Slashdot Mirror
Bolivian President's Plane 'Rerouted Over Snowden Suspicions'
niftydude writes with the latest news on the Edward Snowden saga. It appears that the Bolivian President's plane was denied access to French and Spanish airspace due to suspicions that Snowden was on board. Quoting a few pieces from the Guardian: "In an extraordinary move, France and Portugal revoked flight clearances for the Bolivian President's plane on Tuesday after representations were reportedly made by the U.S. State Department. Mr Morales was flying home from an energy conference in Moscow and his aircraft was hastily rerouted to Vienna, Austria. Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca angrily denied that Mr Snowden was on the President's aircraft, a fact later confirmed by Austrian authorities, and said France and Portugal would have to explain why they abruptly canceled authorization for the flight. AP reports that Venezuela's foreign minister Elias Jaua has condemned the decision by France and Portugal to block the plane from its airspace. He claimed that changing a flight's route without checking on how much fuel was left in the plane, put Morales' life at risk."
Spain claims they only agreed to allow the plane to refuel there if it were subject to search, and France did end up authorizing use of their air space today. In related news, Julian Assange and the general secretary of Reporters Without Borders Christophe Deloire published an Op-Ed today why Europe must protect Snowden. And: dryriver sends news that Ecuador discovered that their embassy in London was bugged, describing the incident as "another instance of a loss of ethics at the international level in relations between governments."
My country's dick is so fucking big that we can have entire continents close off their airspace! Jesus, I want to snort a mountain of coke and fuck my wife's sister!!!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
A harsh, but reasonable punishment would be to re-route Airforce One to Austria every time Obama wants to visit some country in Europe.
No matter what you think of Snowden, at this point he's just a whistleblower or spy.
If the US wants to search plane, they can fucking do it themselves - they still have an Air Force, after all.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Doesn't matter. It's ALL *OUR* TURF!!!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
had a criminal past we in Canada would let me stay and give him refugee status.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
and I'll bet France and Portugal have business interests associated with Bolivia's lithium deposits. Morales could spank both of them by levying an access fee amounting to a few hundred million Euros. Gotta make it more expensive to be a USA poodle if we want this bad behavior to stop.
If this was done to Air Force One, there would be outrage and calls for war.
It's not supposed to be legal to interfere with the travel of diplomats or search them.
If this was done at the request of the Americans, they've well overestimated their own importance. If this was done by someone trying to keep the Americans happy, they crossed well over the line.
But America seems to believe the rest of the world should be subservient to their wishes -- and the rest of the world is waking up to a big "Fuck You".
Keep braying about how you're the defenders of Truth and Freedom, while lying your faces off and becoming an authoritarian state. What Snowden has done is demonstrate that the US only gives a shit about themselves, and will break any law that stands in their way.
Don't matter. Seems that all of them bend over gracefully and at once to the one that they know spy on all of them. Maybe the place that matter is Stockolm, they all have the syndrome.
Snowden didn't make you look bad by revealing your little games both at home and abroad. You made us look bad by pulling this shit in the first place.
Cut it out and give Snowden the hero's welcome home he deserves.
The UE needs a new par of pants after this, maybe a par with some stars and bars on it
What concerns me the most is just how aggressively the entire world seems to be against him, when all he's basically revealed is the existence of a high-level domestic spy program. Yeah, that's horrible and shit, but that alone wouldn't have the US government moving political mounts pressuring other countries not to harbor him.
What did he potentially have access to that's so damning to the government that it's strong-arming the entire world over the possibility that he could release it?
On the heels of revelations about US spying on its European Allies, why are you people putting up with this crap?
Have gnu, will travel.
... isn't that supposed to be a given in todays spy vs. spy MAD comic?
Afaict Morales was flying in a business jet that didn't have enough fuel to go Russia-Bolivia nonstop, so the original plan was to refuel in Western Europe before continuing on. So that complicates the possibility of just overflying without permission and daring them to shoot him down, because he'd actually have to land and refuel at their airports, not just overfly.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It was Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal. The submitter also neglected to mention that these countries deny the accusations.
If Ecuador really want Assange all they have to do is pull the embassy out of London. There are international agreements that require that they let embassy staff leave the country unharmed. If the British stop them from leaving, arrest everyone at the British embassy in Ecuador in retaliation until they return their people. I'm guessing the Ecuadorian prisons are harsher than the British ones.
This only applies to accredited diplomats, which Assange isn't.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
From the BBC article...
Meanwhile, France has urged EU-US trade talks be delayed amid the fallout from secrets leaked by Mr Snowden.
