MCLC: Snowden's exit from HK

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Snowden's exit from HK
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (6/24/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/asia/snowden-departure-from-hong-ko
ng.html

Hasty Exit Started With Pizza Inside a Hong Kong Hideout
By KEITH BRADSHER 

HONG KONG — Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency
contractor who has acknowledged leaking numerous documents about American
surveillance operations around the world, planned his escape from Hong
Kong over a surreptitious dinner of pizza, fried chicken and sausages,
washed down with Pepsi.

It was a cloak-and-dagger affair. Mr. Snowden wore a cap and sunglasses
and insisted that the assembled lawyers hide their cellphones in the
refrigerator of the home where he was staying, to block any eavesdropping.
Then began a two-hour conversation during which Mr. Snowden was deeply
dismayed to learn that he could spend years in prison without access to a
computer during litigation over whether he would be granted asylum here or
surrendered to the United States.

Staying cooped up in the cramped Hong Kong home of a local supporter was
less bothersome to Mr. Snowden than the prospect of losing his computer.

“He didn’t go out, he spent all his time inside a tiny space, but he said
it was O.K. because he had his computer,” said Albert Ho, one of Mr.
Snowden’s lawyers. “If you were to deprive him of his computer, that would
be totally intolerable.”

After the meeting, Mr. Ho was sent to ask the Hong Kong government if Mr.
Snowden would be released on bail if he were arrested or whether he would
be allowed to leave the country.

A person with detailed knowledge of the Hong Kong government’s
deliberations said that the government had been delighted to receive the
questions. Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive, and his top advisers had
been struggling through numerous meetings for days, canceling or
postponing other meetings, while trying to decide what to do in response
to an American request for Mr. Snowden’s detention, even as public opinion
in Hong Kong seemed to favor protecting the fugitive.

But Mr. Snowden’s choice of Mr. Ho to represent him raised a problem, said
the person with knowledge of the government’s deliberations, who insisted
on anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivities in the case. Mr. Ho,
a member of the territory’s legislature for nearly 20 years, is a former
chairman of the Democratic Party and a longtime campaigner for full
democracy here, to the irritation of government leaders of the territory,
which was returned by Britain to China in 1997.

“The Hong Kong government doesn’t trust him,” the person said, adding that
the government also did not want to be involved in any direct negotiations
with Mr. Snowden. So it found an intermediary, someone with longstanding
connections to the local government but not in office, to bypass Mr. Ho
and contact Mr. Snowden.

The intermediary told Mr. Snowden on Friday night that the government
could not predict what Hong Kong’s independent judiciary would do, but
that serving jail time while awaiting trial was a possibility. The
intermediary also said that the Hong Kong government would welcome Mr.
Snowden’s departure, Mr. Ho and the person who insisted on anonymity said.
Both declined to identify the intermediary.

Mr. Snowden went through the same security and immigration channels as
most passengers at the airport, rather than a special channel usually used
for people involved in highly political cases — a sign that the Hong Kong
government wanted to minimize its involvement in Mr. Snowden’s departure,
Mr. Ho said.

At the same time, the Hong Kong government’s encouragement for Mr. Snowden
to leave had convinced him that staying was risky because the Hong Kong
government might not be on his side. “He would not like to fight with the
Hong Kong government, with the Chinese government and the U.S. government”
against him, Mr. Ho said.
Mr. Ho said that the disclosure late Friday evening of a sealed indictment
against Mr. Snowden in the United States had prompted his client to become
considerably more anxious about staying in Hong Kong.

Mr. Ho said that if the Hong Kong government had not assured Mr. Snowden
of safe passage to the airport and exit from the territory, his client
intended to seek the advice of Stephen Young, the United States consul
general here, whom Mr. Ho knows socially. But the Hong Kong government’s
assurance of safe passage meant that this plan was never discussed in
depth, Mr. Ho added.

Obama administration officials expressed annoyance on Sunday that Hong
Kong let Mr. Snowden get away. But the person with knowledge of the Hong
Kong government’s deliberations said that there was considerable annoyance
in Hong Kong about Washington’s handling of the case.

Mr. Ho said that Mr. Snowden had not been working for any government other
than the United States. “He believed he was doing the right thing, serving
the people,” Mr. Ho said, later adding, “Certainly he is not a spy for
anybody — Russia, China.”

Mr. Snowden said in an interview published Monday
<http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-all
en-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance> by The South China Morning Post
that he took a job as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton in order to
gain access to N.S.A. surveillance programs.

“My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of
machines all over the world the N.S.A. hacked,” he said on June 12. “That
is why I accepted that position about three months ago.”

Mr. Snowden, who just turned 30, came to Hong Kong from Honolulu without a
well-thought-out plan, while overestimating how free he would be to move
around Hong Kong after his disclosures and underestimating the public
attention he would receive, Mr. Ho added.

“I really think he’s a kid, I think he never anticipated this would be
such a big matter in Hong Kong,” Mr. Ho said.

When Mr. Snowden came to Hong Kong from Hawaii in late May, he looked up a
person whom he had met on a previous vacation here. That person, whom Mr.
Ho declined to identify but described as a well-connected Hong Kong
resident, became Mr. Snowden’s “carer.” Mr. Snowden accepted an invitation
to stay in the home of one of that person’s friends when he checked out of
the Mira Hotel on June 10, and the individual put him in touch with two
local lawyers.

They were Robert Tibbo, a barrister who specializes in human rights and
refugee law, and Jonathan Man, an associate at Ho Tse Wai, Philip Li &
Partners, one of Hong Kong’s best-known law firms.

Mr. Ho, a senior partner at that firm, said he met Mr. Snowden for the
first time on the evening of the pizza dinner.

Mr. Snowden said little until they had arrived at a home, where he took
Mr. Man aside and told him that “all the phones should be put in the
refrigerator, the entire phones, and then he became very outspoken,” Mr.
Ho said.

When Mr. Snowden went to the airport, he had a plan to reach a country
where he believed he could obtain asylum, partly from discussions with
Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks adviser who had come to Hong Kong and begun
assisting Mr. Snowden, Mr. Ho said. As for Mr. Snowden’s final intended
destination, Mr. Ho said that it was almost certainly not Iceland or Cuba
and that Mr. Snowden intended only to pass in transit through Moscow. He
refused to discuss whether his destination was Ecuador.