Edward Snowden has not entered Russia - Sergei Lavrov | Hacker News Reader

Edward Snowden has not entered Russia - Sergei Lavrov

bbc.co.uk

84 pointsrb2e118 comments

--- US Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be "deeply troubling" if it became clear that China had "wilfully" allowed him to fly out of Hong Kong. ---

As a generally pro US European I have to wonder if the US realizes the extent of the PR disaster it is creating with each passing statement. I mean what does this idle threat really accomplish?

It makes China look good, it makes the states look like the bully and it carries absolutely zero weight. If anything it just makes China look stronger internationally.

Give me a break. You think anyone is going to care next week when the attention of the media will shift, as it always does, to whatever else is most eyeball baiting, elsewhere in the world.

The baseline strategy has been more or less the same. Hide Obama from the press. Send out robotic talking heads to spew about anything remotely relevant to the issue at hand. And wait for the press to get distracted by something else.

I am racking my brain to come up with an incident that was under the media spotlight that actually pushed the Govt. to act.

Well as a foreigner, this whole entire debacle has changed my entire outlook on the US. I don't have faith in your institutions anymore at all.

I understand the public at large will not feel this way, and will simply pass to the next distraction shortly, but this lack of faith I've built up, is going to stay with me for a while.

So instead of a happy Canadian tuning in to your elections and being extremely excited about the future like I was in 2008, I truly believe that your entire system is completely hopeless. No true change can come out of it.

As a non-US citizen - I live in Adelaide, South Australia, it is entertaining watching the US Government's reaction, stamping it's feet and calling names like a child, like they think anyone actually believes they matter any more. I know that's a strong statement, and it's directly entirely at the US Gov. not at it's people.

The Bush and Obama administrations have literally made the US the laughing stock of the world, and although it really is rather entertaining, reflectively, this is the world I have grown up in - I'm 32, and I guess it's sad, upon consideration, that I've never known an "America" that was a nation everyone looked up to.

I'm imagining the governments of China and Russia, and any other country along the way, or the destination, just sitting around going "Huh! Hahahahahaha! Pfffffff!" and "Oh look, there goes Snowden, should we capture him, naaaaah, watching the US squirm and stamp it's feet like a child is way too entertaining".

My opinion and observations of the US Gov. over the past couple decades, and my reading of it's history, is pretty bleak, it's as though the only difference between US, China, Russia, India, South Africa, etc etc, is that all the other governments are overtly corrupt. Or, that was a difference.

Another interesting perspective on the Global Diplomatic Climate is that the USA literally is a child, it has existed for only 237 years since the Declaration of Independence. Russia, China, India, these peoples have persisted for millennia.

I guess if you want to be the best in the world, you should at least do what the best-in-the-world are doing, the USA doesn't rank Number 1 in any of the areas that matter to people as human beings.

I think what we'll be witnessing over the next couple of decades is the US being put in its rightful place: at the table, not at the head of it - I mean, it already is that way, with China and Russia constantly vetoing US desires at the UN Security Council, and then the US Military just doing it anyway, but I believe increasingly the rest of the world will not tolerate what is perceived to be the USs 'bullying'.

> [..] it has existed for only 237 years since the Declaration of Independence.

That doesn't matter too much. Humans live for much shorter times, and their can learn not only from their own compatriots. The US's current continuity of government is actually pretty old at 237 years. Russia, China and India's current incarnations are much younger. And especially India was almost never a unified country before the British came along.

While it is disappointing and frustrating to watch what the American government has been upto these past few years, I would still say the US is, and shall remain for years to come in a league above the country's you mention.

There is a good indicators to measure this, and that is the lines at the visa counters of American embassies the world over. Those numbers aren't shrinking.

You're right, but many foreigners think, including myself, that things will change for the worst in the years to come.

Taking your point of immigration, what if the US's unemployment rate continues to climb? I'm sure that many people who would immigrate would not know, as they're going to the US on an advertising pitch (the American Dream), but I'm sure plenty will turn tail and do some sensible research in regards to their prospects in a new country. A 15% to 20% unemployment rate looks rather uninviting. Some interesting statistics that aren't alarmist at the moment: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-r...

