Nsa Contractor Identifies Himself As Source

[Publicus]

I assume an extradition or arrest warrant would prevent him from being able to legally leave the SAR. Is that correct?

In speculation of what will happen to Snowden... Unless he has already been arrested or detained, here is another option that could happen. As happened to the Shaw of Iran as a part of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the U.S. did not hand the Shaw over to the Iranian Mullah Authorities as they had demanded, but rather 'arranged' for him to go to Panama... later he went to Egypt. In Snowden's case it would be much simpler for China working with the Hong Kong government just to 'arrange' for Snowden to go to Iceland (and take up the offer there for sanctuary) with no attention paid to formalities of visas and passports. Once gone China and Hong Kong could just wash their hands of the whole incident. Leaving the U.S. to solve its own problems.

Snowden is not a head of state (deposed) as was the shah of Iran so you can best forget that idea, which on the face of it is incredulous, inconceivable. Governments throughout the world can't have fugitives flying at will from continent to continent, or from country to country. fleeing justice in their own country and with a revoked passport.

Of course I still haven't heard that the U.S. government has or has not revoked Snowden's passport. The U.S. has the option of not revoking Snowden's passport because the Hong Kong government (or any foreign government) will seize the passport when it arrests him, consistent with the warrant sent to it by Washington.

Moreover, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC has received a request from the U.S. Government to issue a provisional arrest warrant against Snowden on the basis of the U.S. Government having filed criminal charges against him. Neither the SAR government nor its master, Beijing, can just ignore that request because it might be a little bit inconvenient to them, or for any other reason.

Julian Assange doesn't dare set foot outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London because the U.K. government has a pending extradition request against him by the government of Sweden in connection with a rape investigation, i.e., a felony criminal matter. The U.K. government said a long time ago it would arrest Assange at any moment he might step out of the embassy.

When the U.K. government received Sweden's extradition warrant, it immediately seized possession of the Australian passport issued to Assange by the Australian government. Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador last year but still can't go to Ecuador because of the pending extradition request of Sweden.

The U.S. Justice Department has, for more than a year, maintained a strict 'no comment' response to reports it had quietly convened a grand jury which indicted Assange under the Espionage Act among other violations of U.S. national security laws. Sweden has already said it would not rule out extradition to the U.S. should Assange be delivered to authorities there, which is the real concern of Assange. The UN however is maintaining silence in respect of claims the UN Convention on Refugees supersedes an extradition request.

It looks like Snowden is going to need all the help other people can pay for concerning his legal expenses and his tenuous situation in the PRC. The PRC just doesn't like all these international legal entanglements and complexities, so it may ship him out in short order. On the other hand, the CCP might already have concluded it likes having Snowden around.

LEAKER UPDATE: Snowden's Just Hanging Out In Hong Kong Giving More US Intelligence Secrets To The Chinese

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-gives-us-secrets-to-chinese-2013-6#ixzz2Wz8vosBr

And you can catch up on your reading here. This has in it another Pew Center survey that makes an interesting finding about who used to like surveillance but doesn't like it now, and vica-versa.

Most Americans Want NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Thrown In Jail — Especially Old Americans

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-snowden-prosecuted-2013-6#ixzz2WzBGSSpb

Edited June 22, 2013 by Publicus

[antfish]

And you can catch up on your reading here. This has in it another Pew Center survey that makes an interesting finding about who used to like surveillance but doesn't like it now, and vica-versa.

Most Americans Want NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Thrown In Jail — Especially Old Americans

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-snowden-prosecuted-2013-6#ixzz2WzBGSSpb

Second, young people are more pro-Snowden and anti-government than older people.

Young people (18-29) think Snowden's leaks are in the public interest, and they don't want him prosecuted. They also don't like the NSA's data collection.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-snowden-prosecuted-2013-6#ixzz2WzQrbJ5S

[antfish]

LEAKER UPDATE: Snowden's Just Hanging Out In Hong Kong Giving More US Intelligence Secrets To The Chinese

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-gives-us-secrets-to-chinese-2013-6#ixzz2Wz8vosBr

the misleading headline makes it sound as if he is a spy for the Chinese and talks to their government agencies. meanwhile the truth is he just talks with the South China morning Post, an excellent Hong Kong newspaper and one of the best newspapers you can get here in the region.

and with that he talks to the public, the world, to us and not just only exclusively to the Chinese.

