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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

He didn't flee to Russia, he was stopped there in transit.

You seriously believe that? You're willing to buy that explanation but not the far more reasonably alternatives?

I mean ffs, he was claiming to be going from China to South America. Via a connection that just happened to go through Moscow of all places. Even Russia initially claimed that they had no evidence of his final destination. I cannot believe how so many people are so gullible as to imagine that ending up in Russia wasn't intentional.

Do you have any evidence for this assertion - or are you just smarter than everyone else?

Yes, if I remember correctly his passport was revoked during the flight. There are not so many flights from Asia to South America, and many that do transit in Los Angeles, or other countries with extradition treaties.

Do you have any concrete info?

His passport was revoked the day before he left Hong Kong.[1]. He traveled to Russia on what turned out to be an invalid travel document issued by the Ecuadorian embassy in London [2] (same one that Julian Assange is holed up in).

[1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-...

Right. This man who has risked his freedom and even his life to inform us of the illegal actions of our government wants to live in a repressive autocracy.

Did you miss the part where US officials forced a flight out of Moscow to land prematurely because they thought he might be on it? [0] He applied for asylum to 21 countries [1].

No, you're quite mistaken. He's in Russia for one reason only: the US Government won't let him go anywhere else.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Asylum_applicat...

"the part where US officials forced a flight out of Moscow to land prematurely because they thought he might be on it"

Heh, "a flight". It probably deserves calling out that (as noted in the Wikipedia article title) it was the plane of the leader of another country. Could you imagine a country forcing down Air Force 1 and demanding to search it? We would lose our shit. Absolutely all of our shit.

Not all countries have the firepower that the US has. America can make demands that others can't. I am not well versed on this aspect of the issue and can't say what did or did not happen, but your argument does not reflect the reality of our unique ability to influence others. For this reason, your argument that just because Air Force 1 would not submit to requests / demands by independent nations has little basis here.

It sounds to me like you're saying I overlooked that might does, in fact, make right. I wasn't even saying our forcing down the plane was wrong.

I was pointing out that we were manifestly willing to go to substantial lengths to make sure Snowden did not get from Russia to Ecuador - lengths that were not well represented by leaving it at "a plane".

Yes, good point.

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