There's also the problem with the overton window to the right that we've seen in the past 30 years. I could see a potentiality where an extremist extremely limits immigration. Any specific extremist policy focused inward will also reverberate throughout the world. There's a reason many choose to not go to Greece or Mexico anymore, and that's because of their reputations.

There's no doubt your statement is correct, and that the US will have global hegemony for years to come due to its military, but I'd like you to put on your optimist hat and tell me why that's a good thing at all. Thanks

As a site filled with entrepeneurs (should that be past tense these days?), I would hope HN readers realize how much this ordeal is damaging the prospects of us US-based entrepeneurs to expand to foreign markets, particularly if our business deals with anything that people don't want in random government officials' hands.

My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country. This is not a slander, but they genuinely think that since they're Americans, they need to know only about their country. I do not blame them because when I was there I noticed that all news channels focused only on news in America. There wasn't even a half hour of 'world news' at anytime one would be free to watch the news.

This is quite sad because the TV was meant as a way to inform the common people of things happening far away. Granted, the present generation can hop on to websites and read stuff there but honestly, the generation that actually votes and practically decides who's in the government are the ones who're not getting broad exposure to all news.

My friend who studied in the US said that Americans just in general have a view that they are different and therefore uniquely special. If you have that type of worldview, I imagine it's difficult to really think of the outside world much; perhaps it's even unnatural.

edit: The thought that prompted this whole comment, which I forgot to write. 9/11 happened when he was studying at university. He said there was a big shock among all the students with whom he studied, and among the citizens in general. He said up to that point, Americans had felt that they were untouchable, and this event proved otherwise, really shaking their worldview. I found it most interesting that he said that Americans seemed to think they were untouchable in the first place.

There is actually a term for how Americans view their status, American Exceptionalism (the term appears to have evolved over the years): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

This attitude is easily seen when they call their baseball championship the World Series, when the Miami Heat refer to themselves as basketball's World Champions, etc. In such an saturated environment, I imagine it becomes so self-reinforcing that you cannot blame some (but not all) of American citizens for just thinking the same way.

The Heat can call themselves whatever they want, but since 2009, the NBA championship banners have said "NBA Champions" rather than "World Champions".

This was given some publicity at the time, though a quick search doesn't turn up any references, other than photos of the banners.

As far as the World Series, is there any real dispute that it's effectively the world championship?

What is the World Baseball Classic then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic

Look, for the Heat, the interesting fact isn't whether or not the NBA acknowledges them as World Champions. It's that they referred to themselves as World Champions. That's what's interesting to me, the fact that this type of attitude can even exist.

Whether or not a team can be called a world champion is probably up to two factors:

1) Is their league the best league in the world?

2) Is there no truly international competition that would be acknowledged as having a similar or higher level of competition?

For example, for soccer and MLS, the answer is no for both questions because the World Cup and the Euro tournament are tops, with the World Cup being number 1. Even the Olympics can't come close precisely because FIFA disallows their best players from competing in the Olympics in order to make the World Cup a more spectacular event. And the MLS certainly isn't up to par with leagues in Europe.

For hockey and the NHL, the answer is yes for both questions because the only other regular competition that comes even close is the IIHF World Championship, and it is a sub-par level of competition. The NHL tried to make their own World Cup a regular event with attendance from multiple nations, but failed to sustain it regularly. If they had succeeded, that World Cup event would probably be able to say that they crowned the real World Champions. The Olympics are the only thing that comes close, and that is heavily contingent on the NHL's willingness to send their players to the Olympics, which the NHL has repeatedly stated is an undesirable burden for them.

For baseball, I think it's clear that the World Baseball Classic trumps MLB on both questions, and it helps a lot that MLB is a big contributor to the tournament so that the best players are sure to be there.

For American football and the NFL, there's no argument. Superbowl = World Champs hands down.

I'd say likewise for whoever wins the NBA championship.

But there's a difference between knowing that you won in the best league in the world and are probably the best team in the world and actually publicly calling yourself the best team in the world when you didn't compete with anyone from other nations. The debate is further confused when teams have international players, so are players representing their cities (as in league championships) or their countries (as in the Olympics, World Baseball Classic, World Cup)? It's a lot of comparing apples to oranges, so the whole debate is very muddied, and sometimes I wonder why we even care about it. But the debate is what it is.

edits for clarity

You are largely comparing club competition to national competition. Club teams can arguably be better than national teams, especially in leagues with loose restrictions on international players.

