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.
1. http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201306/23/P201306230476.h...
Under those circumstances I'd be somewhat careful with the word 'disappointed'... :)
[1] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/nsa-chief-keith...
»I am sure we did not break Chinese law.«
As for if they broke Chinese law "when they hacked computer systems IN CHINA", that's another question.
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...
(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.)
What exactly does the US think that Hong Kong should have done? Break the law?
What a bunch of hypocrites.
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?
Yes, imagine have to flee Nebraska or South Carolina for a place like Amsterdam or Paris or Singapore, etc...
Accused my ass.. more like "IS".
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.
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.
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.
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."
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)
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.
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.
"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.."
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.
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.
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.
"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...
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.