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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

#141

Post by OstiaAntica »

wavefunction wrote: post #77
genwin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that MLK wasn't protected by his fame. It's not just the gov't that is the risk.

There are questions surrounding who actually shot him. The man who went to prison for it may have been set up, as he denied personally shooting Dr. King. MLK was planning a huge "live in" on the National Mall to pursue greater income equality and there were plenty of interested parties that would have wanted to prevent that.

Actually the shooter initially pled guilty. Dept. of Justice looked at these "questions" and concluded they are junk.

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/mlk/part2.php#over

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

#142

Post by pyre »

XorNot wrote: post #131
pyre wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe so far as Snowden is concerned, but the comment I was replying to was talking in more general terms (i.e. Chinese citizens using HK to flee from China).

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

#143

Post by Estragon »

leephillips wrote: post #108
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…

"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 payin…

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.

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

#144

Post by alexqgb »

krapp wrote: post #86
msg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"What Snowden did is, arguably, treason."

Not by anyone who understands the legal definition of treason. Among other things, treason presupposes formally declared hostilities. Even Cold War turncoats convicted of espionage for aiding the Soviet Union couldn't be charged with treason, since technically, we were never at war with the USSR.

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

#145

Post by rhizome »

adventured wrote: post #125

"Nobody stands to win by taking decisive action on Snowden, so my guess, based on years of living in Hong Kong, is that both Beijing and Hong Kong will avoid doing so, which heightens the possiblity of a long, long court process." That depends on how badly the US wants him. If they want him badly enough, they'll buy him from China with an offering big enough to create a winner. That would be trivial for the US to do…

Like movies, do you?

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

#146

Post by eru »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #136
wavefunction wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but lots of people speak Mandarin now, either for doing business with the PRC or because they are PRC immigrants.

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

#147

Post by corford »

anigbrowl wrote: post #126
corford wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alleged rape.

Rape is the offense that they wish to charge him with. I'm not pronouncing on his guilt or innocence, just on what it is that they're attempting to extradite him for.

Fair enough. Apologies for jumping to conclusions :)

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

#148

Post by rayiner »

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.

Sorry, I got emotional and attacked him instead of his comment. For that I apologize. But he essentially implied that a black guy fighting segregation during the height of communist paranoia and racial tension in the 1960's could count on a fairer shake from the justice system than a wealthy white kid in 2013 with the support of a rich and influential segment of society. That's the kind of statement that tends to engender emotional, rather than cool and collected responses.

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

#149

Post by krapp »

alexqgb wrote: post #144
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.

"What Snowden did is, arguably, treason." Not by anyone who understands the legal definition of treason. Among other things, treason presupposes formally declared hostilities. Even Cold War turncoats convicted of espionage for aiding the Soviet Union couldn't be charged with treason, since technically, we were never at war with the USSR.

Fair enough, I'll concede the point.

But of course, they would just as well argue we're in the War on Terror. It would be an obvious flimsy justification but, there you are.

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

#150

Post by rayiner »

beachstartup wrote: post #133
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.

As long as you don't care about the whole democracy thing.
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