And what has Snowden this time to reveal

"According to the SCMP, Snowden has documents showing how the U.S. has systematically targeted and hacked computers in Hong Kong and mainland China.

These attacks included:

"Extensive hacking of major telecommunication companies in China to access text messages"

"Sustained attacks on network backbones at Tsinghua University, China’s premier seat of learning."

"Hacking of computers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which owns one of the most extensive fibre optic submarine cable networks in the region"

These hacking attacks are probably illegal in Hong Kong, a crime. Snowden is a witness for it. And that makes it surely a tad more complicated for any extradition request.

[JDGRUEN]

Snowden Extradition Battle in Hong Kong Could Go on for Years

A former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor charged with spying by the United States and in hiding in Hong Kong is expected to be the subject of a formal extradition request at any time in what could drag into a legal battle lasting years. Since making his revelations about massive U.S. surveillance programmes, legal sources in Hong Kong say Edward Snowden, 30, has sought legal representation from human rights lawyers as he prepares to fight U.S. attempts to force him home for trial.

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/snowden-extradition-hong-kong/2013/06/22/id/511316?s=al&promo_code=13EB4-1

[lannarebirth]

I assume an extradition or arrest warrant would prevent him from being able to legally leave the SAR. Is that correct?

In speculation of what will happen to Snowden... Unless he has already been arrested or detained, here is another option that could happen. As happened to the Shaw of Iran as a part of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the U.S. did not hand the Shaw over to the Iranian Mullah Authorities as they had demanded, but rather 'arranged' for him to go to Panama... later he went to Egypt. In Snowden's case it would be much simpler for China working with the Hong Kong government just to 'arrange' for Snowden to go to Iceland (and take up the offer there for sanctuary) with no attention paid to formalities of visas and passports. Once gone China and Hong Kong could just wash their hands of the whole incident. Leaving the U.S. to solve its own problems.

Snowden is not a head of state (deposed) as was the shah of Iran so you can best forget that idea, which on the face of it is incredulous, inconceivable. Governments throughout the world can't have fugitives flying at will from continent to continent, or from country to country. fleeing justice in their own country and with a revoked passport.

Of course I still haven't heard that the U.S. government has or has not revoked Snowden's passport. The U.S. has the option of not revoking Snowden's passport because the Hong Kong government (or any foreign government) will seize the passport when it arrests him, consistent with the warrant sent to it by Washington.

Moreover, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the PRC has received a request from the U.S. Government to issue a provisional arrest warrant against Snowden on the basis of the U.S. Government having filed criminal charges against him. Neither the SAR government nor its master, Beijing, can just ignore that request because it might be a little bit inconvenient to them, or for any other reason.

Julian Assange doesn't dare set foot outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London because the U.K. government has a pending extradition request against him by the government of Sweden in connection with a rape investigation, i.e., a felony criminal matter. The U.K. government said a long time ago it would arrest Assange at any moment he might step out of the embassy.

When the U.K. government received Sweden's extradition warrant, it immediately seized possession of the Australian passport issued to Assange by the Australian government. Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador last year but still can't go to Ecuador because of the pending extradition request of Sweden.

The U.S. Justice Department has, for more than a year, maintained a strict 'no comment' response to reports it had quietly convened a grand jury which indicted Assange under the Espionage Act among other violations of U.S. national security laws. Sweden has already said it would not rule out extradition to the U.S. should Assange be delivered to authorities there, which is the real concern of Assange. The UN however is maintaining silence in respect of claims the UN Convention on Refugees supersedes an extradition request.

It looks like Snowden is going to need all the help other people can pay for concerning his legal expenses and his tenuous situation in the PRC. The PRC just doesn't like all these international legal entanglements and complexities, so it may ship him out in short order. On the other hand, the CCP might already have concluded it likes having Snowden around.

LEAKER UPDATE: Snowden's Just Hanging Out In Hong Kong Giving More US Intelligence Secrets To The Chinese

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-gives-us-secrets-to-chinese-2013-6#ixzz2Wz8vosBr

And you can catch up on your reading here. This has in it another Pew Center survey that makes an interesting finding about who used to like surveillance but doesn't like it now, and vica-versa.

