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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

#131

Post by XorNot »

pyre wrote: post #98
XorNot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty hard? China has steep controls on its own citizens leaving China. Hong Kong is now part of China, and probably a favoured way out.

Travel between HK and 'mainland' China regulated, as I understand it. It's possible that China is looking more closely to that border as an escape point than people leaving HK.

"Closely" is a relative term when it comes to airport. I'd think Chinese intelligence would be paying very close attention to someone who the US wants to arrest within their borders, seeing as how it impacts relations with their biggest trading partner.

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

#132

Post by anigbrowl »

akiselev wrote: post #121
anigbrowl wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to read more history. Without commenting on Snowden, I think the US is a substantially freer nation then it was in the time of MLK.

I wouldn't say that the US is substantially more free today than it was then.

Obviously it's a matter of opinion, but the comment I replied to offered a naively rosy picture of how justice was administered in MLK's day. It's a common error in political debates to invoke an earlier time as if it were a golden age of some sort.

As a parallel example, I'm not too enthused about our use of drones in military conflicts these days, but a lot of people who object to the use of drones overlook the fact that 20 years ago we did the same thing with cruise missiles, and 20 years before that we engaged in carpet bombing, with a much higher loss of life in the aggregate as you go farther back in history. So it's reasonable to argue that drones are bad, but naive to omit the fact that they're substantially less bad than how we used to wage war.

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

#133

Post by beachstartup »

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…

yeah

to cut straight to the chase

a special administrative region of the people's republic of china is actually more free than the USA.

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

#134

Post by rdl »

toyg wrote: post #115
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did. It wasn't without it's hiccups. But, there he is in NZ still doing two things that he apparently loves to do, trolling and making money.

He trolls Hollywood interests, Snowden is effectively trolling the whole US government; the difference is of some importance. NZ was in the original Echelon program, in terms of intelligence they fall squarely in line with GCHQ and friends. It's really one of the worst locations he could choose, right after the US and Britain.

NZ is better than US, UK, Canada, or AU.

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

#135

Post by tptacek »

pg wrote: post #83
rayiner wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HN has been especially frustrating for the last 2 weeks.

Maybe, instead of hoping that people will maintain perfect civility throughout a nonstop stream of political discussions, something could instead be done to ratchet back the politics on HN?

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

#136

Post by OstiaAntica »

wavefunction wrote: post #65
AVTizzle wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Mandarin is not widely spoken in Hong Kong-- locals speak Cantonese and Mandarin was not taught in school while HK was under British rule.

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

#137

Post by Kylekramer »

toyg wrote: post #106
spitx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not wish (or expect) for Snowden to be sentenced with capital punishment if he were to turn himself in. However any attorney or advocacy organization will find it extremely arduous to prove that he did this in good faith. Fleeing only makes it worse. It is universally considered a symptom of insincerity. An insincerity of mission and an insincerity of motive. It will be an entirely unconvincing case even if it w…

This is a common attack on activists: "if you're really interested in your fellow man, you must act like a saint hermit. Anything less than that is unacceptable and means you're wrong on " How is the problem (that the NSA can record everything we do online) related to a young man's attempts to save his skin? Would the NSA stop spying on us if it turned out that Snowden was a buddhist monk? Would the NSA stop spying o…

It isn't fair that activists are held to higher standard, but it is true. If you want to change the world, the world expects more of you. This isn't new. Occupy Wall Street may have had a point, but they allowed themselves to be marginalized due to more superficial aspects of the movement.

If Snowden had been "crucified on a hill near Washington" (or even just stayed anonymous), it wouldn't have ended the NSA's spying but it would have definitely added force to his message. Focusing on his means may be a deflection, but he is somewhat responsible for allowing the deflection being as compelling as it is.

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

#138

Post by gbog »

pyre wrote: post #89
gbog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you think that Chinese are that stupid? They all know their wealthy elite send kids and wife to the US, why would they do that if China was better?

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

#139

Post by gbog »

adventured wrote: post #130
gbog wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

China can and does easily suppress dissent. They love opportunities to jab back at the US regarding human rights issues. That's worth a lot more than the very very very small risk that Snowden presents toward inspiring emulators.

> China can and does easily suppress dissent.

Why do you feel the need to add "easily"? It is not easy at all.

Some dissident like the artist Ai Weiwei recently are playing all the time with the sensitive nerves of the regime but he managed to make himself famous enough, and to never crosses the red line too far as to get "suppressed". For instance, there is this picture of him giving the finger to Mao in Tiananmen square, but it is labelled "art".

With these guys trying the system all the time and the highly reactive web sphere, suppressing dissent is far from an "easy" job.

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

akiselev wrote: post #118
krapp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe you have that backwards. The first statement is not arguable while the second one is, because of the nature of the first.

[deleted]
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