6 ms·

This is by far the most informative [edit: if speculative] article I've read on Snowden's choice of Hong Kong, which has been the most puzzling detail of the wh

by gruseom 13y ago

This is by far the most informative [edit: if speculative] article I've read on Snowden's choice of Hong Kong, which has been the most puzzling detail of the whole story. If true, it explains a lot, not just about why he chose Hong Kong but also about his subsequent interview with the press there. Can HNers who know Hong Kong shed light on how plausible it is? It's striking how one obscure blog post can be more valuable than all the media speculation on this question (that I've seen) put together. That doesn't make its interpretation true, of course. But the alternate explanation that was going through my head seems a bit movie-esque by comparison.

glurgh 13y ago
It's striking how one obscure blog post can be more valuable than all the media speculation on this question (that I've seen) put together. The infographic is taken from the South China Morning Post, a mainstream media outlet. It's followed by some verbiage about the speed of the Hong Kong judiciary and then a mention of a murder trial (actually, two trials) that's gone on for nearly 10 years - but that's a murder trial, not an extradition proceeding. This is just as speculative as anything else but from what little we've learned about Snowden, he just doesn't strike me as some fiendishly clever schemer. If I had to guess, I'd say he went to Hong Kong because he has an interest in Chinese language and culture and went to the most comfortable place in China that's China-but-not-quite.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- AVTizzle 13y ago
  I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. I don't imagine an "interest in Chinese language and culture" would have anything to do with this decision.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    He mentioned picking up Mandarin in one of his Ars posts, I think. Not "fiendishly" clever, just apparently more clever than the folks running our intelligence services.
    - OstiaAntica 13y ago
      Mandarin is not widely spoken in Hong Kong-- locals speak Cantonese and Mandarin was not taught in school while HK was under British rule.
      - eru 13y ago
        Yes, but lots of people speak Mandarin now, either for doing business with the PRC or because they are PRC immigrants.
      - wavefunction 13y ago
        Certainly I know this about Cantonese, but I'm just relating to you what I had read.
    - tokenadult 13y ago
      Snowden is not proficient in Chinese, no way. (I am, by test.) As Confucius said, in one of his most famous take-downs, "始吾於人也、聽其言而信其行、今吾於人也、聽其言而觀其行。At first in dealing with people, I would hear their words and trust their deeds, but now my way of dealing with people is to hear their words and observe their deeds." We'll see what appears about his planning and his view toward China and a lot of other things about him as he continues interaction with news media and the governmental authorities of various governments.
      - wavefunction 13y ago
        Time will tell us more about Snowden but I believe his intentions to be primarily towards exposing the surveillance state for American citizens. Its existence as described by his documents is contrary to our guiding principles. I kind of doubt he was too focused on exposing this to the rest of the world but feels that it's a necessary part of what he's doing for his country.
  - glurgh 13y ago
    I'm not being entirely serious (hard to be, given the little we know) but I'm not being sarcastic, either. Some of Snowden's behaviour has been pretty odd. A variety of interpretations are possible. One is that he's a mastermind media manipulator/intelligence operator/exploiter of immigration laws/meticulous planner of a fugitive. This idea has some traction on HN and outside but I'm pretty skeptical of it. The interpretation that I lean towards, mostly for Occam's razor-ish reasons, is that he's maybe a little bit naive and perhaps doesn't quite know what he's doing. If you care about things like your credibility and being taken seriously you probably don't do things like fib about your salary or suggest the CIA is going to hire triads to have you whacked. If you hope to avoid the reach of the US criminal justice system or intelligence services you probably don't meet, in person, with high-profile US journalists in a Hong Kong hotel carrying a Rubik's cube. You probably don't go to Hong Kong in the first place where your ability to predict your future fate is very limited. And finally, if you hope to represent your prosecution as political and your acts as acts of conscience in defense of civil liberties, you probably don't start divulging operational details of overseas US intelligence operations to foreign governments - they're not related to your stated cause and just land you in much deeper doodoo. Now, it's possible all of this is some diabolically clever ploy/gambit but, personally, I find that a little hard to swallow.
    - Jack000 13y ago
      I think the most salient point is that he needed to go to a country where - the US did not have significant influence - could not be strong-armed into giving him up - would cause significant problems if he were taken without consent (or killed outright - not implausible, given the things we've seen in Pakistan) China is a fairly logical choice - it's as far as you can run from the US in geopolitical terms. Hong Kong is just being in China without "being in China".
