Edward Snowden Is in a 'Safe Place' in Hong Kong
The day after the U.S. government filed espionage charges against him, the first step in the process to have him extradited, Edward Snowden has revealed his current location -- to an extent. He is, surprisingly, in the same place he's always been. The South China Morning Post reports Snowden is still in Hong Kong. They don't elaborate where, though. Snowden is in a "safe place," he allegedly told the paper. He hasn't been detained and he's not under police protection. We've been tracking his whereabouts ever since this scandal broke. And, for about the last week or so, we've had no real clue where Snowden was hiding. He could have been anywhere. But now we know where is, and where he's heading.
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Snowden has always been open about his eventual goal: he wants to seek asylum in Iceland. And it appears he's been going through the motions to make that happen, potentially with the help of Wikileaks' legal team, but for now he's still in hanging out in Hong Kong. The Justice Department formally filed charges against Snowden and requested Hong Kong authorities detain him on Friday. Those actions were the first two steps in the simple six-step process to have Snowden extradited back to the U.S. Once Snowden is in custody, the government will have 60 days to file and indictment with a Hong Kong court to have him shipped home where he will stand trial.
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Of course, there's always a chance China won't go along with that process. "The Global Times, a mainland newspaper controlled by the Communist Party, called an extradition of Mr. Snowden an 'inconceivable option' in a recent commentary," The New York Times reports. China not going along with the west's wishes is something Snowden's been counting on from the beginning. And, hmm, given that Snowden also told the SCMP that the U.S. hacks Chinese mobile companies to access text messages and SMS data, they may not feel inclined to play along. Oh, and some people think he's a Chinese spy. They're silly.
