too. Obama and Nixon are turning out to have very similar governance styles. Except Nixon only filed one Espionage Act charge against leaker(s) - Obama is up to seven. Before Obama the total stood at three.
Re: Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:5, Informative)
As a Venezuelan, I can tell you that we are not governed by a despotic government. Scream at me if you like but we just had an election after the other president we had died, people were kind of undecided between two candidates that represented two very different political ideologies. One of them won and while people might feel angry that does not give you the right to say that is despotic. In fact, I believe that is how true democracy should work. Who says that I cannot vote for a socialist government in a democracy? If anything, I think Venezuelans have been enjoying a lot of political freedoms in that regard with a couple of issues. A country is not only composed of rich people and corporations dictating what is good for everybody else.
Having said that, the current Venezuelan government has made some colossal mistakes regarding currency exchange controls that is affecting all the industry. They make Chavez look like Adam Smith in a way.
Re:He is not a whistleblower (Score:5, Informative)
authorized by and deemed legal by Congress and the court system
That's not entirely true. The court system has not ruled one way or another whether the secret programs are legal. The Supreme Court has so far refused to hear cases brought against the NSA's spying program because the defendands have not been able to prove that their constituional rights were violated by these programs (due to their secret nature) but with Snowden's leaks they can now easily prove that their communications have in fact been targeted and, as a Verizon customer, the ACLU has filed a case against the NSA in federal court [aclu.org].
Thanks to Snowden the Supreme Court will likely be forced to rule on the constitutionality of these programs and if they are found uncsontitutional it matters not what laws Congress passed or Executive Orders the President issued to authorize them because those all become null and void.
16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256:
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be In agreement. It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be valid; one must prevail. This is succinctly stated as follows:
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it.....
A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
No one Is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:5, Informative)
Pravda is about equivalent to The Enquirer. Its a tabloid, and its quite funny, but its not journalism.
Re:Going to Russia for safety from the US. (Score:4, Informative)
For example up until about 1968 black people were still being killed for trying to vote in the South, and they're still not doing that well. If you were black, you'd be a lot better off in the Communist bloc in the 1970s.
Really, a black person would show up to vote in 1968 and federal secret police would shove them in the back of a van and take them to a secret prison, or to an execution site where they would put a bullet in the back of their head without a trial?
Yes, that happened quite a bit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_civil_rights_workers'_murders [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton [wikipedia.org]
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:5, Informative)
On CNN on the other hand I only hear short stories about snowden and wether or not he can be extradited. There was ZERO information about the real issue: the government collecting all the data of all the US citicens all the time.
So this time rt.com seems to be the more complete source of information and CNN seems to be biased or at least not giving a full report and critical report. However i'm sure those roles are reversed when there is some big scandal in russia.
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:4, Informative)