Bayern Munich didn't play against Spain to win the Champion's League... I would would love to see the top club teams play the top national teams in a competitive setting.

Ask Manu Ginobili or Tony Parker how well the Heat can do against people from other nations.

Arguing the merits of specific leagues doesn't really go anywhere... Things like Financial Fair Play, international restrictions or salary caps get in the way of producing the true "world's greatest club team" in any league. Do you expect all type-A personality, hyper competitive people to be super humble? That's not a common mix...

I honestly don't see how anything you said contradicts anything I said. Reading your comment, it seems like you disagree with me, but I cannot figure out why because it also seems that I agree with you. Something is not clicking here. :)

> Look, for the Heat, the interesting fact isn't whether or not the NBA acknowledges them as World Champions. It's that they referred to themselves as World Champions.

We disagree about what's interesting.

>The Heat can call themselves whatever they want

Ah, but it's precisely this what we're talking about. I calling myself a World Heavyweight champion because I defeated everyone in the country...

To be fair, the Miami Heat are essentially the U.S. Olympic basketball team at this point, who won gold last summer, so in that sense they are the World Champions.

"My interaction with Americans has not been in a professional setting, but my opinion of them is that they're very unknowledgeable about things happening outside their country"

My interaction with my fellow non-American countrymen is that many of them not only are not interested in what happens outside their country, but also what happens INSIDE, unless this somewhat affects them directly (say, taxes rise).

Of course an equal number of them are knowledgeble and really concerned about what happens in our country, and the rest of the world.

And probably there are hundreds of variations beetween these two extremes.

My hunch is that it's the same more or less everywhere around the world, US included.

It's just naive to try to condense millions of people in a single (or two, or three) stereotype.

Our unAmerican perception is somewhat biased by how much we know about the US. Just because people from country A know a lot more about the US than then US people know about them, doesn't mean that people from country A are any more knowledgeable about country B than the US Americans are.

But, of course, we from A still love to laugh about the dumb Americans.

Where are you from and what is the most important thing happening in the world today?

Exactly. If your government can look into a foreigner's private data without any notice to the holder, then good luck and good bye.

  Well as a foreigner, this whole entire debacle has changed 
  my entire outlook on the US. I don't have faith in your
  institutions anymore at all.

Great! That is a step in the right direction. Distrusting the government is a great American tradition. Even the founding father did not, in a sense, have too much faith in the governmental institutions and tried to set up a system in which the latter could do less damage. Success is partial.

Send out robotic talking heads to spew about anything remotely relevant to the issue at hand.

IIRC Kerry was a presidential candidate, one of Reddit's favourites (meaning the most liberal of dems), now the Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton. I'd say he's in a good position for next primaries.

So not exactly "robotic talking head", or I wish he wouldn't be. It's specially disappointing hearing that from him.

Since you have 2 identical parties that enact the same policies and follow the same course for many years I see no reason for anyone on this planet (both inside the US and outside) to actually care about the outcome of any future primaries or elections in the US.

Well, I'm not from the USA (actually I've never been there) and I care. The only way this terrible situation gets fixed is that the USA, maybe with some "help" from outside, fixes it. Otherwise, we're screwed... both inside the US and outside.

Obama is also an incredibly skilled actor and manipulator. You have no idea.

Check out this 67 page examination of Obama's use of covert hypnosis techniques during his 2007/2008 election campaign [PDF]: http://tinyurl.com/5zyxsy

Sounds pretty far fetched right? Obama would never do such a thing. Besides, the American people would never fall for that...

No URL shorteners on HN please. They obscure were the URL leads to.

Do a Duck Duck Go search for it and you'll find it.

Obama is manipulator? Compared to Putin he is just lost child. He was f*cked in his ass by Russia more times that I can count. Obama is incredibly naive, his world-view makes him vulnerable to manipulations of all kinds. Those techniques you refer to were just invention of his staff, he did all of this without even understanding what he is doing.