Most Americans Want NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Thrown In Jail — Especially Old Americans

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-snowden-prosecuted-2013-6#ixzz2WzBGSSpb

What's interesting is, the comments section of those articles you've posted are much more interesting than the article itself

[lannarebirth]

This article pre-dates the Edward Snowden whistleblower revelations. It also pre-datesnews that American citizens may be targets for drone attacks, both overseas and within the United States. I hope the moderator will exercise his discretion to allow my posting it.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

By Jonathan Turley,January 13, 2012

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-13/opinions/35440628_1_individual-rights-indefinite-detention-citizens

[Scott]

The post and link can remain, but please stay on topic.

[chuckd]

The Obama administration is now demanding the arrest of Snowden and his immediate return to the US. Makes one wonder if they don't somehow feel the paperwork is important.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. seeks Snowden's extradition, urges Hong Kong to act quickly

By Steve Holland and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON | Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:40pm EDT

(Reuters) - The United States said on Saturday it wants Hong Kong to extradite Edward Snowden and urged it to act quickly, paving the way for what could be a lengthy legal battle to prosecute the former National Security Agency contractor on espionage charges.

Legal sources say Snowden, who is believed to be hiding in Hong Kong, has sought legal representation from human rights lawyers since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance activities to news media.

"If Hong Kong doesn't act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law," a senior Obama administration official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told CBS News the United States had a "good case" to bring Snowden back to America to face trial and expected Hong Kong to comply with its extradition treaty.

"We have gone to the Hong Kong authorities seeking extradition of Snowden back to the United States," Donilon said.

Entire article here. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/22/us-usa-security-snowden-charges-idUSBRE95K18220130622

No attempts at coercion in this quote..."If Hong Kong doesn't act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law,"

[midas]

If Snowden wanted to stay in Hong Kong, his best chance would be to apply for refugee status, under the claim that he could be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDTP) or punishment if extradited back to the United States, said Patricia Ho, a solicitor with local human rights law firm Daly and Associates

the trouble is USA now has no credibility

She said if the US government could make diplomatic assurances that Snowden would not face degrading treatment or torture if sent back, they could have Snowden sent back home, but whether or not they would be believed after their treatment of Manning, was another question.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1257809/speculation-rife-hong-kong-over-edward-snowdens-fate

[Ulysses G.]

Manning is in the military and he was treated the same as every other prisoner in a Marine brig. Snowden is a civilian, so has nothing to worry about in that regard.

Edited June 23, 2013 by Ulysses G.

[Scott]

There are probably some parallels that can be drawn to Assange, but Manning would be in a completely different situation. He was military, he is under arrest and he is detained.

Regardless of the similarities, this topic is about Snowden.

[manarak]

There are probably some parallels that can be drawn to Assange, but Manning would be in a completely different situation. He was military, he is under arrest and he is detained.

Regardless of the similarities, this topic is about Snowden.

If those alleged things like " torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDTP) " happens at all in the the United States, the human right lawyers will use that in their Snowden defense.

why does it matter if it happens in the US or or not, when the US have "non-US friends" who can carry out these tasks?

Fancy a holiday in Israel, Mr. Snowden?

[Ulysses G.]

Not going to happen. He is a VERY high profile, native English speaker. He might end up in solitary confinement, but that is about as bad as it will get.

[chrisinth]

And you can catch up on your reading here. This has in it another Pew Center survey that makes an interesting finding about who used to like surveillance but doesn't like it now, and vica-versa.

Most Americans Want NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Thrown In Jail — Especially Old Americans

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-snowden-prosecuted-2013-6#ixzz2WzBGSSpb

Second, young people are more pro-Snowden and anti-government than older people.

Young people (18-29) think Snowden's leaks are in the public interest, and they don't want him prosecuted. They also don't like the NSA's data collection.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-americans-want-snowden-prosecuted-2013-6#ixzz2WzQrbJ5S

In all likeliness the 18-29 age group would not regard this as treason, something that the older generation would recognize from earlier decades as being just that....................