The talks are due to begin on Monday but claims that the US bugged EU diplomatic offices in the US, and spied on internal computer networks, have upset transatlantic relations.
French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Berkacem said the talks should be suspended for 15 days to enable mutual trust to be restored.
Yet at the same time it is claimed that the French potentially violated the diplomatic priviledges of the President of an interntionally-recognised, non "axis-of-evil", democratic nation-state in order to please the USA?
Looks like genuine 'realpolitik' at its cynical best; we're pissed that you're spying on us, but we'll still help you collect your "bad guy" in case we need you to return the favour in the future. Just like what happened when NZ gave back the Rainbow Warrior killers so fast...
Bottom line: Why is this spying stuff so persistent and pervasive? Because everybody in power wants it...
Do what we say or we'll declare bankruptcy and trash the world economy?
I love all this Snowden stuff... it's like a real life John LeCarre novel! Let me go get the popcorn...
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
By now US is at war against the world, by their own definition, the ones that act as allies in things like this are targets too, even if they keep covering they ears and eyes to not see the evidence. Even if international law and rights used to have some meaning, is not anymore.
Ok, maybe they have to act like this even if they don't want to. The biggest benefit of massive, worldwide snooping on everything digital is not stopping terrorist, is just have a really big database for blackmailing, to force anyone to do what they want, from the top governors to the last shoeshiner.
Dear opposition parties of all involved countries (France, Spain, Austria, ...), please drag the responsible ministers to parliament and have them explain every detail of the closure of the airspace as soon as possible. I don't know how it is organized exactly in those countries, but in the political system I know (Netherlands), all ministers are forced to respond to any question posed by members of parliament. The sillier questions can be answered by mail within a few weeks deadline, but I guess that for more important issues like this one, they can have any minister get his ass in parliament with a few days notice. Willfully giving wrong answers is political suicide via a 'motion of no confidence'. In the more likely case that the relevant ministers are supported by the leading majority, they can still be forced to make some embarrassing statements (yes, Obama did call us to close the airspace ...), which could lead to ridicule in the press and losses in the polls.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Not a bad idea, but a hundred million euro wouldn't come close to the amount of financial pressure the USA could dish out.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Enough is enough! I have had it with this motherfucking Snowden on this motherfucking plane!"
No good deed goes unpunished.
Yes, this. Hell France, Portugal, Spain and Germany slap sanctions on any country that even looks at them wrong, huff and puff about international law, human rights etc. Now it is they who are violating every principle they proclaim to stand for... Time someone have them some of their own.
So put him in the car with the "accredited diplomats."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
One of my former co-workers managed to make it 6 months back in the mid-1990s ... he said they'd give you a function to write, tell you what the inputs and outputs were, and what language it was to be written in ... and that was it ... no clue if it could be written better because you weren't allowed to know what interacted with it. He quit.
Another person I knew went to work for one of the three letter agencies, and said that after 2001 he realized they were just out to get all brown people, and being a brown person himself, he didn't feel comfortable working there anymore.
Unfortunately, for most of the code monkeys doing this sort of stuff, you can't just reprogram the guidance system to make the world's largest jiffy-pop.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It was Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal. The submitter also neglected to mention that these countries deny the accusations.
Citation? I'm not sure that Spain and Italy were accused, but I know that at least so far Portugal and France have not denied the accusations. They refuse to comment on the matter. Are you gullible enough to believe that the Bolivian president just made up the whole thing and chose to have his plane diverted to Austria and then searched?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Well, that's nice. So the Bolivian Pres. was supposed to circle French airspace for a whole day? I know, it was probably a different flight entirely, but still...
So why, then, did he choose to go into exile rather than accept the consequences and justify his actions in court?
Have you seen what due process has been for Bradley Manning? During his nine-month stay in Fort Quantico, he was reportedly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, forced to sleep naked without pillows and sheets on his bed, and restricted from physical recreation or access to television. A military judge ruled that his treatment was excessive and credited him with some time served against any future punishment.
The government has demonstrated that it will crush whistleblowers who try to defy it. Who in their right mind would allow this to happen to them? Extreme measures for Snowden to protect himself just mirror the extreme measures our government has taken to punish those who oppose it.
Even money that on Thursday, July 4th there will be a large, showy domestic incident that will be nothing but a False Flag operation to again distract the American sheeple with fear and unthinking Jingoism.
Shame on you France.
Shame on you Spain.
Shame on you Portugal.
Shame on you Italy.
Now bend over and have Uncle Ben have it's way with you some more.