It makes China look like a good world citizen and the US look like a self righteous sabre rattling bully.

Well only if you are incredibly ignorant or have selective amnesia.

China is far, far from a good world citizen. They commit some of the worst human rights abuses, have rampant censorship and lest we forget their system of government is hardly democratic.

I think "it makes China look better" would be more accurate. China is a brutal[1] totalitarian regime without the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or basic civil rights that people in much of the developed world take for granted.

But over the past 12 years, the USA looks increasingly like a brutal[2] authoritarian regime without the rule of law, an informed electorate, or basic civil rights that people in much of the developed world take for granted.

That doesn't make China look good. But it makes China look a whole lot more normal as a powerful nation.

[1]: torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, forced abortions, etc

[2]: torture, secret prisons, indefinite detention without trial, assassination, lack of basic healthcare, etc

That's because leaders of US and China are both socialists. Similarities between the two will gradually increase

The US has lost it's moral high ground over freedom and privacy, it's bordering on hypocritical.

We know the Chinese government at the national level can see at any time what is going on in Chinese variants of social networking sites (from the basis that all these servers are typically hosted in Beijing).

What we didn't know was the US are doing this at a global level, and they have been trying to keep it secret all this time. That's something we did not realistically expect.

In this particular instance, the US is no better than China in respecting and protecting the privacy of individuals, and not impinging on their freedoms.

Snowden did the US citizens and the world a favour by exposing Prism. Now we can do something about it. Now we can seriously decide how important our privacy is. We see how deep the rabbit hole is. That's a starting point to correcting this.

Well only if you are incredibly ignorant or have selective amnesia.

The US is far, far from a good world citizen. They commit some of the worst human rights abuses, have rampant censorship and lest we forget their system of government is hardly democratic.

PS: apart from the achromatic base colors, nothing in life is that black and white.

From where I sit US does not look that much different. Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, drone, all this PRISM stuff.

I agree. But the second part of the statement is still true, "the US look like a self righteous sabre rattling bully"

To clarify, I was referring to the public statements made by China and the US regarding Snowdon and his revelations (you know, this thread?).

Also I sad, 'look like'.

China doesn't look any better, US OTOH looks much worse right now.

> It makes China look good, it makes the states look like the bully

Is it this specific statement that does that, or their whole policy? They've chosen to fight Snowden, so at this point any statements they make are unlikely to change minds, but they do help keep the support of people who already think of Snowden as a traitor.

It's like an awful lot of politics, where the aim isn't to change minds, the aim is to make sure the minds who agree with you don't forget to support you.

International politics is a never-ending chain of negotiations about all kinds of issues. Obama + Kerry aren't going retaliate directly, but they'll certainly keep this in mind the next time China asks for something and the US may not be very understanding. It might be a trade negotiation. Or it might be the US getting involved in Taiwan-China relations. Or the next extradition request from China. Lots of ways this can play out in the long term.

The US doesn't have the strong hand it had a few weeks ago: catching China redhanded breaking into US servers. That was a bigger trump, until the US got caught doing the very same thing.

The "you didn't give us Snowden" card isn't going to be as impressive, especially in an international context. With the US treatment of Bradley Manning, that card isn't really a playable one. The humble pie of being outed as hypocrites over hacking - that setback is going to take a while to overcome.

It's possible China have no real involvement in this - plausible deniability. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region, meaning they are largely left alone in legal matters (except perhaps in exceptional matters - which Snowden, for all the news coverage, isn't).

According to a WashPo article, they indicate that HK officials "quietly encouraged" Snowden to leave. They also name an HK official who is "sympathetic to Beijing" as the one to have delayed the US's extradition request, which never made it to a judge.

Regardless of the extent of China's involvement, it sounds like HK really didn't want to get involved.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/detail...

  I have to wonder if the US realizes the extent of the PR disaster

Is "the US" the government of the US or the people of the US? Big difference.

The title is ambigous. I speak russian, so I've checked one russian news resource: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

Lavrov actualy said "Snowden hasn't crossed the russian border", not "has not entered Russia".