Spin that anyway you want..................

[Scott]

A post discussing moderation has been deleted.

21) Not to discuss moderation publicly in the open forum; this includes individual actions, and specific or general policies and issues. You may send a PM to a moderator to discuss individual actions or email support (at) thaivisa.com to discuss moderation policy. Members should not block contact with moderators or administrators. Doing so will result in suspension.

[antfish]

Not going to happen. He is a VERY high profile, native English speaker. He might end up in solitary confinement, but that is about as bad as it will get.

What will not happen because he is a native English speaker?

[lomatopo]

"If Hong Kong doesn't act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law," a senior Obama administration official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

So it's OK to both insult and threaten Hong Kong, all under the veil of anonymity? I wonder why this person isn't brave enough to allow their name to be used?

Snowden NSA-China Hacking Claims Complicate Extradition

By Eleni Himaras - Jun 23, 2013 12:05 PM GMT+0700

Edward Snowden, who faces extradition from Hong Kong on espionage charges, said the U.S. National Security Agency hacked Chinese mobile-phone text messages, the South China Morning Post reported, complicating the Americans’ bid to take him into custody. Snowden said private text messages of millions of Chinese mobile company subscribers have been intercepted by the NSA, the Post reported today, citing data provided by Snowden in a June 12 interview. The agency also attacked Tsinghua University’s server and accessed computers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet Ltd., which owns one of the most extensive fiber-optic submarine cable networks in the region, the Post cited Snowden as saying.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-21/u-s-said-to-charge-snowden-over-nsa-surveillance-leaks.html

Note that the tapping in to fiber-optic cables, which many NSA-sponsored technical gurus claim is not technically feasible, is referenced in this article. Mark Klien, the AT&T whistle-blower, previously detailed the fiber-splitting gear he saw the NSA had installed in a major AT&T switching station. Most voice and text traffic is un-encrypted, but the NSA can decrypt most data encryption now, and this ability will be greatly enhanced once the new data center opens in Utah.

I suspect there will be more leakers and whistle-blowers over the next few years. Maybe a few older folks, who do not have families and who may be getting close to retirement age and have terminal illnesses, will suddenly grow a conscience and expose the extent of the NSA's surveillance of U.S. citizens. Or it will be revealed that the NSA has been spying on politically conservative, or liberal, groups. Which would make the IRS fiasco look relatively innocuous.

[lomatopo]

Edward Snowden's not the first to make claims about NSA

Previous employees have said that the cyber-spying agency is tracking Americans' communications. Intelligence officials maintain that is not the case.

June 15, 2013|By Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Mathematician William Binney worked for the National Security Agency for four decades, and in the late 1990s he helped design a system to sort through the digital data the agency was sucking up in the exploding universe of bits and bytes. When the agency picked a rival technology, he became disillusioned. He retired a month after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and later went public with his concerns.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/15/nation/la-na-nsa-past-leakers-20130616

[lomatopo]

Leaked NSA Doc Says It Can Collect And Keep Your Encrypted Data As Long As It Takes To Crack It

If you use privacy tools, according to the apparent logic of the National Security Agency, it doesn’t much matter if you’re a foreigner or an American: Your communications are subject to an extra dose of surveillance.

"'''the agency has reassured Americans that it doesn’t indiscriminately collect their data without a warrant, and that what it does collect is deleted after five years. But according to a document signed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and published Thursday by the Guardian, it seems the NSA is allowed to make ambiguous exceptions for a laundry list of data it gathers from Internet and phone companies. One of those exceptions applies specifically to encrypted information, allowing it to gather the data regardless of its U.S. or foreign origin and to hold it for as long as it takes to crack the data’s privacy protections.

The agency can collect and indefinitely keep any information gathered for “cryptanalytic, traffic analysis, or signal exploitation purposes,” according to the leaked “minimization procedures” meant to restrict NSA surveillance of Americans. ”Such communications can be retained for a period sufficient to allow thorough exploitation and to permit access to data that are, or are reasonably believed likely to become, relevant to a future foreign intelligence requirement,” the procedures read.

http://business.mega.mu/2013/06/22/leaked-nsa-doc-says-it-can-collect-and-keep-your-encrypted-data-long-it-takes-crack-it/

[lomatopo]

Britain's GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications

Exclusive: British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal

Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Nick Hopkins, Nick Davies and James Ball

Friday 21 June 2013 17.23 BST

\

Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).