Privacy is terrorism.
...to live in Austria, where Mrs. Miki-Leitner, the Minister of Interior Affairs, said ( after the dust had settled somewhat, this afternoon ):
"This was a missed chance for Mr. Snowden. Austria has shown not to let itself be intimidated by the US. If Mr. Snowden had come here, he would have gotten a serious examination of his request for political asylum, as well as an investigation into recognizing him as a political refugee."
I would say: Edward, life in Vienna is more than bearable. Plenty of high-tech firms in case you ever need a job again ( which I doubt ), and the border to Switzerland is only a few train hours away, in case you need to run. Come over here, man !!!
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
It seems US govt propaganda department aparatchiks never stop. They'll repeat their shit over and over again, conveniently hiding behind AC. I'm sick seeing taxpayer money thrown into this. Fuck you.
All well and good, but how are you going to get exports out of the country in the first place when the U.S. Navy decides to blockade your ports?
Everybody who can do it, does it. Back in the 80s the US had to abandon an embassy we were building in the USSR because it was full of bugs even before it was built, so many and so deep in the infrastructure that there was no way to clean it.
Every country has spies to spy on every other country it considers worth spying on. The intelligence world even has a term for spies attached to a country's official diplomatic mission.
Threaten to make piracy more difficult in the USA, and watch as the biggest websites in the world make a big deal of it.
The Government of most western countries piss over our liberty, while the global super power spies on all of us and chases a whistle-blower all around the globe with the intent of destroying his life, and the best we can manage is a few angry geeks muttering online.
Seriously?
Capricious application of the law is a prime sign of corruption.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Carrot: a billion dollar bounty
Stick: threat of military force
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
France also had Morales' visit earlier this year, he planed to buy helicopters and Airbus planes... Good job president Hollande !
France and Spain both claim that they gave permission for the plane carrying Evo Morales to cross their air space. At this point I have not seen any evidence corroborating the Bolivian claims. The government of Evo Morales has made somewhat dubious claims in the past so that I am not willing to condemn other governments purely on their say-so. However, I am also not willing to reject their claims outright. I merely believe that we should withhold judgment on this case until more information is forthcoming.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You'd have to somehow get the car in front of the embassy door: inside the building, in a corridor, you'd need a tiny, tiny car that car climb stairs or fit in elevators.
Maybe the Wiki folks and anonymous should start phoning in anonymous tips that Eric Snowden is on every flight leaving Moscow from now until European air space is again free.
Who did what now?
You'd have to somehow get the car in front of the embassy door: inside the building, in a corridor, you'd need a tiny, tiny car that car climb stairs or fit in elevators.
Problem solved!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The "biggest websites in the world" are already complicit in the activities that the US is in trouble for, so don't expect any impetus from them this time around.
...is in a handbasket.
Sounds like a job for the Peel P-50!
I'm sooooo thrilled that we're using Stalin as our standard of comparison. How about Churchill? I'd like us to be equal or better than Great Britain under him. Now there's a decent standard.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
So put him in a diplomatic "pouch" of sufficient size for him to be safe and comfortable until he is on friendly territory.
You'd have to somehow get the car in front of the embassy door: inside the building, in a corridor, you'd need a tiny, tiny car that car climb stairs or fit in elevators.
Something like a Peel P50?
There's no way Snowden is getting out of Russia to any of those countries that he applied for asylum, except maybe to China. US and its allies are doing everything to capture him. So, Mr. Snowden, send that asylum application back to Russia as this will probably be your only best option outside of living in an airport or what awaits you in the US. Just leak everything right now or work carefully through someone else. That way you won't break Putin's terms.
Yes, I believe the Bolivian president just made the whole thing up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-bolivia-plane-vienna
Officials at Portugal's foreign ministry and National Civil Aviation Authority could not be reached for comment. French government officials reached overnight said they could not confirm whether Morales' plane was denied permission to fly over France.
The Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, visited Morales at the airport in the early hours of Wednesday and later said that the plane had been cleared to leave. "The flight route is normal, as far as I am informed. Spain's airspace is also open for him. [Morales] will resume his trip shortly," he said.
When I read the news stories on the subject France had not yet denied the accusation. They are certainly denying it now. Although the wording of the denial seems a bit suspicious. It makes it ambiguous as to whether they did in fact deny the flight flyover permission initially and then allow it later.
Portugal seems to claim that they denied landing permission but that they did not deny permission to fly through their airspace.
Here's an interesting link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_23590259/snowden-france-denies-blocking-bolivian-plane
Portugal said it had granted permission for the plane to fly through its air space but declined Bolivia's request for a refueling stop in Lisbon due to unspecified technical reasons.
