Hacker News Reader

Comment by GVIrish | Hacker News Reader

Assuming Venezuela provides Snowden with some sort of travel document to leave Russia, the next big question is, how far is the US willing to go to apprehend him? How exactly is Snowden going to get a flight plan that allows him safe passage to Venezuela.

Obama previously said 'he's not scrambling jets' to catch him, but given this week's events I don't believe him. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the US went after his flight somehow. It seems like this administration is willing to be the international villain in their attempts to catch Snowden.

And maybe the CIA wouldn't dare forcibly take Snowden out of Russia or China, but who's to say they wouldn't do so to a smaller, less powerful country?

View on HN

From my outside-the-US perspective, I've got this cynical theory developing - the this "international drama" the US government is fueling is much less about Snowden, and much more about measuring just how much they can get away with in full public view - relyng on bread and circuses to keep the voting public distracted. I suspect "they" know that Snowden has almost certainly distributed all the documents in a way that means that catching and imprisoning him won't stop their release (and may well accelerate their release), and that this is all just a power play demonstratingthat "the rules" are for other people, not The US Governemnt.

It feels as though they got their answer about how the International diplomatic community may respond: it seems they crossed a line with the Latin American governments, and US influence in the region is already taking hits. First Equador renouncing the Andean Trade Preference Act, then the timing of this feels coupled to the Bolivian plane overreach (in stark contrast to Obama's "29 yo kid" dismissal). Perhaps it's unlikely to last, but for the moment we seem to be seeing this bloc standing together, motivated by the US.

The Guardian ran a pros-and-cons comparison previously of the various options Snowden might have (Venezuela and Ecuador at that time IIRC). One of the downsides of Venezuela was that the violent crime is so bad it would be relatively easy to have him killed and make it look like a robbery.

Sort of like prison. Or Washington DC, for that matter....

>> "And maybe the CIA wouldn't dare forcibly take Snowden out of Russia or China, but who's to say they wouldn't do so to a smaller, less powerful country?"

I think this is more to do with the publicity than the power/size of the country he is in when they do it. Extracting Snowden from another country forcefully would have huge repercussions. I think that would be the step too far that would unite world leaders in rebuking America.

The CIA under GW Bush did "extraordinary renditions" routinely and no government official suffered any consequence for it.

But with this case being so public globally I think things would be different - maybe I'm wrong though.

Agreed. There's a key distinction here, as Snowden is under a massive global microscope.

He's also white.

They didn't render any self-proclaimed American patriots though.

Yes, but the extraordinary renditions were to cooperative governments. not to ones that were in opposition.

The list of countries that accepted prisoners for the US is relatively short and mostly consisted of "secular arab governments"[1] who were only too glad to torture suspected islamists so the US could claim it's hands were clean.

And it's not entirely true that no US official suffered any consequences... there were the CIA operatives kicked out of Italy. And neither Donald Rumsfeld, nor John Yoo will be planning any trips to Paris or Madrid any time soon.

1. many of which fell during the Arab Spring, and some of which are still (Syria) in the process of falling.

Pretty sure that Russia would also need to cooperate in order for Snowden to leave as well. Whether it's approving planes to land or witnessing his travel documents whilst boarding.

And be serious. Obama is not going to scramble jets to destroy a plane to catch one low level hacker. He doesn't need to. The damage has been done and Snowden doesn't have a whole lot more he can reveal that will hurt the US. They pretty much want to just set an example for other people thinking of leaking military secrets.

Wouldn't blowing up a plane set a pretty spectacular example?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com