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Edward Snowden Leaves Hong Kong
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."
The BBC and the New York Times also have articles reporting the Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong on a flight to Moscow.
What I heard on NPR this morning is that Snowden's rumored travel involves Moscow to Cuba and then Cuba to Caracas, Venezuela according to an unidentified Aeroflot official.
That, of course, could all be misdirection.
My work here is dung.
According to Interfax.
God speed. Enjoy the hot Venezuelan women. There is no justice for you in the US...not anymore.
Eh, it's happened now and then...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
From NYT:
"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."
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.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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 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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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.
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
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton