Hong Kong says Snowden has left for third country [Obama's request "did not" comply with law]

AP ^ | 6/23/13

[SoFloFreeper]

A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday.

[Procyon]

Snowden presented Hong Kong with a dilemma. In the long run Beijing would never consent to HK complying with its treaty obligations with the U.S. so they punted. A request from Snowden for political asylum in HK would have just prolonged the matter (the request would have been granted on orders from Beijing and resulted in bad blood v.v. HK- US relations).

So now Snowden is someone else's problem. I'm not of the opinion that Snowden is such a high-value target (like a terrorist) that the U.S. would attempt an extraordinary rendition. It's not like Snowden is telling us something we don't already assume is true about NSA capabilities and actions. He merely confirms it. And even in the case of Phillip Agee (the CIA renegade in 70s who revealed names of CIA agents around the world) we never serious attempted to bring him home for trial and he spent a lifetime being a gadfly from the safey of a sympathetic country.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Foreigners in Iceland number somewhere around 25k.
Of those, less than 10k are from Poland.
In a population of about 319k, non Poles are just shy of 5%.

[Viennacon]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3034472/posts?page=41

[Bshaw]

Snowden no doubt has a dump contingency in play in the event anything happens to him.

It seems that so far, the non-college graduate spook is running circles around our sp called elite.

[AtlasStalled]

I got a kick out of watching all the talking heads on the boob tube this morning trying to figure out how Snowden could travel into other countries without a passport . . . I laughed because the United States has accepted millions across our border with Mexico without passports!

[Travis McGee]

Yeah, it would be child’s play for the FSB to relieve him of the laptops and switch them for planks of wood in the cases. But I don’t think Putin will.

[Travis McGee]

The whole point is that we can’t appear to use KGB tactics to get back this whistleblower/hero/traitor, or the USA looks as thuggish as the old USSR, which proves what Snowden is saying.

You can snatch or “disappear” Snowden in Venzuela or Ecuador and make it look like a coincidental car wreck/sequestro/mugging etc. Not in Iceland, not without it being evident that the USA did it.

Snowden’s safety factor is that the USA does not want to look as thuggish and “Soviet” as he has been saying we are, after his NSA domestic spying revelations.

Sure, could somebody snipe him from a helicopter like a James Bond movie? Of course. Then he dies a martyr, and makes the USA look as thuggishly evil as he said it was.

[Travis McGee]

I’ve often read that the Icelandic girls are among the prettiest, on average, on the planet.

[dennisw]

Jerry Seinfeld and others have gone on vacations there specifically for sex. It’s sad that such fine looking women would go in for that....that should be left to the average ones. Just young people getting it on I guess. BTW a lot of Irish and Scottish blood in the Icelandic gene pool

I hope Snowden can get there and stay there. But Iceland likes to keep good relations with the United States so I don’t know.....

[EQAndyBuzz]

This is how bad it’s gotten. Anyone who Obama supports I root for the other side.

[autumnraine]

Thank you.

Who would have thought Russia would be the moral compass.

[M Kehoe]

[Obama's request "did not" comply with law]

That is unusual why?

5.56mm

[Junior_G]

It's truly a case not being able distinguish between malicious intent combined with corruption on one hand or stupidity and incompetence on the other hand with this crew because more often than not, both pathologies go hand unhand simultaneously with them

Wow...very well put.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

"Putin always seems almost eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States - whether it is Syria, Iran and now of course with Snowden," Schumer told CNN's "State of the Union."

---

...cause he knows Obama is a pussy and can be pushed around. They are laughing at us harder every day!...that's what happens when you have a community organizer as President.