      - glurgh 13y ago
        Ooof, kind of, sort of, maybe? I can see the argument, at a very high level but I don't think it survives even a cursory examination of the details, which are - by going to HK he's walking into a very convoluted situation the outcome of which neither he nor anyone else can really predict. And he's basically betting that all twists and turns of the various intermediate outcomes will go his way. This seems incredibly risky and not very, well, strategic. I don't think, though, that in the unlikely event he gets Vanunu'd out Hong Kong it would cause significant problems for anyone but him. He also doesn't really face any risk of being killed - whatever one may think of the ethics, legality or quality of targeting of the drone strikes, they do target people involved in a violent, armed conflict with the US - 'enemy combatants' as the USG likes to call them. Snowden is not any sort of enemy combatant.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Not a resident, but I have spent some time there. Phone service is indeed cheap. SIM cards are bought at every kind of venue right on down to carts on the street. No ID needed, no contract. You give money, you get SIM card with nn minutes. Handsets are cheap too, really cheap, like throw away cheap. I hadn't thought about that from a signals intelligence perspective, but I bet that fact combined with the density of people would make it quite challenging to find his signal from among the others. Speaking of people density, guaranteed, no drone strikes in HK. Also, probably no movie-style snatch and grabs in HK. Aside from the tension that would cause in US/China foreign affairs, traffic would prevent that from happening most hours of the day. It would definitely not go unnoticed.
- robryan 13y ago
  Yeah, I was also amazed at how good the 3g was on a random sim I bought at the airport. Works great in the metro too which is awesome coming from Melbourne and having no connectivity between stations in our metro.
joonix 13y ago
I haven't seen any articles discuss a major issue: his immigration status. If he's on a visitor/business visa he likely only has 6-12 months in the country. If he's there as a tourist, 90 days. If he overstays his visa, he can be arrested and deported.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Day trip to Macau might fix that. I bet he can get a special accommodation though.
  - reedlaw 13y ago
    He might face extradition at the border, depending on how Macau-China-US relations work.
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      Macau is a Special Administrative Region, of the PRC just as HK is. An entry/exit is sufficient to reset the timer on your entry visa with the mainland. I'm assuming the same thing works between HK and Macau, but I've never tested it.
- akiselev 13y ago
  By which time he can probably get a Visa somewhere else and rinse and repeat, shuffling between two secure locations and flight paths. Once extradition proceedings have begun, he can no longer be deported. Deportation and removal orders still have to go through the court system though: http://www.hkhrm.org.hk/english/reports/eimrev96.html#Deportation http://www.hkhrm.org.hk/english/reports/eimrev96.html#Deport...
  - cema 13y ago
    shuffling between two secure locations and flight paths That would still be observable and therefore risky.
leephillips 13y ago
"It's striking how one obscure blog post can be more valuable than all the media speculation on this question (that I've seen) put together." Perhaps this still qualifies as striking, but it's becoming rapidly more common, as mainstream journalism becomes ever more predictable and imitative, and individuals with expertise and actual insight, not working for news organizations, stand out as the only voices worth paying attention to.
- Estragon 13y ago
  Yeah, I stopped reading the MSM in 2003 when Juan Cole was blogging about stuff which didn't appear in mainstream sources until months later.
- pvdm 13y ago
  Not to mention they missed the whole subprime mortage crisis and never questioned the weapons of mass destruction ruse for invading Iraq.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Exactly. Blogging allows subject matter experts to easily, cheaply publish, be widely read, and compete for eyeballs with the MSM. There's no way most people who just went to Journalism school can compete with, say, an experienced Constitutional lawyer like Greenwald or Lessig, or hacker like PG or Spolsky, or VC like Fred Wilson etc. But there are some things MSM can still do - good professional journalists can still round up experts and put together a composite of their views. Or they do real investigative journalism that bloggers may not have the resources for, be it Bloomberg suing the Federal Reserve under FOIA [1], or sending reporters to hotspots for first-hand reporting. Personally I think a combination of data journalism and investigative journalism (like WaPo's Top Secret America [2] and Bloomberg's FOIA lawsuit and reporting) are their best way forward. Both require resources most individual bloggers can't provide, and both are real news, real journalism. [1]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-data-compiled-by-bloomberg-released-to-public.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-d... [2]: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

