DoJ to Snowden: Hope your 15 minutes were worth it, pal

[The Minsky Moment]

But then, I never knew what was the process for any number of different ways intelligence agencies can illicitly gain intelligence, and how they go about making sure to remain with US law while they busily break everyone else.

In the old days it was very simple: the government could do whatever it wanted it terms of targeting foreigners and if that ended up capturing the private communcations of US persons as well, that was just too bad. 

FISA changed that and put various procedures in place to deal with situations where any US person may be involved in a communication.  Communications exclusively between foreign persons are still (AFAIK) subject to no restrictions other than those imposed by prudence and diplomacy.

So the three questions to ask as far as the NSA is concerned are:
1) Has the NSA complied with FISA?
2) Is FISA sufficiently robust to protect the rights of the people?
3) Should the NSA refrain from doing certain things the law allows because of adverse diplomatic impact?

I can't speak to GCHQ's actions as that is a different constitutional and legal regime.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's starting to look like Snowden has erred.

Snowden's Options for Refuge Narrow
Obama Administration Has Sought to Cut Off Fugitive's Asylum Options

    By
    TE-PING CHEN
    and
    KEN BROWN
    CONNECT

As Edward Snowden entered his second week of limbo in Moscow's airport on Sunday, his decision to go to Russia is looking riskier than it first appeared, and may have left him in a worse situation than if he had stayed in Hong Kong.

Even with his next move uncertain, the former National Security Agency contractor caused fresh uproar over the weekend. On Sunday, German weekly Der Spiegel, citing information from Mr. Snowden, reported that the U.S. had placed listening devices in a European Union office in Washington, infiltrated its computers and carried out cyberattacks against EU bodies. The report prompted strong criticism from several European governments.

Mr. Snowden had hoped for asylum in Ecuador, but that seems less likely now. President Rafael Correa on Sunday retreated further from his country's early support of Mr. Snowden, telling the Associated Press it was up to Russian authorities to decide whether Mr. Snowden could travel to the Ecuadorean embassy in Moscow to seek asylum.

Mr. Snowden's limbo is the product of a series of rapid decisions made during his final 24 hours in Hong Kong, when he was struggling over whether to remain there or seek asylum elsewhere.

According to people familiar with his case, Mr. Snowden at first wanted to stay in Hong Kong, and sought to build public support there by giving a local newspaper information about U.S. hacking activities in the city. His Hong Kong legal team, which included local opposition legislator Albert Ho, was preparing for a long fight.

At least part of his legal team believed Hong Kong represented the best option to protect their client's safety and interests, one of the people familiar with his case said. Mr. Snowden, though, was getting a different message from WikiLeaks. On June 12, Mr. Snowden through an intermediary asked the antisecrecy organization to help him seek asylum in Iceland, WikiLeaks said on June 19. In the days after his approach, WikiLeaks asked other governments about asylum possibilities on Mr. Snowden's behalf.

"He obviously chose to go to Moscow, though I don't know why. I wouldn't have," said Patricia Ho of Hong Kong law firm Daly & Associates, who isn't involved in the case. She said Mr. Snowden had had a range of options still open to him before he left Hong Kong, including filing for asylum or contesting the U.S.'s request in the city's robust judicial system.

But Mr. Snowden's escape plan stalled when he got stuck in the transit area of the Moscow airport.

He touched down in Moscow a week ago on his way to Ecuador "via Russia and other states," according to WikiLeaks. Some two days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied a U.S. request to expel Mr. Snowden and urged the fugitive to get on his way. He has since been stuck in Sheremetyevo Airport's transit zone without a valid U.S. passport or a Russian visa, facing an increasingly uncertain path.

The Obama administration sought to systematically cut off Mr. Snowden's asylum options once he left Hong Kong, said senior U.S. officials working on the strategy.

One focus, these officials said, has been to repeatedly stress to Moscow that hopes for better cooperation on issues ranging from counterterrorism to Syria could be jeopardized without cooperation on Mr. Snowden.

On Ecuador, senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have told Quito that its economic engagement with the U.S. could diminish if Mr. Snowden is granted asylum. The Latin American country has a dollar-based economy and is reliant on the U.S. for 40% of its exports. Oil accounts for about 80% of Ecuador's exports to the U.S., but the country also exports significant amounts of fish and seafood, bananas and flowers.

The Obama administration has used the outrage in Congress over Mr. Snowden to pressure Mr. Correa, said U.S. officials.

White House officials declined to discuss in detail Mr. Biden's phone conversation with Mr. Correa. But U.S. officials said this threat of congressional action against Quito continues to be used by the administration to try to gain Mr. Correa's cooperation. They said they still believed the Ecuadorean leader was worried about the economic costs to his country.

The U.S. point man on dealing with Russia on Mr. Snowden has been the State Department's No. 2 diplomat, Undersecretary William Burns, said senior U.S. officials. Mr. Burns is a former American ambassador to Moscow who has regularly worked with Russia on issues from Middle East peace initiatives to Islamic militancy in the Caucasus. Mr. Burns also coordinated extensively with Russia when he served as the U.S. point man on Iran's nuclear program.

