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Comment by lignuist | Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

"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?

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

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