The quote from the article in OP's link: > Correspondents say Mr Lavrov's comments suggest that Mr Snowden remained airside after landing in Moscow, and so has technically never entered Russian territory.

During last couple of days there were a number of news telling that Snowden flew to Moscow but never crossed the russian border(he had no visa anyway). The only new information in bbc's article is Lavrov's confirmation.

So: Snowden (probably) crossed HK border before flight to Moscow, but after arrival in Moscow he (probably) hasn't crossed the border.

> He also called on Russia to "live by the standards of the law because that's in the interests of everybody".

What he means is that he calls on Russia to side-step its own law and enact US laws in Russia when it benefits the US.

And that the US should be allowed to side-step the law whenever and wherever it so damns pleases.

What a hypocrite.

The term "enter" (a country) is a term of art in immigration law and international law, so, yes, it is technically possible that Snowden is on the sovereign territory of Russia without ever having entered Russia. The issue of what travel documents he was using to get on the last airline flight he took, and whether or not those will be considered valid for entry to Russia by Russian authorities, is one of the many interesting open questions in this case.

Does anyone reading this thread have any serious doubt that China uses all national technical means available to maintain surveillance of as many places it can reach, especially in regard to separatist movements like the Tibetan and Eastern Turkestan independence movements? Likewise for Russia; can there be any reasonable doubt that Russia monitors much (all?) Internet traffic to the country from elsewhere, or within the country in general?

Here is an article from Wired about Russia's new Internet surveillance program: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/russia-surveillance/...

Signed into law by Vladimir Putin on July 28, the internet-filtering measure contains a single, innocuous-sounding paragraph that allows those compiling the Register to draw on court decisions relating to the banning of websites. The problem is, the courts have ruled to block more than child pornographers’ sites. The judges have also agreed to online bans on political extremists and opponents of the Putin regime.

...

Most importantly, however, the new Roskomnadzor system introduces DPI (deep packet inspection) on a nationwide scale. Although DPI is not mentioned in the law, the Ministry of Communications — along with the biggest internet corporations active in Russia — concluded in August that the only way to implement the law was through deep packet inspection.

There are definitely some interesting questions here.

Snowden's passport has been revoked so in theory there is no legal basis for him to leave the transit area. He can assumably claim asylum whilst there but according to Russian Federation Law he doesn't seem to meet the conditions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Federation_Law_on_Refug...

So I would imagine that Ecuadorian diplomatic officials would have to process his asylum request in the transit area and then fly him from there ?

The news I was reading yesterday assumed this also, based on the Ecuador diplomatic plates seen: "Two cars with diplomatic license plates of Ecuador – the country named among Snowden’s possible destinations – were spotted at Sheremetyevo airport."

http://rt.com/news/snowden-fly-moscow-aeroflot-125/

I'm pretty sure that Assange said that Ecuador had issued Snowden with refugee-asylum type documents (sorry dont know the official term) that allow him to travel. Thats what he used to get out of Hong Kong I think. This does not necessarily mean that Ecuador is his final destination though.

Does anyone else find it incredibly unsettling that you need to be sponsored by a state to move about the world? I mean it's something that I've always known, but never considered until recently. Until just a couple of hundred years ago, this was not the case - you could do something which put you at odds with your country, and despite their best efforts, you could still disappear. Contrast that with today, when your freedom hinges on the whims of our parent state and the subsequent whims of any other state which might decide to stick their neck out to help you. It's unsettling how much different the two situations are in terms of how much control the state ultimately has over us. And that control is only increasing.

Do something against the collective state apparatus, and you had better hope that somewhere, someone is willing to help you out, because without those documents, you're going to be fucked. I don't think I like that very much.

I think you're over simplifying the past a bit. While it's true that it was harder for governments to track you, it wasn't like they weren't trying. If someone in power wanted you dead (or captured... but usually dead), they would go ahead and try. You can go right back to the Roman Republic and the Greek city-states and find cases of people trying to flee, or going into exile, and then being hunted down and executed. Your ability to protect yourself has always had as much to do with your own abilities and luck, as your ability to secure protection from a rival state.

Being hunted is tangential to my point, which is that that we are entirely at the mercy of our states.

> US officials have defended the practice of gathering telephone and internet data from private users around the world.