The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

----------------------------

Who doesn't love a slide that says...

"Why can't we collect all the signals, all the time?"

as presented by Kieth Alexander, DIRNSA.

Um, let me think? Because it'd be against the law.

Edited June 23, 2013 by lomatopo

[lomatopo]

U.S. charges Snowden with espionage

By Peter Finn and Sari Horwitz, Published: June 22 E-mail the writers

Federal prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to U.S. officials.

The complaint, which initially was sealed, was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, a jurisdiction where Snowden’s former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, is headquartered and a district with a long track record of prosecuting cases with national security implications. After The Washington Post reported the charges, senior administration officials said late Friday that the Justice Department was barraged with calls from lawmakers and reporters and decided to unseal the criminal complaint.

This White House is responsible for bringing six of the nine total indictments ever brought under the 1917 Espionage Act. Snowden will be the seventh individual when he is formally indicted.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-snowden-with-espionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html

Note that I am life-long registered Democrat, and voted for Mr. Obama twice. To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement. I can only hazard a guess that no one wants another 9/11 on their watch so they'll pretty much sacrifice any liberties and beliefs to try and prevent an attack. I'd probably do the same, especially if 60% of the intel in my daily brief was coming from these NSA programs.

[Publicus]

Snowden Extradition Battle in Hong Kong Could Go on for Years

A former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor charged with spying by the United States and in hiding in Hong Kong is expected to be the subject of a formal extradition request at any time in what could drag into a legal battle lasting years. Since making his revelations about massive U.S. surveillance programmes, legal sources in Hong Kong say Edward Snowden, 30, has sought legal representation from human rights lawyers as he prepares to fight U.S. attempts to force him home for trial.

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/snowden-extradition-hong-kong/2013/06/22/id/511316?s=al&promo_code=13EB4-1

Because Beijing has absolute sovereignty over Hong Kong, Beijing is the critical deciding factor in this, not Hong Kong. I've said, Beijing has a standing policy, purposely vague, that it makes all decisions it regards as vital to its defense or its foreign policy. If Beijing wants to send Snowden back to the US, it can issue the order to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and Snowden will be shipped out immediately - end of story. If Beijing wants to protect Snowden, it will, but at great cost to its relations with Washington.

I don't see what Beijing gains from protecting Snowden. Keeping him would seriously complicate its relations with the US in all things. Snowden has, via the South China Morning Post, provided Beijing with all or most US national security information he has. Perhaps Snowden has yet more to provide to Beijing, perhaps not - we don't know the volume or quality of information he stole from the NSA among other national security agencies. Snowden's ratted out a lot of info as it is, so one has to ask how much more he has.

I and almost all Americans, and many people in the West, support the cyber intelligence operations of the US against the CCP-PRC, as do most government of Asean, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, India and others, even though no public statements have been made by these or any other governments in this respect. Given the CCP's territorial aggressiveness throughout the Indo-Pacific region, it is comforting to the governments of the region to know the US is on top of the military intelligence situation of the increasingly belligerent CCP-PRC.

The US for all its faults is a liberal democracy, the CCP is a 21st century aggressive and mean fascist dictatorship that enjoys throwing around its newfound weight and power in its nefarious purposes to dominate the world as a global hegemon.

[midas]

Edward Snowden's not the first to make claims about NSA

Previous employees have said that the cyber-spying agency is tracking Americans' communications. Intelligence officials maintain that is not the case.

June 15, 2013|By Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Mathematician William Binney worked for the National Security Agency for four decades, and in the late 1990s he helped design a system to sort through the digital data the agency was sucking up in the exploding universe of bits and bytes. When the agency picked a rival technology, he became disillusioned. He retired a month after the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and later went public with his concerns.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/15/nation/la-na-nsa-past-leakers-20130616

If Snowden listens to the advice of Thomas Drake (a former intelligence official at the NSA who escaped in the end with only a misdemeanor charge ) to 'Be Lawyered Up To The Max', why couldn’t Snowden achieve the same ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/thomas-drake-edward-snowden_n_3423330.html

[Publicus]

Britain's GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications

Exclusive: British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal

Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger, Nick Hopkins, Nick Davies and James Ball

Friday 21 June 2013 17.23 BST

\

Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).