by gruseom 13y ago

glurgh 13y ago

It's striking how one obscure blog post can be more valuable than all the media speculation on this question (that I've seen) put together. The infographic is taken from the South China Morning Post, a mainstream media outlet. It's followed by some verbiage about the speed of the Hong Kong judiciary and then a mention of a murder trial (actually, two trials) that's gone on for nearly 10 years - but that's a murder trial, not an extradition proceeding. This is just as speculative as anything else but from what little we've learned about Snowden, he just doesn't strike me as some fiendishly clever schemer. If I had to guess, I'd say he went to Hong Kong because he has an interest in Chinese language and culture and went to the most comfortable place in China that's China-but-not-quite.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
AVTizzle 13y ago
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. I don't imagine an "interest in Chinese language and culture" would have anything to do with this decision.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  He mentioned picking up Mandarin in one of his Ars posts, I think. Not "fiendishly" clever, just apparently more clever than the folks running our intelligence services.
  - OstiaAntica 13y ago
    Mandarin is not widely spoken in Hong Kong-- locals speak Cantonese and Mandarin was not taught in school while HK was under British rule.
    - eru 13y ago
      Yes, but lots of people speak Mandarin now, either for doing business with the PRC or because they are PRC immigrants.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      Certainly I know this about Cantonese, but I'm just relating to you what I had read.
  - tokenadult 13y ago
    Snowden is not proficient in Chinese, no way. (I am, by test.) As Confucius said, in one of his most famous take-downs, "始吾於人也、聽其言而信其行、今吾於人也、聽其言而觀其行。At first in dealing with people, I would hear their words and trust their deeds, but now my way of dealing with people is to hear their words and observe their deeds." We'll see what appears about his planning and his view toward China and a lot of other things about him as he continues interaction with news media and the governmental authorities of various governments.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      Time will tell us more about Snowden but I believe his intentions to be primarily towards exposing the surveillance state for American citizens. Its existence as described by his documents is contrary to our guiding principles. I kind of doubt he was too focused on exposing this to the rest of the world but feels that it's a necessary part of what he's doing for his country.
- glurgh 13y ago
  I'm not being entirely serious (hard to be, given the little we know) but I'm not being sarcastic, either. Some of Snowden's behaviour has been pretty odd. A variety of interpretations are possible. One is that he's a mastermind media manipulator/intelligence operator/exploiter of immigration laws/meticulous planner of a fugitive. This idea has some traction on HN and outside but I'm pretty skeptical of it. The interpretation that I lean towards, mostly for Occam's razor-ish reasons, is that he's maybe a little bit naive and perhaps doesn't quite know what he's doing. If you care about things like your credibility and being taken seriously you probably don't do things like fib about your salary or suggest the CIA is going to hire triads to have you whacked. If you hope to avoid the reach of the US criminal justice system or intelligence services you probably don't meet, in person, with high-profile US journalists in a Hong Kong hotel carrying a Rubik's cube. You probably don't go to Hong Kong in the first place where your ability to predict your future fate is very limited. And finally, if you hope to represent your prosecution as political and your acts as acts of conscience in defense of civil liberties, you probably don't start divulging operational details of overseas US intelligence operations to foreign governments - they're not related to your stated cause and just land you in much deeper doodoo. Now, it's possible all of this is some diabolically clever ploy/gambit but, personally, I find that a little hard to swallow.
  - Jack000 13y ago
    I think the most salient point is that he needed to go to a country where - the US did not have significant influence - could not be strong-armed into giving him up - would cause significant problems if he were taken without consent (or killed outright - not implausible, given the things we've seen in Pakistan) China is a fairly logical choice - it's as far as you can run from the US in geopolitical terms. Hong Kong is just being in China without "being in China".
    - glurgh 13y ago
      Ooof, kind of, sort of, maybe? I can see the argument, at a very high level but I don't think it survives even a cursory examination of the details, which are - by going to HK he's walking into a very convoluted situation the outcome of which neither he nor anyone else can really predict. And he's basically betting that all twists and turns of the various intermediate outcomes will go his way. This seems incredibly risky and not very, well, strategic. I don't think, though, that in the unlikely event he gets Vanunu'd out Hong Kong it would cause significant problems for anyone but him. He also doesn't really face any risk of being killed - whatever one may think of the ethics, legality or quality of targeting of the drone strikes, they do target people involved in a violent, armed conflict with the US - 'enemy combatants' as the USG likes to call them. Snowden is not any sort of enemy combatant.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