Mr. Burns and Secretary of State John Kerry have coordinated a message to Moscow that Russia can't expect the same level of support on counterterrorism and law-enforcement issues without cooperation on Mr. Snowden, U.S. officials said. Mr. Kerry particularly noted in talks with Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that over the past two years, the U.S. has extradited seven people who were wanted for crimes to Moscow.

One factor driving Mr. Snowden from Hong Kong, according to the people familiar with his case, was the likelihood that he would be held in jail while his extradition case was fought. In jail, he would have lost his Internet access. "I don't think he'd mind being in prison, so long as he could have the Internet," one of the people said.

It isn't known whether Mr. Snowden has Internet access at the Moscow airport, but others in the transit zone have access to the Web and other communications.

Mr. Snowden's chances of avoiding surrender to the U.S. by Hong Kong authorities were slim, some lawyers in Hong Kong said. "If he'd stayed in Hong Kong, authorities would only have been able to stall for so long, and then they would've had to comply under their obligations," said Kevin Egan, a Hong Kong lawyer who has handled surrender cases but who wasn't involved in the Snowden case. Since 1998, the city has handed back people to the U.S. in 65 cases under its surrender agreement. In at least one other case—involving someone charged by the U.S. with smuggling—Hong Kong didn't send the person back.

Other Hong Kong lawyers said one of Mr. Snowden's best options, and one that remains open to him if he returned to Hong Kong, is to file an asylum claim either with the Hong Kong government or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, something he could have done while in Hong Kong. Another avenue for Mr. Snowden would have been for China to block the surrender by exercising its right to intervene in issues involving national security and foreign relations, though it is believed that Beijing signed off on his departure, according to diplomats and Hong Kong legislators.

China's Foreign Ministry didn't respond to questions last week about what role Beijing had played in negotiations over Mr. Snowden. "The central government obviously respects the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government's handling of affairs in accordance with law," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing.

Mr. Snowden could return to Hong Kong, Ms. Ho of Daly & Associates said, attempting to apply for asylum after he arrived from the Hong Kong government or the UNHCR. The Hong Kong government has asked airlines to bar him from flying there, but he could get around that restriction because Russia would be "returning" him to Hong Kong, which would be different than "allowing" him to fly to Hong Kong like a normal passenger, she said.

Mr. Snowden's time in Hong Kong was cloaked in secrecy, beginning with his initial approach to his lawyers. On June 10, the day after he exposed his identity in the Guardian newspaper, a Hong Kong-based intermediary called a local lawyer known for his work on human-rights issues to seek assistance, according to a person familiar with the case. The lawyer, who didn't know the caller, was told to meet him on a street in Hong Kong and they would ride together in a taxi to meet Mr. Snowden, the person said.

Soon after, reporters found Mr. Snowden in the Mira Hong Kong Hotel in the densely packed Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood and he fled from there with the lawyer, the person said. Mr. Snowden moved locations only under cover of darkness and wore a cap and sunglasses on the rare occasions he went out, the people familiar with his case said.

In the days before Mr. Snowden's exit from Hong Kong, Mr. Ho, the opposition legislator, unsuccessfully sought clarification from the city's government on Mr. Snowden's case, the people familiar with the case said. He was growing increasingly worried that stepped-up pressure by the U.S. would push Hong Kong's government to detain him, these people said.

Around June 21, the same time the U.S. unsealed charges against him, according to one of the people familiar with his case, Mr. Snowden received an encrypted message that claimed to represent a government authority who urged him to leave Hong Kong, and assured him he would be able to clear immigration if he tried to do so. Mr. Ho tried to contact Hong Kong's government to determine whether the message's assurances were genuine, but didn't receive an immediate reply.

Mr. Snowden woke on Saturday, June 22, to news that the U.S. had unsealed the charges accusing him of crimes under the U.S. Espionage Act and theft of government property. He began looking for flights out of Hong Kong, a person familiar with his case said.

Moscow wasn't his only pick, this person said: His goal was to get somewhere he believed would protect him from the U.S. government's reach. He knew he needed to avoid U.S. airlines but didn't have a final destination in mind, people familiar with his case said. Throughout the day, he vacillated between staying and going, and about where he would go if he left, the person said.

Around midnight on Saturday, Mr. Snowden told his legal team that he wanted to leave town, the person said, and he was urged to get a good night's sleep and to think about it some more.

The next day, June 23, Mr. Snowden made up his mind and headed for the airport in a private car, the person said. In part because they weren't using mobile phones to communicate, one of his lawyers had gone ahead to the airport not knowing if Mr. Snowden would appear. At the airport, the lawyer bought a plane ticket to Shanghai—the cheapest one he could find—to ensure that he could accompany Mr. Snowden past immigration checks. He arrived at the airport just in time to make his Aeroflot flight to Moscow. He had no luggage to check. He cleared immigration and security and quietly boarded the flight.
—Jay Solomon, Chester Yung, José de Córdoba, Jeremy Page and Paul Sonne contributed to this article.

Write to Te-Ping Chen at [email protected] and Ken Brown at [email protected]

A version of this article appeared July 1, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Snowden In Limbo As Options Narrow.

