US 'disappointed' with Hong Kong, asks Latin American countries to stop Snowden | Hacker News Reader

US 'disappointed' with Hong Kong, asks Latin American countries to stop Snowden

rt.com

Dripping with irony:

    Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, 
    should not be allowed to proceed in any further international 
    travel, other than is necessary to return him to the 
    United States. Because of the Privacy Act, we cannot 
    comment on Mr Snowden's passport specifically.

Maybe, after HKSAR's closing jibe[1], they think it's a game?

1. http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201306/23/P201306230476.h...

I can appreciate US government caring about privacy.

heh, the irony.

When I read these statements (this one, the NSA press statement earlier, etc.), I honestly wonder if anyone on the side of government actually does get the irony.

I'm sure some of them understand the irony but they have to (blindly) obey to authority.

We hope. The alternative is a bunch of Dr. Strangeloves are running things.

If you want some more irony: Keith Alexander, chief of NSA, was at the last Defcon [1] giving talks wearing jeans and..

yes, a t-shirt with EFF slogan: https://twitter.com/EFF/status/346011010819305472

[1]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57481689-83/nsa-director-fi...

Ahhhh, a subliminal message, to seed the idea the the EFF is puppet of the NSA too.

Spooky...

You have to wear clothes to "fit in" with the crowd. It is like camouflaging to your environment: "Sometimes you guys get a bad rap," Alexander said. "From my perspective, what you're doing to figure out vulnerabilities in systems" is great."

It is great because we need to recruit hackers like you to join NSA and find vulnerabilities to gather "intelligence" on everyone!

>The country also needs better sharing between private companies and the government, something that proposed cybersecurity legislation can help fix

Translation: We need to "fix the sharing of data" by forcing private companies, namely, Google, Apple, Facebook, Verizon and Microsoft to hand over all their data on users through legal means.

That press release is priceless. FWIW that is how you play the game of getting what you want while not getting in trouble. The whole "Well we are still waiting for the correct forms to be filed in the correct way oh and meanwhile he decided to leave."

Speaking of irony, have you seen the ABC News interview[1] with General Keith Alexander, Director of the NSA? He is specifically (and brilliantly) asked if he is confident that the NSA has not broken Hong Kong law (in it's cyber espionage activities). His answer is a mumble about the NSA not violating US law.

Under those circumstances I'd be somewhat careful with the word 'disappointed'... :)

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/nsa-chief-keith...

»Are you sure you did not break US law when you hacked computer systems in the USA?«

»I am sure we did not break Chinese law.«

-- still, the answer is for "when they hacked computer systems in the USA".

As for if they broke Chinese law "when they hacked computer systems IN CHINA", that's another question.

if you use a computer (phone) MADE IN CHINA, you can't expect any privacy

Err, wait what?

I thought we're technical people here.

they are all made in china, don't you get it?

That's funny. I'm "disappointed" with America, and I think my reasons are better.

I was looking forward to watching the extradition trial snake through the Hong Kong courts, but this is fun too. It really makes the US look like a lot of incompetents trying very hard to not have their incompetence exposed, and we all know how that ends. Snowden: 2, US: 0.

(I'd also like to see a response from all the senators and op-ed columnists that were quick to remind us that Snowden was a "high school dropout" explain why someone so clearly inferior to everyone else can outsmart them so effortlessly.)

The US have the "long game". They'll get him (sadly) eventually.

Just like they got Bobby Fischer?

Wasn't that just tax evasion?

> "[as there was] no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving"

What exactly does the US think that Hong Kong should have done? Break the law?

What a bunch of hypocrites.

Actually, it's not hypocritical at all - which is the problem in a nutshell. We've gotten so used arbitrary enforcement of our own laws (e.g. Clapper) that we're shocked when others take the rule of law seriously. Or at least, more seriously than we do.

It is consistent though.... Since we are now sure that non Americans are worth less than Americans to the US government, then it does actually make sense that Hong Kong law could be regarded as secondary and that the demands of US law reigns supreme.

Sadly, I suppose that would be a demonstration of the "arrogance" the US is so often accused of.

Dunno why they dont just leave the bloke to it. Just issue a standard warrant and he's basically never allowed back in the US unless he is prepared to face the charges. Olde days, "exile" was a decent punishment for some one in this position. Why not now? Surely never being allowed home for the rest of his life, to a country so great as the USA must be a terrible punishment for an American, no? What's wrong with a bit of olde skool exile?

I guess that US knows that it is not great at all, and people will HAPPILY stay exiled (like for example, Bobby Fisher... that after being exiled in this way was very happy to take a Iceland citizenship and dump his US one)

"Sadly, I suppose that would be a demonstration of the "arrogance" the US is so often accused of."

Accused my ass.. more like "IS".

>Surely never being allowed home for the rest of his life, to a country so great as the USA must be a terrible punishment for an American, no?

Yes, imagine have to flee Nebraska or South Carolina for a place like Amsterdam or Paris or Singapore, etc...

That was, of course, his point. But Snowden DID leave Hawaii...

That wouldn't scare the bejeezus out of the next leaker. They have to ruin his life, harass his friends and family, the works.

Well, yeah. What else would be reasonable, progressive state do? Exactly what the US wants.

I think the UK and Canada have spoiled the USA to the point where a foreign entity acting as tho they had sovereignty offends and confuses.

I'm sure many in the USG are shocked, and not because they are used to Canada and the UK playing along, but because they think every country would bend to our will because of the fear of any economic sanctions we would impose. The truth is that the more globalism marches on, the less of a consequence a given country would really feel from the US (or any other government for that matter) imposing economic sanctions. Many countries have increasingly diversified their portfolio of trading partners, making economic soft power increasingly irrelevant for smaller sovereign states.