Not a resident, but I have spent some time there. Phone service is indeed cheap. SIM cards are bought at every kind of venue right on down to carts on the street. No ID needed, no contract. You give money, you get SIM card with nn minutes. Handsets are cheap too, really cheap, like throw away cheap. I hadn't thought about that from a signals intelligence perspective, but I bet that fact combined with the density of people would make it quite challenging to find his signal from among the others. Speaking of people density, guaranteed, no drone strikes in HK. Also, probably no movie-style snatch and grabs in HK. Aside from the tension that would cause in US/China foreign affairs, traffic would prevent that from happening most hours of the day. It would definitely not go unnoticed.

robryan 13y ago
Yeah, I was also amazed at how good the 3g was on a random sim I bought at the airport. Works great in the metro too which is awesome coming from Melbourne and having no connectivity between stations in our metro.

joonix 13y ago

I haven't seen any articles discuss a major issue: his immigration status. If he's on a visitor/business visa he likely only has 6-12 months in the country. If he's there as a tourist, 90 days. If he overstays his visa, he can be arrested and deported.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Day trip to Macau might fix that. I bet he can get a special accommodation though.
- reedlaw 13y ago
  He might face extradition at the border, depending on how Macau-China-US relations work.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Macau is a Special Administrative Region, of the PRC just as HK is. An entry/exit is sufficient to reset the timer on your entry visa with the mainland. I'm assuming the same thing works between HK and Macau, but I've never tested it.
akiselev 13y ago
By which time he can probably get a Visa somewhere else and rinse and repeat, shuffling between two secure locations and flight paths. Once extradition proceedings have begun, he can no longer be deported. Deportation and removal orders still have to go through the court system though: http://www.hkhrm.org.hk/english/reports/eimrev96.html#Deportation http://www.hkhrm.org.hk/english/reports/eimrev96.html#Deport...
- cema 13y ago
  shuffling between two secure locations and flight paths That would still be observable and therefore risky.

leephillips 13y ago

"It's striking how one obscure blog post can be more valuable than all the media speculation on this question (that I've seen) put together." Perhaps this still qualifies as striking, but it's becoming rapidly more common, as mainstream journalism becomes ever more predictable and imitative, and individuals with expertise and actual insight, not working for news organizations, stand out as the only voices worth paying attention to.

Estragon 13y ago
Yeah, I stopped reading the MSM in 2003 when Juan Cole was blogging about stuff which didn't appear in mainstream sources until months later.
pvdm 13y ago
Not to mention they missed the whole subprime mortage crisis and never questioned the weapons of mass destruction ruse for invading Iraq.
SkyMarshal 13y ago
Exactly. Blogging allows subject matter experts to easily, cheaply publish, be widely read, and compete for eyeballs with the MSM. There's no way most people who just went to Journalism school can compete with, say, an experienced Constitutional lawyer like Greenwald or Lessig, or hacker like PG or Spolsky, or VC like Fred Wilson etc. But there are some things MSM can still do - good professional journalists can still round up experts and put together a composite of their views. Or they do real investigative journalism that bloggers may not have the resources for, be it Bloomberg suing the Federal Reserve under FOIA [1], or sending reporters to hotspots for first-hand reporting. Personally I think a combination of data journalism and investigative journalism (like WaPo's Top Secret America [2] and Bloomberg's FOIA lawsuit and reporting) are their best way forward. Both require resources most individual bloggers can't provide, and both are real news, real journalism. [1]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-data-compiled-by-bloomberg-released-to-public.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-d... [2]: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/