What it sounds like is some lawyers that probably knew what they were talking about in Hong Kong told him he should have stayed there. While there were no guarantees as to how it would end, they thought he had a good chance of prevailing in surrender/extradition court hearing. Further, Hong Kong's judicial system is respectable and serious enough that there was no chance of him just being turned over. It sounds like two things prompted his flight:

1) WikiLeaks convinced him he was better off working with them, and they would get him to either Iceland or Ecuador.
2) Under Hong Kong law he would have to remain in custody/jail while the extradition process went on. Apparently he was unwilling to lose internet access.

As most things involving Julian Assange ultimately turn out, it appears it was just a bunch of BS and that all Assange has done is gotten himself and WikiLeaks a lot more attention again without helping Snowden at all. In fact he's gotten Snowden stranded in Russia where it looks like his only remaining good choice is to go back to Hong Kong. Assuming he can go back to Hong Kong (as the article intimates he could, since it'd be a "return from Russia" and that's handled differently than an initial entry into HK) then he's only wasted time and money trying to get to Ecuador through Russia. But if he can't, then he may be truly "caught."

I'm not sure why he didn't get into contact with a Hong Kong lawyer before he did all of this. He could have found out what the process was and known in advance that while he might prevail in an extradition hearing, he'd be looking at a few months/years in custody while it worked out. Knowing that maybe he would have tried to go to Iceland or something directly.

I think part of it was he just stopped showing up for work for awhile, and that got his name spread around as a guy with a security clearance who had gone off the grid. He should have continued to work, since obviously no one had detected his data theft, until he had his escape plan fully formed.

[CountDeMoney]

I think a life of gulag in a Moscow airport is a fitting punishment.  He'll kill himself soon enough.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm not sure why he didn't get into contact with a Hong Kong lawyer before he did all of this. He could have found out what the process was and known in advance that while he might prevail in an extradition hearing, he'd be looking at a few months/years in custody while it worked out. Knowing that maybe he would have tried to go to Iceland or something directly.

Like everyone else of his Assburger generation, he's simply not as smart as he thinks he is.

[Eddie Teach]

What it sounds like is some lawyers that probably knew what they were talking about in Hong Kong told him he should have stayed there.

Where those lawyers could get lots of press for representing him. And of course the HK lawyer who wasn't representing him said it was inevitable that they'd have to turn him over.

He was pretty much fucked from the get-go.

[Neil]

The smart thing to do would have been not to talk to the press.  Reporters never help.  That would have nipped this whole situation in the bud.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Part of what probably threw Assange and his team of bozos is they thought Snowden would be able to move around as easily as Assange would. But there were several big differences:

1. Assange was an Australian national, and the U.S. had far less ability to inhibit his movements.
2. Despite all the bluster from officials in Congress calling for his prosecution, Assange has never been charged with a crime in an American court. The U.S. government has never formally asked any country to extradite him or made any deliberate moves against him. We were working to limit Snowden's movements and asking for him to be turned over very early.
3. We brought significant political force to bear against both Ecuador and Russia. We've given Russia several of their high profile criminals back, and are negotiating on a range of issues with them. It appears we've been willing to threaten less cooperation over the Snowden issue. While Putin was being his regular cock-face self in the beginning, notice he's silent now. I don't think he'll turn Snowden over to us directly, but it's obvious now he probably doesn't want more involvement in this matter and won't do anything to help Snowden. Ecuador thumbed their nose at us by giving up $23m in trade privileges, but it looks like in the end Correa is scared about the economic implications of pissing us off. Especially with Congresscritters making noise that a lot more than those $23m trade privileges could be at stake. If we intentionally limited trade with Ecuador or even sanctioned trade with them it would basically nuke their economy, we buy 40% of all their exports.

[CountDeMoney]

While Putin was being his regular cock-face self in the beginning, notice he's silent now. I don't think he'll turn Snowden over to us directly, but it's obvious now he probably doesn't want more involvement in this matter and won't do anything to help Snowden.

He'll give him up under the table under the right conditions.  Putin may be a piece of shit, but he's a transactional piece of shit.

[garbon]

I'm not sure why he didn't get into contact with a Hong Kong lawyer before he did all of this. He could have found out what the process was and known in advance that while he might prevail in an extradition hearing, he'd be looking at a few months/years in custody while it worked out. Knowing that maybe he would have tried to go to Iceland or something directly.

Like everyone else of his Assburger generation, he's simply not as smart as he thinks he is.

If those IRC chats were really of him, he just sounds like a Languish poster.

[Eddie Teach]

Most of us are not as smart as we think either 

[garbon]

That chat had him as a fan of the gold standard.

[The Minsky Moment]

That chat had him as a fan of the gold standard.

I would have pegged him as a bitcoin guy.

[Zanza]

Putin said he could stay in Russia provided he doesn't give away any more US secrets.

[garbon]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/01/us-usa-security-snowden-putin-idUSBRE9600QP20130701

"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips," Putin told reporters after a gas exporters' conference in Moscow.

[Eddie Teach]

Intelligence is more valuable if it's not available on google.