HK has nothing to fear with regards to economic sanctions. One can be reasonably sure that even under "One country, two systems", China wouldn't take kindly to economic sanctions against HK, and in the end, the US needs China more than China needs the US.

Well, remember what Cardinal Richelieu said about being able to convict someone on 6 sentences.

There was a valid criminal complaint, the rest that follows is international politics just like spying or cyberattacks; if Hong Kong had intended to comply with the complaint and arrest Snowden to start extradition proceedings they would have found an excuse to. If Hong Kong did not intend to comply then some reasoning would be found, "mistakenly" or otherwise, within the legal code to technically invalidate or delay the request.

Apparently Hong Kong or China didn't feel like complying. It's just not often we get to see cloak-and-dagger style diplomacy played out so publicly.

A government will declare whatever it can get away with as legal in order to advance it's agenda (in this case, not getting involved). Remember the Obama administration claims that all the NSA spying is legal anyway. Doesn't mean it is. Doesn't mean there was no legal basis to arrest him.

If Hong Kong even remotely wanted Snowden arrested, he would have been. They wanted nothing to do with the entire matter and so stalled a little bit to let him go.

Honest question: Is there any doubt that Snowden is guilty of the crimes he's charged with (e.g. "unauthorized communication of national defense information")?

I don't see how there could be.

Although there does seem to be some debate about whether or not what he did should be considered a crime, and whether he's guilty of everything he's charged with.

Yes. See here:

http://www.popehat.com/2013/06/23/a-look-at-the-charges-agai...

"Note that the second and third charges both require the feds to prove that Snowden's release of information to the press was harmful to the United States. This puts our government in the position of attempting to prove that it is harmful to release accurate information about how it is spying on us, and how it is misleading us about spying on us.

Espionage charges usually describe someone with classified information leaking that information to powers hostile to the United States government."

That doesn't seem like it would be nearly as awkward nor as difficult to prove as is implied here.

I would think secret details of spy programs would almost always harm national security (insofar as you believe spying can aide national security). The whole point of spying on communications depends on the targets not knowing they're being listened to.

(Note: I'm not saying the NSA program is good or justified)

"The statute...require[s] the government to prove that the defendant...communicated or made unavailable to an unauthorized person...in any manner prejudicial to the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States...classified information..."

The middle part (labeled (3) by Popehat), as the blog correctly points out, is the reason this is a big controversy and not a straightforward spy case -- it's not at all clear that his disclosures were meant to benefit foreign powers, or that he was attempting to harm the United States.

I think you're misreading that. It's whether the action has the effect of prejudicing the United States or benefiting a foreign government regardless of intent.

>It's whether the action has the effect of prejudicing the United States or benefiting a foreign government regardless of intent.

I wonder if there is a precedent supporting successful use of that charge. That's very broad wording. Taken literally, nearly anything you say that isn't puppies and rainbows could qualify.

Nearly anything you say about a classified intelligence program to unauthorized people, you mean. Yeah, I think that's the point :)

Can't you see the Kafka-esque nature of such a condition?

>That doesn't seem like it would be nearly as awkward nor as difficult to prove as is implied here.

That goes double if they can declare him an "enemy combatant" and try in in a secret military tribunal, as opposed to normal kangaroo court.

>I would think secret details of spy programs would almost always harm national security (insofar as you believe spying can aide national security).

How could it be any other way?

>The whole point of spying on communications depends on the targets not knowing they're being listened to.

In that case, I think there is little doubt as to whether the foreign targets were previously aware of our activities.

its almost certain that he broke some law, and the US gov't is trying to nail him as an example for other to-be-whistleblowers.

Whether the laws he broke is justified for the sort of revelation his information revealed, i m certain that is the case, but i highly doubt the courts in the US will agree.

Most definitely. He may well be completely innocent per numerous laws, executive orders and/or the Constitution. An example of the relevant recent piece:

"Executive Order 13526:

Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to: (1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error.."

IANAL, but I really don't think that EO (which is not a law) means that you can unilaterally declassify something which you think conceals a violation of law. Also, I'm not aware of anything Snowden disclosed that shows the NSA broke any laws. The FISA court signed off on this stuff, no?

Right. The determinant as to whether information is classified is its effect on national security if widely known.

You don't classify innocuous material just because it might be embarrassing.

But on the other hand you can classify material that risks national security even if it also happens to be embarrassing.

In any event PRISM itself is 0.01% or so in actuality as it was claimed to be, I'm not even sure I'd call PRISM itself embarrassing (it's just a damn web service). The laws under which PRISM operate might be different, but that's not something we can pin on NSA, and it's not something that was secret anyways.

>You don't classify innocuous material just because it might be embarrassing.

You're wrong. That's a well-known, ongoing, and acknowledged problem in the US which even has its own act of Congress as an attempt to deal with the problem.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr553

Here, if you like a good Catch-22: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121126/01371621143/defen...

I'm not saying no one has broken the law or regulation. I'm saying that's what the regulation describes as "national security information".

>The FISA court signed off on this stuff, no?

Who knows? The "court" meets in secret. Its rulings are secret. I'm not even certain that NSA is bound in any meaningful to abide by their decision/advice.

If he's given a trial by jury, and the jury believes the circumstances justified his actions, they have the option of acquitting him, regardless of how strong the evidence is that he broke the law.

"The courts cannot search the minds of the jurors to find the basis upon which they judge." [2]

In the United States, judges cannot direct a jury to deliver a specific verdict, getting a verdict you didn't like is not an acceptable reason for an appeal, and jurors cannot be punished for the way they decide a case [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification_in_the_Unite...

But they're not worried about the fact that more people are seeking political asylum from western countries? Is this our Roman Empire moment?

It's passed already? thirty hours of Warcraft a week after working to pay your share of taxes is the new bread and circuses.

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