> They say Prism cannot be used to target intentionally any Americans or anyone in the US, [...].

What a relief to us unAmericans..

Yeah, I'm feeling so good about this that right now I'm building a local server with full disk encryption to host git repos and internal company chat.

Good bye shiny cloud services. I guess the ease of use/low administration overhead without any high price tag attached was really too good to be true.

Cloudservices like tarsnap might still be worthwhile for you.

Yes, I thought especially about tarsnap for off-offsite backups.

Well honestly, even as a fellow non-American, I think it's common sense that the US government should have to justify their actions only to US citizens.

If the other countries are concerned about the effects that PRISM can have on theirs, it should be up to their own governments to take the issue to the US.

It's kind of worrying (although not surprising in the least) that basically there hasn't been a serious complaint from anyone.

> Well honestly, even as a fellow non-American, I think it's common sense that the US government should have to justify their actions only to US citizens.

I am not sure. The Germans seem to manage a more mature attitude about their responsibility to the world. Perhaps countries should upgrade their civil rights to human rights.

Just as they are imposing a policy of severe economic austerity (with little or no results, I may add) to many countries in Europe in order to safeguard the investments they made in those countries ?

Mind, I'm not blaming them. They are doing their own interests, as they should (and many of the countries affected are in that situation by their own faults only), but let's not pretend they are somehow different.

Oh, I was talking about personal liberties (often guaranteed by the German constitution), not about current fiscal policy.

First North Korea and Iran make a mockery of the USA in negotiations over their nuclear capabilities. Now it's Hong Kong and Russia. Next in line is Ecuador. The reservoir of USA authority is evaporating fast with no real way to stop it. As far as the game of diplomacy is concerned the score so far is USA 0 - 4 Rest of the World (all own goals).

The consequences of this could be rather serious. A diminished USA is going to leave a vacuum which, regardless of the current behaviour of the USA government, is not going to be a good thing as Russia and China rush in to grab what they can.

Writing the history of this and the subsequent events in a hundred years or so will be very interesting.

As an Eastern-European dependent on US "soft power" I really hoped that the last "lost" decade would really change how things work at the State Department and about how the US handles its foreign policy generally speaking.

IMHO, the US relies too much on how many carriers they can bring to a "hot point" and how much aerial damage they can cause, sort of forgetting that the Berlin Wall was not teared down using bombs, but because people wanted to purchase Coca Cola and Levi's and to buy print-magazines with real rock-stars on their covers.

There's also something to be said about America needing a Nixon-like strategic thinker (his openness to Mao etc) and forgetting about the small battles that don't accomplish anything (we've killed X mujaheddin in the Yemen desert, we've "liberated" a God-forgotten Afghan province etc)

> the US relies too much on how many carriers they can bring to a "hot point" and how much aerial damage they can cause, sort of forgetting that the Berlin Wall was not teared down using bombs, but because people wanted to purchase Coca Cola and Levi's and to buy print-magazines with real rock-stars on their covers.

That's a powerful statement. I wish I could forward it to Obama and the rest of the heads.

> A diminished USA is going to leave a vacuum which, regardless of the current behaviour of the USA government, is not going to be a good thing as Russia and China rush in to grab what they can.

I actually view this as a good thing. Power should be balanced amongst multiple super-powers, instead of a single one.

In latest years the U.S. has been able to strong-arm other countries into laws and agreements that align with U.S. laws or that benefit the U.S. to the detriment of the countries involved, with examples being the EU Copyright Directive, ACTA, the various patents reforms, the EU data-sharing agreements after 9/11 and so on.

Right now the U.S. has the power to extend government-granted monopolies to the whole world or to squash rights that citizens of other countries could otherwise have.

This only happens because the U.S. is able to wield so much economical and military power. It's unnatural, goes against the principles of a free market and other countries can no longer develop in its shadow.

> It is unnatural

The irony is, its very much a natural phenomenon i.e. seen in nature. In nature hierarchies are the norm.

What hierarchies are you talking about?

If you're talking about the food chain pyramid, it's entirely misleading as it doesn't say nothing about survivability/adaptability skills. Hyenas will outlive lions, gray wolves will outlive tigers.

