Snowden leaves Hong Kong
Jun 23, 2013
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has flown from Hong Kong to Russia, this report says, and may be heading to Venezuela because it is a country that is not afraid to stand up to the United States. Yesterday the US gov't filed an extradition notice with Hong Kong, but before complying, they requested more information on US hacking in China via telephone companies. In the interim, Snowden was free to do as he chose, so he left Hong Kong for a safer place.
The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed....
Snowden's departure came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from Snowden that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.
He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview....
The Chinese government has not commented on the extradition request and Snowden's departure, but its state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.
A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."
"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."
Other countries do not seem terribly impressed with America's moral position. The hypocrisy is evident to all but the US gov't.