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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."
What has the world come to?
By the time this was posted on slashdot, he hadn't just left Hong Kong, but landed in Moscow.
DICE: When copying news in development, please make sure you update it as needed before posting. This worked better before. Not well, but it has become worse.
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.
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.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
He's anything but a coward. A coward would have kept his mouth shut.
uhh, i think the fact that he hasn't been caught yet (and disappeared) suggests he knew exactly how bad the backlash would be. he knew enough that he could plan for it.
he did not take the path of least resistance here. if he were a coward, he wouldn't have leaked the info in the first place. knowing what he knew, and not doing anything about it, is probably what he saw as cowardly.
Its the folks still working at NSA who should be rotting in jail. What they have been doing is illegal. Personally I think anyone still there should be treated as a collaborator. We didn't accept "just following orders" as an excuse after WWII, it would be good for the nation if we locked away everyone at NSA doing anything above sweeping the floors.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It's probably a decoy. I highly doubt he's heading for a NATO country.
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."
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.
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
Frankly, Sparky.. I think he's a flippin' national hero, on a par with many of the heros of the first American revolution, and I'm betting theres a LOT of us out here who think this.... He knew his life was gonna change dramatically and he'd likely be on the run from the pigshit running this country now, YET he blew the whistle on the blatantly UNconstitutional crap these three-letter fiefdoms were perpetrating on the American people.. Sure, I'll grant you that he violated a bunch of laws/rules/regulations, BUT he followed the only really important law.. the Constitution, the one mentioned in the oath that government workers take, where they swear to "protect and defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic..." He was defending it from the pigshit poseurs who are trying to shred the Constitution at every turn.. So you can call me and the rest of us who think he's a hero a moron, but we know we're the people the founding fathers had in mind, and YOU are the moron, if I was into ad hominim attacks, which I try to avoid.. But since YOU started it, I'm gonna play along.. You and your ilk are part of the problem with America today... YOU are the moron...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
You are confused. Just because Congress authorized it doesn't make it legal. Coming to mind quickly is the McCain Feingold campaign finance reform (authorized by Congress), which has come to the Supreme Court three times and every time been ruled unconstitutional, hence illegal. The NSA spying is illegal according to the 4th amendment no matter what Congress says. If they don't like it, the way to make it legal is pass an amendment to repeal the 4th amendment, whcih they know won't be possible.
Snoden exposed illegal activity by the NSA, also exposing Congress "authroizing" illegal activity without worrying about consequences because they kept it hidden from the public. So in addition to exposing the illegal activity, he also exposed the illegal cover-up of the illegal activity.
He is the definition of a whistleblower, also showing that there are no whistleblower protections for citizens in the USA.
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.
"His name was James Damore."
Who is John Galt?
Two words, my friend. "Secret laws".
Yes, lets get this idea of In Transit 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.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
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.
"We were just following orders" only fails if you lose the war.
He can spend up to 3 months in Cuba on a tourist visa. Obviously the Cuban government isn't going to extradite him and Cubana won't be sending the US any flight lists. This point is perhaps the most important. Cuba is a place where Snowdon can break the paper trail. He can stay anywhere from 1 to 90 days there and then procede to his final destination.
The only risk to this strategy is that the Cuban government may want to ask him a few questions about the NSA before allowing him to leave. Assuming the Cuban government allows him to leave I would guess Ecuador. It's obviously willing to protect whistle blowers and Assange could have discussed the matter directly with officials at his embassy. According to this list Ecuador does have an extradition treaty with the US though, but maybe it is just for murders and other violent crime. I think Ecuador and Venezuela are both nice places to live. So either way he's good as long as he has money. Hopefully he moved all of his funds out of US banks before blowing his whistle. Otherwise freezing his funds will be one of the first things the US LEO thugs will do.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
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.