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."
Re:Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:5, Interesting)
It's probably a decoy. I highly doubt he's heading for a NATO country.
How strange. (Score:4, Interesting)
Times have sure changed.
Re:BBC and NYT confirm this news (Score:5, Interesting)
Others speculate that he's only going to Moscow in transit to Iceland (which has offered him asylum) or some other place.
AFAIK Iceland has not offered him asylum. The Icelanders just changed to a fiercely right wing government which has already refused to consider asylum unless Snowden actually lands in Reykjavik and hands in an asylum request in person. That does not exactly indicate much enthusiasm for pissing off Obama and the US Republicans. I'd say Snowden is unlikely to receive much sympathy with the current Icelandic Govt. unless the Icelandic population gets together and to forces them to reconsider by protesting or gathering enough names on a petition. Given the size of the country and the close knit nature of Icelandic society it is actually surprisingly easy to get up to 25-30% of the electorate to sign such a petition if you can stir up enough support.
Re:Run coward run!!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I totally agree.. and the old "we were just following orders" didn't work in Nurnberg and it shouldn't work here either.. ANYbody with half a brain AND who has READ the Constitution should KNOW that what they are doing is BLATANTLY unconstitutional.. I don't give a crap what the pigshit running these agencies say, its UNconstitutional..
Re: Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes I would hope he would end up in a mostly democratic country as well. It would be great to see people in Iceland rise up against international espionage of the color that the NSA is engaged in.
But after the US almost got the Turkish government to amend there constitution to use Turkish bases in the Iraq war, I realized how the US has become an agent against democracy. They used all kinds of economic and military incentives that almost brought Turkey to amend its constitution against the sentiment of the vast majority of voters in that country. I would expect the current US government would play the same knuckle twisting to get a lowly "traitor" extradited from any western ally and hence the US would play a role in spoiling another democracy.
Re:Going to Russia for safety from the US. (Score:5, Interesting)
While modded as funny this is tragic that the US government is spying wholesale on it's own citizens, breaking the spirit of the Constitution to the extent that employees of the government feel the need to "blow the whistle" and expose those activities. Then those whistle blowers have to seek asylum in country's that have been known to engage in wholesale repression of anti-government dissent by the citizens of those country's.
I suppose now's a bad time to point out that Hong Kong is technically 'China' now. So he's fled from this country to two countries known for 'repression'. Which I gotta wonder about... has the United States become worse than everyone they claim they're better than? Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, China, North Korea... the list goes on... and none of them are building dozens of massive data centers for the sole purpose of spying wholesale on its own citizens.
Where's the UN condemnation and resolutions about 'human rights' when you need them? Where's the international inspectors for our "free" elections? We've had two major elections now with clear and well-publicized failures and many allegations of voting irregularities. Oh right... forgot. We're "permanent" members of the human rights council. We could be raping our citizens publicly before chopping them up piece by piece on national TV and we'd still have a seat. -_-
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:2, Interesting)
According to the video in the article it is indeed the case. Obama had notes while Putin didn't. However, this has nothing to do with the personal qualities of any of the people involved. Obama has notes because of the nature of the US administration. Any and every speech of any US official are heavily vetted. On the Russian side, Putin has instituted a clearly different governing style.
Re:He is not a whistleblower (Score:4, Interesting)
While I appreciate your honest opinion, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that very little of this can be categorized into "black" or "white"; at least not yet. I not only respectfully disagree with the absolute premise that you offer, I also disagree with the absolute premise taken up by most of those who have replied to you. There are many questions that need to be answered before these kind of conclusions can be drawn.
It is clear that Snowden did violate his confidentiality agreement - there is no arguing this. He broke the law, and I'm not going to dispute it. The legality of the program at-large, however, has not been established. You are correct that the program was authorized by Congress. Suggesting that the program was deemed legal by the court system is dubious, at best. The existence of FISA courts, where federal judges review and grant surveillance warrants does not qualify as judicial review and does very little to validate that the program meets constitutional standards. If it is established that the program violated the constitution (the highest law of the land), it will be the government who violated the law, and covered it under a veil of secrecy. If this is the case, it is a serious violation of the trust of the American people; and whether or not it prevent terrorist attacks is irrelevant, as the ends don't justify the means (IMO). The government can't have it both ways - holding citizens accountable for following the law when it doesn't adhere to its own laws.
I'm also curious about you meant by Snowden doing this for his own gain. What did he have to gain? Notoriety? It seems to me that he had more to lose than he had to gain...but then again, I do not understand the desire for notoriety, and would prefer to avoid the public eye. Either way, until the program is understood and scrutinized, I don't think that it's fair to categorize Snowden is a whistle-blowing patriot or a traitor (yet).
I hope that we do the right thing here and analyze the program; asking the necessary questions to determine what is constitutionally acceptable. Further, I hope that my fellow Americans think long and hard about the implications of programs like this. I'm a bit uncomfortable with the government warehousing massive amounts of data about its citizens, even if mining it takes a warrant from a secret court. I understand the argument that companies are already doing this (to an extent)...but what differentiates them from our government is that they don't have the power to incarcerate or kill people. Now, I'm afraid that our government will sweep this under the rug, preventing any honest dialog in the name of national security. I honestly believe that even if this program is legitimate and legal, the ability to secretly monitor Americans will eventually be abused; if not by this government/administration, it will be by another one.
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:2, Interesting)
Congratulations! We almost have the trifecta of traditional European anti-Americanism, because whether it was Bismarck, Hitler, or Marx, that's what they could all agree on. The only thing that's missing from your tirade is a bit of anti-Semitism thrown in.
The US never were the good guys, they were just less bad than most others. Now the US has got worse and a lot of the others have got better. The belief that people in the US are more free than people in the rest of the world no longer has any basis in fact.
Russia powned the US by offering to consider an asylum application from Snowden, a man on the run for telling the truth about US abuses.
Russia powned the US by arming the legitimate Syrian government whilst the US tried to topple them by arming terrorist extremists.
Re: Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:4, Interesting)
I was really hoping he'd end up in Iceland.
I was really hoping that this whole ridiculous mess would wind up with him living freely as a hero in Hawaii. There's still time for that to happen. Whether it will is up to you, USA. Step up to the plate.
Re:What happened to he didn't have access? (Score:4, Interesting)
What happened to them saying he didn't have any secrets, he didn't have access, and that they weren't doing that crap, they were saying it like a week ago.
Did he release the docs he had? How come I feel like there is something missing from then & now?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/14/1431232/snowden-is-lying-say-house-intelligence-committee-leaders [slashdot.org]
This is what I'm talking about. What happened from this to now? And why then is our House Intelligence Committee Leaders lying?
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:3, Interesting)
Very few people can speak without notes or a teleprompter. Why is Obama a special case?
Very few? Remind yourself that teleprompters are a recent invention and most public speakers throughout history have spoken without them. Geez. Talk about not being able to think outside your decade.
Re:He is not a whistleblower (Score:2, Interesting)
You want a rebuttal? Here you go:
Congress can't deem things legal. The DoJ (executive branch) can claim things are legal and the courts can rule on whether they are legal, but Congress just makes laws.
Which case did the Supreme Court rule on? The closest I can think of would be al-Haramin's lawyer's case regarding the transcript of his own phone call he was mailed "accidentally". He won that case, the 9th overturned the award. However, the 9th did not overturn by claiming the warrantless wiretap was constitutional, instead they claimed that sovereign immunity meant that the government could not be held responsible for violating the constitution, and Bush's Telecommunications Nuremburg Act meant you can't hold the phone companies responsible for Just Following Orders, therefore the lawsuit was void. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, so the current "court system" position is that warrantless wiretaps are unconstitutional and illegal but you can't do anything about it, even when you have proof that it happened.
BTW, if you're so certain it's legal, you're welcome to point to which article of the Constitution permits the federal government to spy on citizens without warrant.
By telling everyone what we've already had proof of since the above-mentioned al-Haramin case, and what we've assumed since Clinton's ECHELON days. The only difference is that now we know it's every American, and not just the lawyer of some terrorists.
Was there any left?