> Power should be balanced amongst multiple super-powers, instead of a single one.

This is not something you see in nature. It is not natural. That is all I am saying.

Within a pride of lions, wolves, gorillas what have you, there exists hierarchy. The hierarchy exists cause it renders advantages to the survival of the group. If there are say four contenders interested in a mate, only one wins and that helps the entire group cause the best(most fit) genes are passed forward.

" ... The consequences of this could be rather serious. A diminished USA is going to leave a vacuum which, regardless of the current behaviour of the USA government, is not going to be a good thing as Russia and China rush in to grab what they can. ... " And what makes you think that Russia and China will be worse than USA? Each country acts to protect it's own interests; some may do it with kid gloves, some may do it with iron fist. Difference, if any, would be of degree, not of kind. Some may assume a moral high ground for USA, not everyone would subscribe to that world-view.

You couldn't be more wrong here.

North Korea and Iran are both coming to the table with the US/EU as a result of economic isolation and sanctions. It has been without a doubt the best approach short of military involvement (which nobody wants).

And this incident isn't going to cause the US one iota of problems in the future. China is actively trying to improve relations and Russia is becoming more and more isolated as we saw at the G8.

This situation is going to affect world relations the same way Wikileaks has i.e. not at all.

Don't treay US and EU as the same. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/usa-security-eu-id...

This is pretty entertaining.

The US government meanwhile disgraced itself by accusing China and Russia of unlawful behavior.

It is pretty much becoming something out of a Tom Clancy novel. You could easily imagine a situation room like you see in many a Hollywood movie tracking him. Though Hollywood, this is not.

"It is pretty much becoming something out of a Tom Clancy novel"

In a Tom Clancy novel wouldn't the Russian/Chinese spy be fleeing to the United States?

You say it's not Hollywood - maybe Snowden will end up like the guy in "The Terminal", unable to enter Russia but unable to leave the airport....

My guess is, he was put into a waiting car owned by a foreign government and whisked away somewhere or taken to another waiting plane and 'smuggled' out.

But this has been planned with pinpoint precision and I expect there is a lot of 'back channel' negotiation/diplomacy being carried for safe channel to fly him to Ecuador or wherever.

He will probably only turn up officially when he is out of arm's reach of the USA.

"Pinpoint precision" gives the governments of the world too much credit. Reacting to developments on the fly is not exactly a strength. There was a (Reuters?) article yesterday that said the Ambassador of Ecuador arrived at the airport and asked the press where Snowden was...and I am expecting thats the kind of stuff that is mostly going on.

It'd be interesting to know how those back channel communications occurred one day. One can only assume the NSA would be putting every scrap of their attention on monitoring anyone even remotely connected to Snowden.

Imagine? They actually have operation centers modeled after Hollywood movies. Complete with mood-lighting, wall-size monitors and trendy, ergonomic desks.

I guess one good thing about this charade is it keeps the media interested. These sorts of stories normally disappear after a few days, with only the most enthusiastic person able to dedicate their time to follow them.

Same thing with Assange, him being stuck in an embassy is a bit of a freak show (can't think of a better phrase). He pops up randomly and the press can't help but point their cameras and microphones at him. Assange is practically on the media's doorstep.

I hope the the NSA spying story stays in the media for many months, because I fear that as soon as politicians stop fearing the outrage over this, they will immediately grant immunities for this like they did with carriers earlier, and will also probably pass new laws to make whatever people may suspect NSA is doing now is illegal (not just unconstitutional) to make it legal. But if they fear outrage, they might not do it yet.

It's funny, I look at all this and what comes to mind is the movie "Iron Sky" with its cleverly depicted political landscape. If you watched it, you'll understand :)

The US cheated their way into the Iraq war. Invaded Afghanistan. With Iran likely the next target. Stirred up the Middle East with Egypt, Libya, Syria on fire. Commit drone strikes worldwide. Kidnap and torture people on foreign soil. Keep half the world under surveillance. And the language they converse in is of demands and threats.

I think we have a major bully emerging here.

They've been a bully. That's just a sample of recent history.

