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Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

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Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#81

Post by rayiner »

msg wrote: post #14
spitx wrote: post #6

CBS' Bob Schieffer on Snowden's junket: "For one thing, I don't remember Martin Luther King, Jr., or Rosa Parks running off and hiding in China. The people who ran the civil-rights movement were willing to break the law and suffer the consequences." "That's a little different than putting the nation's security at risk and running away." "What I see in Edward Snowden is just a narcissistic young man who has decided he…

Martin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system. The whole point of the Snowden story is that the government is not trustworthy in this era. I would not trust the US government to give him justice any more than they did Aa…

Its this sort of uneducated, a-historical crap that makes it impossible to read HN lately. If you think the government was less scary back then, in the grip of anti-communist paranoia, you're insane, deluded, or just plain uneducated. Saying that MLK could count on a fair shake from a justice system that didn't give any minority a fair shake back then, much less political radicals, is the height of ridiculousness.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#82

Post by pyre »

STRML wrote: post #79

I live in Hong Kong, and can verify that it is absolutely a technologist's paradise and an extremely easy place to move around in. Phones are incredibly cheap; the cheapest functional Android knockoff smartphones will run you about $50-80 (all prices in USD for simplicity), maybe less if you get it in Kowloon. "Burner"-style phones can be as low as $8. SIM cards are essentially free (usually about $8-10 deposit on th…

  | The ping is of course higher but it is not as
  | bad as you'd think (150-180ms).
I've had higher pings while trying to ssh from East Coast to West Coast. I'd wonder if those pings were to sites mostly hosted on the West Coast, because crossing the Pacific is mostly just travel time, and doesn't include 10-15 hops through various routers/ISPs.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#83

Post by pg »

rayiner wrote: post #81
msg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system. The whole point of the Snowden story is that the government is not trustworthy in this era. I would not trust the US government to give him justice any more than they did Aa…

Its this sort of uneducated, a-historical crap that makes it impossible to read HN lately. If you think the government was less scary back then, in the grip of anti-communist paranoia, you're insane, deluded, or just plain uneducated. Saying that MLK could count on a fair shake from a justice system that didn't give any minority a fair shake back then, much less political radicals, is the height of ridiculousness.

You don't need to resort to insults.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#84

Post by gbog »

jsnk wrote: post #8

Fourth point about Hong Kong being under China probably has a significant effect that public cannot know about to full extent. It's not a outright conspiracy to believe that there's a largely hidden but real power struggle between US and China. China probably likes the fact that Snowden has brought NSA and US government into public scrutiny and they are probably plotting a way to make the best out of it.

I don't think so. China has so many problems, it's government always preferred the status quo, anything new like this is considered a threat to political stability: imagine if a few Chinese decided to go Snowden way?

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#85

Post by pyre »

alextingle wrote: post #19
steve19 wrote: post #12

Somewhat disingenuous to suggest swapping sim cards to avoid being tracked. This myth is one that law enforcement love. They just track phones with IMEI numbers.

Because nobody sells phone for cash, right?

The idea behind "swapping SIMs" to avoid being tracked assumes that the phone itself can't be identified and tracked (regardless of the SIM card in it). Once one of your SIM cards can be identified as belonging to you (maybe you break down and call a relative), it can be linked to the phone. If the phone can be tracked, then all of the other SIM cards that you use with it can be linked together, regardless of the whether or not the original purchase of the phone or SIM cards can be linked to you (cash vs. card).

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#86

Post by krapp »

msg wrote: post #72
SqMafia wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Martin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system." You're kidding me right?!? You honestly think the era he lived in was fair and just to people like him? Do you know how many lynchings there were in Florida alone? Does th…

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/resources/article/an... Do any of you believe that there would have been a new Letter from Birmingham Jail if Snowden were imprisoned? Keep in mind the US authorities are calling this civil rights whistleblowing "treason". Aiding the terrorists and enemy combatant status cannot be far behind. Like it or not, the rule of law has been badly damaged by the endless emergency. These…

What Snowden did is, arguably, treason. Whatever you believe about the righteousness of his cause, or the evil of the programs he exposed, or the corruption of the government pursuing him, that he's being pursued is in fact a case of the system working as intended.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#87

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

joonix wrote: post #76
gruseom wrote: post #4

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 valua…

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.

Day trip to Macau might fix that. I bet he can get a special accommodation though.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#88

Post by jacquesm »

rayiner wrote: post #81
msg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Martin Luther King didn't live in a world where we imprison innocent men in legal limbo without trial or habeas corpus, or where we officially sanctioned torture and the oubliette. He could trust that he would be vindicated by the justice system. The whole point of the Snowden story is that the government is not trustworthy in this era. I would not trust the US government to give him justice any more than they did Aa…

Its this sort of uneducated, a-historical crap that makes it impossible to read HN lately. If you think the government was less scary back then, in the grip of anti-communist paranoia, you're insane, deluded, or just plain uneducated. Saying that MLK could count on a fair shake from a justice system that didn't give any minority a fair shake back then, much less political radicals, is the height of ridiculousness.

Saying that Snowden will receive a fair shake today is also pretty ridiculous.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#89

Post by pyre »

gbog wrote: post #84
jsnk wrote: post #8

Fourth point about Hong Kong being under China probably has a significant effect that public cannot know about to full extent. It's not a outright conspiracy to believe that there's a largely hidden but real power struggle between US and China. China probably likes the fact that Snowden has brought NSA and US government into public scrutiny and they are probably plotting a way to make the best out of it.

I don't think so. China has so many problems, it's government always preferred the status quo, anything new like this is considered a threat to political stability: imagine if a few Chinese decided to go Snowden way?

It can be spun other ways too. Snowden could be heralded as "proof" that China is better than the US.

  "US citizen flees oppressive government, seeking refuge
   in China."
I'm sure that this incident will also enter the lexicon of North Korea when they try to bring up the bad things that US has/may have done in order to justify their own actions.

Re: Choosing Hong Kong Is a Brilliant Move by Edward Snowden

#90

Post by STRML »

pyre wrote: post #82
STRML wrote: post #79

I live in Hong Kong, and can verify that it is absolutely a technologist's paradise and an extremely easy place to move around in. Phones are incredibly cheap; the cheapest functional Android knockoff smartphones will run you about $50-80 (all prices in USD for simplicity), maybe less if you get it in Kowloon. "Burner"-style phones can be as low as $8. SIM cards are essentially free (usually about $8-10 deposit on th…

| The ping is of course higher but it is not as | bad as you'd think (150-180ms). I've had higher pings while trying to ssh from East Coast to West Coast. I'd wonder if those pings were to sites mostly hosted on the West Coast, because crossing the Pacific is mostly just travel time, and doesn't include 10-15 hops through various routers/ISPs.

Yeah, you're right - an East Coast EC2 instance is about 220ms, but it's a very stable 220. No problem using SSH through that, and you can use mosh if it really bothers you. It's really much more pleasant than I'd expected, being the other side of the world and all.
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