The sheer scale of the agency's ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

----------------------------

Who doesn't love a slide that says...

"Why can't we collect all the signals, all the time?"

as presented by Kieth Alexander, DIRNSA.

Um, let me think? Because it'd be against the law.

Congress made these laws and the Intelligence Committees, respectively, of the House and the Senate are regularly kept apprised of rules, regulations and the implementation of the laws by the executive branch. The executive branch has regular, systematic accountability to the Congress in respect of these national security and intelligence laws enacted by the Congress and, ultimately, to the American people. Many oversight hearings have been held immediately subsequent to Snowden's thefts and flight from justice.

The members of the Congressional Intelligence committees knew of the information Snowden is ratting out long before Snowden arrived at the CIA or the NSA for his very brief stays there -an NSA stay just long enough to steal sensitive national security information, skip the country and now, by making it public to the world, provide it to Beijing and Moscow. Snowden is one rat among many tens of thousands of dedicated and loyal national security and intelligence personnel.

You don't like the national security or intelligence gathering laws Congress has enacted, call your Members of Congress in the House and the Senate. Some legislators already have introduced some bills that would amend somewhat existing national security and intelligence laws, but none have introduced legislation that would abolish any such existing laws or overhaul them in major ways. I don't hear an uproar in Congress against either the existence of these laws or their overall implementation.

Complainers need to take these matters to the Congress, to include Snowden, especially.

Edited June 23, 2013 by Publicus

[Scott]

It seems that Mr. Snowden has left for Moscow:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/648571-thailand-live-sunday-23-jun-2013/?p=6537034

[Lite Beer]

Edward Snowden leaves Hong Kong on Moscow flight

US intelligence fugitive Edward Snowden has flown out of Hong Kong, the Chinese territory's government has confirmed.

The South China Morning Post quoted "credible sources" as saying he was due to arrive in Moscow on Sunday evening.

It said Moscow would not be his final destination.

Snowden, an intelligence analyst, fled to Hong Kong in May after revealing details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The development will be seen as a major blow to US efforts to have him extradited, says the BBC's John Sudworth in Hong Kong.

On Saturday, the White House contacted Hong Kong to try to arrange his extradition.

Full Story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23019414#TWEET798841


-- BBC 2013-06-23

[Publicus]

Edward Snowden leaves too many questions unanswered, such as his complete disappearance in Hawaii during the three weeks before he flew to Hong Kong from Hawaii. Snowden said he flew to Hong Kong May 20th but the owner of the house he rented, who said he wanted Snowden out by May 1st so he could sell the house, couldn't find Showden between May 1st and May 20th. So where was Snowden during this period? Was he with anyone, staying with anyone other than his ladyfriend who was living with him?

Another example of unanswered questions about Snowden's illegal national security disclosures is that both the Guardian and the Washington Post made an interesting choice in respect to publicizing Snowden's powerpoint presentation about the PRISM program.

Each newspaper limited the scope of their reports. The PowerPoint presentation referring to PRISM is supposedly forty-one slides long, but both papers only published four. Each paper said the remaining thirty-seven could cause grave harm if they were ever published. In his video confessional, Snowden said that he doesn’t want to harm anyone, but that these programs needed to be exposed. If he was demanding full publication, what is in those remaining thirty-seven slides that gave the papers pause even while Snowden wanted them unveiled? Are the papers being overly conservative with their reporting, or does Snowden not fully understand the magnitude of the information he stole?

Several people involved in the leak have said Snowden had been planning the leak since at least January — two months before he took his job at the NSA. Did Snowden take his job at the NSA planning to steal documents and flee the country? This would be premeditation.