[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] criticised what he termed US attempts to blame Russia for his disappearance, saying they were "groundless and unacceptable".

and

Meanwhile, China has also described US accusations that it facilitated the departure of fugitive Edward Snowden from Hong Kong as "groundless and unacceptable".

Does anyone else find it slightly odd that they used identical wording? Is this a case of the Chinese saying "well the Russians nailed it, let's use the exact same phrase", or what precisely?

Standard diplomatic language perhaps?

Plus in both cases these could be translations from Chinese and Russian languages.

That seems the most likely, doesn't it? I'd love it if somewhere there were an official diplomatic language glossary with translations for what these terms really mean, e.g. groundless and unacceptable: "justified and permissible".

Right, he's in the international transit area, so not officially "in Russia", despite being within Russian territory. (There was that stupid movie The Terminal with Tom Hanks which might be relevant here...)

"So Komrade Snowden. We are the FSA. You can talk to us willingly, or talk to this rubber hose... or you can go to the US Embassy for protection. Muhahahahaha"

If it turns out neither China, Cuba nor Russia stop, threathen or interrogate Snowden, the comparison leaves USA in a very bad place.

Nevertheless:

06/25 14:37 RUSSIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES MAY DETAIN SNOWDEN TO ESTABLISH ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING PASSPORT DETAILS - SOURCE

http://www.interfax.com/news.asp

Are they allowed to though? He technically isn't in Russian terroritory.

In what way is the airport not Russian territory? Certain sections of the airport might have special status in regards to immigration and travel, but it's hard to believe that there is any part of the airport not subject to Russian law.

Tell me this is US border police and airport security allowed to detain anyone making a hop in the US? I'm pretty sure airport security can detain any and everyone they desire.

US airports don't have such a thing as a transit zone. Even if you're flying to a third country via an US airport, you need to go through immigration, collect your luggage, go through customs, re-check your luggage and then endure the whole security circus once again.

This is not the case in most any other airport on the globe, where you usually remain in the transit zone if you're travelling to a third country.

That said: I agree with you that the Russian statement is likely a cop out. If they want to arrest you they wouldn't give a shit if you're in the transit zone or not. That probably goes for every other country too.

I didn't know that, thank you for the explanation.

And yes just as you said, IMHO transit zone is not a safety zone from the hosting government, it is more just a convenience thing for the travellers.

what does "to establish all circumstances" mean in this context?

Deleted comment

It doesn't even sound the same.

So when is the movie coming out?

I hear Denzel is in talks to star as Snowden.

Not Matt Damon?

Political correctness requires that main good character should be Afroamerican and main evil character should be white. If you do the opposite you (director) are considered racist

Ask the NSA.

In other words, just text/e-mail/call/talk quietly to yourself.

(I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the jab, and I fully accept all down votes that come to me on this one)

Don't forget to add a some specific keywords to the question.

On the subject of adding random "interesting" keywords - Emacs has had "spook mode" for a long time:

http://www.cypherspace.org/rsa/spook.html

It inserts some random "interesting" keywords into the buffer.

I wonder if there could be a web version of this - that adds form fields/headers filled with "interesting" keywords - might break some applications though.

If the information he has is very valuable it's not only the US he should be running from.

Russian authorities are either mocking the Obama administration or learning from it:

> ... Mr Lavrov said. "He chose his itinerary on his own. We learnt about it... from the media.

>Russia says it has had no involvement in the travel plans of fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

Is Russia relenting to the US pressure?

Russia is probably the country that recruited Snowden as it's agent, and they commanded him to reveal NSA secrets. Now Snowden is probably safe somewhere deep in Russia, and Russian authorities just lie about "no involvement in the travel plans"

Do you know something we don't?

So far so good that if whistleblowers can find protection from the U.S. government, that more will come forward.

It's only a matter of time before they get him.

Two things: 1. Putin is sick and tired of US raining (or trying to) on his parade. This would tell US to go F itself, increase Putin's cred in Russia and in many other countries.

2. Snowden has a trove of intel that Russia would love to have.

3. Snowden probably already receives paychecks from Russia

If he was receiving pay-checks from Russia for spying, it would probably come with the stipulation that you don't blab to the world's media that you're a spy. At the very least it's implied.

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