It seems unlikely that President Morales just decided out of the blue to humiliate himself and his country and spend an extra 14 hours in Vienna in order to, what? Just to make Latin Americans angry? If that is all they wanted they could have invented a much better story that did not also delay and humilate the president.
I've now also read some reports of responses from Washington. They are unwilling to explicitly deny that they contacted Portugal, France, Spain, or Italy about the Morales flight. That seems odd. That would be an easy thing to deny.
So, to me, the events are still unclear. A misunderstanding brought about by Portugal's refusal to allow a refueling and heightened by miscommunications with France is possible, but until/unless further evidence is revealed I find Bolivia's story more convincing than the alternative. It would definitely be in France's interest to deny the accusations. Portugal's answer sounds more like the truth. That they didn't deny a flyover. Just a refuelling stop.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Apologies in advance for replying to myself. But this is getting a strange aftertaste: I had not meant my OP, in any possible way, to be funny, sarcastic or ironic. Yet it got modded up to "+4 / +5, funny" in less than no time. How strange.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Russia never actually offered him asylum. They merely said they would consider it and promised that they would not extradite him back to the US. But I do agree that withdrawing his application for asylum was a risky thing to do. He may need that and the insult of withdrawing the request might make it less likely that they would approve if Snowden has no other choice. Staying in Russia would have been safer in some ways too. US planes or helicopters will not be invading Russian airspace. So he doesn't have to worry about extraordinary rendition or having his plane shot down or grounded in a US friendly country where he could be extradited.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Citation? I'm not sure that Spain and Italy were accused, but I know that at least so far Portugal and France have not denied the accusations. They refuse to comment on the matter.
The BBC are reporting that "Bolivia accused France, Italy, Spain and Portugal", and that the French foreign ministry has now issued a statement.
Those lithium deposits are essentially lying unused, as there isn't enough infrastructure yet to allow full-scale exploitation of them to occur. However, the rest of Latin America might just strike back, at least subtly. UNASUR has already called an emergency meeting, and even OAS has issued a statement strongly criticizing the US (for those that don't know, OAS has traditionally been dominated by the US and lackeys -- that's why UNASUR was created in the first place). Latin America now has a total population of almost 400 million, is a massive food exporter, as well as of various metals, and even has some countries with highly-educated populations (Chile, Argentina, and parts of Brazil) so the region is going to be a key global player in the future, as it's experiencing massive growth.
The fun thing is I remember back during the Cold War people finding refuge in embassies to defect all the time. Yet I do not remember the defectors not being able to be flown back. At best the embassy was closed for an indefinite amount of time afterwards.
All well and good, but how are you going to get exports out of the country in the first place when the U.S. Navy decides to blockade your ports?
Since Bolivia is a landlocked country, that shouldn't be an issue ;)
From "the philosophy of Andy Warhol":
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
This event suggests that Snowden will not make it out of Russia without taking evasive action. By that I mean he would need to be on an aircraft using falsified flight data, and with transponders switched off. All of which is illegal and likely to get you accidently shot down.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The only solution I can think of now would be to smuggle him on to a scheduled flight as cargo. Keep it really quiet and cross fingers that nobody accidently shoots it down.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Not gonna happen.
The National Security and Patriot Acts have suspended all individual freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States of America. No more due process, no Habeas Corpus, no right to legal council. You have no protections under the Patriot Act. Let's face it ... you live in a police state. The NSA is spying on you right now. It is an agency of the Department of Defense ... the Pentagon. When United States Military is policing private citizens the Constitution has become absolutely meaningless. Congressional oversight committees have allowed these unconstitutional acts to continue unchecked.
A whistle blower is a freedom fighter who isn't on govt (!= nation) side.
Casteism
"The only other country I know of that had a similar experiment in freedom is France, but their experiment died a lot faster."
Actually there are lots of country that had a similar experiment in nation building, many of them in the same New World hemisphere. Haiti was a republic founded by former African slaves, so that might count as the black African analog, on a smaller scale, of the white European USA.
Practically all of South America is made up of countries that tried their hand at republican democracy after cutting their ties to the motherland, Spain (Portugal in the case of Brazil). It's probably not coincidental the New World is where you'll find the most number of countries that have adopted the presidential form of government with its famous separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers. The rest of the nominally democratic world are run by parliaments where the de facto leader and head of government is a prime minister with the power to both make and implement laws, along with the official mascot, a queen, emperor or ceremonial president.