Former presidential speechwriter James Fallows, writing in the Atlantic, raised questions about Snowden's authenticity in choosing Hong Kong as his refuge. Says Fallows, "Hong Kong is not a sovereign country. It is part of China — a country that by the libertarian standards Edward Snowden says he cares about is worse, not better, than the United States. China has even more surveillance of its citizens (it has gone very far toward ensuring that it knows the real identity of everyone using the internet); its press is thoroughly government-controlled; it has no legal theory of protection for free speech; and it doesn’t even have national elections. Hong Kong lives a time-limited separate existence, under the “one country, two systems” principle, but in a pinch, it is part of China."

Worse, as Fallows points out, in 2006 Hong Kong passed a surveillance law that makes the programs Snowden leaked seem weak in comparison. The New York Times reported that this law gave “broad authority to the police to conduct covert surveillance, including wiretapping phones, bugging homes and offices and monitoring e-mail.” Furthermore, the paper wrote, the law limited defense lawyers from questioning such surveillance during trials.

Unanswered Questions in NSA Disclosures: Could the real problem be Edward Snowden?

https://medium.com/editors-picks/3ab76bd69332

5 ways NSA leaker Edward Snowden's story isn't holding up

http://news.yahoo.com/5-ways-nsa-leaker-edward-snowdens-story-isnt-115500971.html

Well Mr Fallows is wrong, so wrong. Hong Kong is one of the most open societies on this planet.

I have no idea why you keep trying to dredge up things on Snowden then try to spin them to meet your own anti China diatribes.

Most don't care who Snowden is or what he did. What people care about is what the US govt, and the UK govt has been secretly doing.

That is the issue.

While I was writing the following post I missed the breaking news that Edward Snowden apparently accepted Vladmir Putin's offer of protection against the US government's pursuit of justice. I could delete the post but I choose to let it stand to make some important and vital points about Beijing's determined and long term designs to incorporate HKG into its ruling dictatorship.

When Beijing regained absolute sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, it established the government there as a Special Administrative Region instead of being just another province. Beijing made HKG an SAR because of its previous long history as a colony of Britain, during which is was administered under British law, customs, conventions and the like. It was a colony to be sure, but a British one. Beijing had no choice but to recognize the fact.

Since then Beijing has systematically been working to erode HKG's Western and British values, customs, traditions. Beijing has met with some successes, but has suffered big failures in the process. It nonetheless will persist. So will the resistance of the vast majority of the people of HKG.

Anything the US or the UK can do to support the people of HKG will help, although nothing is guaranteed. This is one reason my Chinese friends in HKG say to me HKG hasn't any skin in this contest. Hong Kongians (an awkward term but the one used in HKG) don't want to cross the US in the Snowden matter. So they are steering clear of it. They also are concerned however that Beijing will use its absolute sovereignty over the PRC territory to override HKG extradition and/or asylum laws by invoking Beijing's standing policy that in matters of defense or foreign policy, it can take any sovereign action it deems necessary or prudent.

The people of HKG have their hands full resisting Beijing's systematic, insidious, step-by-step encroachments of its freedoms. Beijing however isn't going to stop because it fears the existence of an independent Hong Kong that is an oasis of democracy and freedoms in the PRC's dictatorship. Here's a list of Beijing's successes to date and the increasing concerns and apprehensions of Hong Kongians concerning their future relative to Beijing.

Edward Snowden wrong about Hong Kong, some in territory say:

The self-declared NSA leaker says he has faith in Hong Kong justice at a time when some in the territory say freedoms are being 'stifled.'

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hong-kong-snowden-20130616,0,1337287.story

Edited June 23, 2013 by Publicus

[wealth]

here is an extensive video collection on Snowden's website.

http://edward-snowden.net/edward-snowden-videos/ - hence Minister Farrakhan in a video, and so many others about this.

I'd like to ask all Americans: "Are you employees of the government or is the government your employee?"

"If you have a company with security guards employed, what would be their job description?"

Snowden has denied himself, his family, a good income, his girlfriend and home-country to get this going? This is very much Christ like.

As he said: "I don't want it to be about me but the case that is exposed for everyone to judge."

Edited June 23, 2013 by wealth

[Credo]

I have a feeling the Russians would give him up in a heartbeat for Vicktor Bout.

[Lite Beer]

RT@SkyNewsBreak: Update - Reuters: Wikileaks helped Edward Snowden get political asylum in democratic country with travel papers & safe exit from Hong Kong