Awww, you spy on your own citizens and now people compare you to East Germany. Reputation, like respect, is earned not given.
Perhaps the quote should be changed to "better to live on your feet than die on your knees".
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:3, Interesting)
The US has 100% of the seats in parliament reserved for one party. I think you're confusion is over the fact that that party goes by two different names.
Re:Going to Russia for safety from the US. (Score:4, Interesting)
In the 70s, over 3/4 of the people in the world lived under dictatorships and today, only 40 years later, 90% of the people live in democracies. Who do you think had the greatest role to play in bringing about that enormous change for the better? Russians, or the Chinese, or the Europeans, where in the 70s one half of the countries were Communist dictatorships and even in the West at least three countries (Spain, Portugal and Greece) were Fascist dictatorships? How did it happen? Just naturally, for the first time in the history of the world, countries all over the world decided to become democracies?
Are you saying that the US covert agencies did it by overthrowing those dicatorships?
Unfortunately they overthrew a few democratically elected governments too, and gave us dictatorships in their place. Much more in the Western hemisphere, eg Haiti, Argentina, Chile. The Reagan era was difficult for a lot of people.
You have the convert's enthusiasm. Those of us who were born in the US and had to grow up suffering with its flaws see it differently. 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. Your children would certainly get a better education.
We've had a fight between the rich oligarchs in this country who run everything, and the working people who are trying to have a democracy instead. Unfortunately the oligarchs seem to be winning, as Paul Krugman documents. There's as much inequality and lack of social mobility in the US as in Brazil. This will still be a wealthy, powerful country for a while, but the Hunt brothers and their crowd run it, and they may well decide to destroy it. How many Iraq wars are they going to come up with?
Germany was also the greatest major country in the world, in the 1920s and 1930s. We still use their industrial techniques and medical discoveries. So these things can fall aparat fast.
Re:He is not entering Russia. (Score:2, Interesting)
Not an opinion its well corroborated that Obama is an empty suit. Good at delivering scripted speeches you bet, but take away his teleprompter....
Re: Allegedly Venezuela By Way of Cuba (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually have a successful business in Venezuela and I'm not employed or paid by the government.
When they nationalized assets from companies they did pay compensation. So far they regained control of two companies that used to be state companies, like a big steel mill and the state telephone and internet company. They also took control of big corporations that controlled grain distribution for farmers and decided who they would finance (read people with big money). They nationalized failed banks instead of giving bailout money to corrupt bankers, and also started splitting farm land from big landowners (again by giving them money) so that the land could become more productive.
I have to say that a lot of these programs were actually pretty good, especially when it comes to banks and the state phone company, which keeps the cheapest cell phone rates and best internet service throughout the country. But on some other fronts they created more problems than they solved. When they nationalized cement factories because they were exporting a lot of the production instead of selling it locally, they replaced capitalist corruption with government inefficiency, since when they took it they created a major mess on the cement supply. Nowadays is better but in general I failed to see nationalizations as a bad thing. If it is used selectively it can actually be very good.
The firearms issue in Venezuela is not a despotic one either. In my case I actually prefer to be allowed to carry firearms even if I don't own one myself, but I can totally see where they are coming from. Venezuela is ridden with violence, and it's not only firearms, it's just easier for people to start hitting or screaming at each other for something they don't agree with here than in other countries I have seen. And the fact that I know one person that got shot and another one that was beaten to a pulp because some thugs were trying to get ahold of their guns really makes it safer for you not to own guns here. The guy who was shot had to carry a colostomy bag for months. Besides, the law is being discussed by a congress that is composed of chavistas and opposition alike.
And for the government taking money from the rich, I would really like to see where you got that from? I haven't seen that happening even once.
I'm sorry that you think that everybody that supports the government here is receiving grants and cannot be an independent thinker. But after being burned by extreme capitalism before Chavez came to power, it is hard for me to support the other guys. It's hard for you to understand what we went through but I just wrote to let you know that it's not only about poor people or communists or whatnot. More about rights and trying to enjoy a little bit more equality, which I believe is more visibly in the US than it ever was in Venezuela.