
Denmark confirms US sent rendition flight for Snowden - flexie
http://www.thelocal.dk/20160205/denmark-confirms-us-sent-rendition-flight-for-snowden
======
dorfsmay
Can a US citizen explain what seems to me tobe a dissonance, between the
government putting huge efforts and resource in trying to arrest a citizen
speaking out against the government doing illegal spying on its own people (an
almost no reaction from other citizens), and people defending the right to
bear weapons to protect themselves from the government turning into a
dictatorship?

~~~
mercurialshark
Well part of it is pretty simple. He stole, as in removed classified
information without permission from a secure facility and disseminated
millions of pages of classified information to non-approved parties (everyone
in the world). If it were legal to remove classified information without
permission, because you felt entitled to, then that could be a legal defense.
But it's clearly not, so he sought political asylum in Russia. If however,
there was a directive from the President or office of legal counsel to shut
down the program and if NSA had kept it running, him exposing an illegal
program could be a legal defense - had he gone through the appropriate
channels. But there was nothing illegal about it at the time. So he committed
the crime, not NSA...

~~~
MichaelApproved
To add to your comment, he took an enormous amount of data. It was sweeping
and pretty indiscriminate. And he gave it to the media.

Some of what he took and shared could be legitimately argued as whistle
blowing but there's lots of other classified data about legitimate programs
that was taken as well.

~~~
jellicle
Can you give an example?

~~~
BWStearns
Listening in on Merkel's phone calls. Yes, an ally of the US but allies spy on
each other all the time and have and will for all time. Was it illegal? That's
a hard no. Was it immoral? That's an interesting debate.

Edit: Though I did appreciate her Captain Renault impression about being so
terribly shocked that as head of state she was a target for espionage.

~~~
robotresearcher
> Was it illegal? That's a hard no.

It was illegal under German law. Should we ignore the laws of our close
allies?

~~~
BookmarkSaver
Whether or not we should, it later came out that they were doing the same to
us.

~~~
BWStearns
If I were a German taxpayer and the BND weren't spying on the US I would want
a refund.

------
Erwin
This revelation seems me to be a calculated political move. The government at
the time was the leftist one led by Helle Thorning Schmidt (now the president
of Save the Children). Current government is a right-wing one. Revealing this
shows certain groups of traditional leftists how those traditional workers'
parties have "betrayed" them (and this leftist government has been quite
pragmatic; just recently the leftist opposition parties voting to approve the
infamous sufficiency proposal -- i.e. the one where if you're carrying
significant amounts of cash and try to seek political asylum you get to pay
for it yourself first).

You can read that in what the foreign policy spokeperson of the party says:
"It is to me unbelievable the that S-SF-R government of that time would prefer
to join the hunt on Snowden and thus value the American government over the
Danes' fundamental right to freedom" (see
[http://www.politiko.dk/nyheder/pind-fly-i-kastrup-skulle-
tra...](http://www.politiko.dk/nyheder/pind-fly-i-kastrup-skulle-transportere-
snowden-til-usa))

------
ekianjo
> “He is sought for a series of legal violations; that's what he is. And the
> US is a democratic constitutional state,” he added.

Looks like this guy never heard of Guantanamo or the other secret camps the US
keeps around the globe. It's beautiful to be naive.

~~~
pessimism
His former boss and predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen was Bush’s biggest
supporter and ditto on the Iraq War.

He has a vested interest in ignorance of the past—so much so that he shut down
the investigative committee for the very same war as one of the first things
when he won the election last year.

------
tptacek
At least this story gets it right that it was the DOJ's flight, not CIA's.

~~~
s_q_b
That really does make a big difference to me. Capturing an escaping fugitive
really is their domain, assuming they operated with permission of the
governments over which they flew.

~~~
tptacek
The DOJ cannot in fact lawfully fly into other countries to capture escaping
fugitives! If Snowden is in Denmark, they need the cooperation of the
government of Denmark to take custody of him.

~~~
s_q_b
Since Danish agents were present when the plane touched down in Copenhagen,
couldn't they just detain him awaiting extradition?

It's very clear Denmark was onboard given the article.

~~~
tptacek
Yes, they can definitely do that.

~~~
s_q_b
tptacek, you have a J.D, correct? I would love to chat about your experiences
in law/tech, if we could exchange info.

~~~
tptacek
Eek, lord no. People on HN to talk to about that: 'rayiner, 'tzs, 'DannyBee,
'pdabbadabba, 'grellas, 'dctoedt.

('tzs has a JD and _isn 't_ a lawyer, which I think is interesting. Also, he
wrote my all-time favorite HN comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6228350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6228350))

~~~
s_q_b
Oh, that's interesting. Very impressive. My apologies for the misunderstanding
:) I've seen far far worse legal understanding reviewing the writing of first
and second year associates as a paralegal, in a previous job.

I do monitor the few comments of a few (especially rayiner and grellas.) I'm
quickly learning that when they make legal arguments it's best to shut up and
let them educate me.

Also, I've interestingly met a few people with JDs who go into finance,
management, engineers as patent attorneys, and even one who went into high-
risk bail bonds.

------
coldcode
Doesn't international law/Danish law require an extradition process or is
kidnapping for political purposes not a crime?

~~~
oneJob
International Law is concent based, meaning, it's more a guideline than a law.
Sovereignty, at the state level, still reigns supreme. Until states
voluntarily bind themselves this will be the case. Here in the U.S. of A. most
folks misunderstand the term "state" to mean a political unit that is
subservient to the federal level of government. This is only true for certain
areas of law, and it is only true because the states bound themselves by
voluntarily ratifying the constitution (well, enough of them ratified it and a
few went along for the ride). Most folks here are unaware that each state is,
politically speaking, still as sovereign as Germany or China. Arkansas =
Australia. New York = Bolivia. Texas = France (except, Texas is bigger than
France). So, no, between two states, unless there is a binding, not concent
based, agreement between the parties, and even then it's fairly common to
break these agreements and settle the outcome in court, well states can do
pretty much whatever they want. And they do.

Edit: On the subtle points being missed or misunderstood by the replies so
far, maybe do some research before sounding off. I've a B.S. in Political
Science and am married to a person currently working on their dissertation for
their Political Theory Ph.D. whose advisor is ranked above Foucault for the
most influential political theorists, and I was able to double check my claims
as correct simply by reading some Wikipedia.

~~~
rquantz
Your comments about US states may have been true prior to the civil war, but
certainly have been true since then.

~~~
oneJob
is that an assertion? based on your say so? or was there some reasoning behind
that statement, that you'd like to share?

------
mhb
_The revelation that the US landed a private aircraft in Copenhagen_

Who owned the plane?

~~~
laut
It might be a English translation of a Danish way of saying "business jet".
Talking about the type of plane. As opposed to bigger commercial jets. E.g. a
Gulfstream V is a business jet often used by business people. Even when used
or owned by government, some people might keep calling it a "privatfly" \-
private plane.

~~~
ThomPete
Thats exactly what it is (Danish here)

------
quadrangle
Seeing a lot of people asking broader things about Snowden here, the main
perspective to have on this is from Eben Moglen:
[http://snowdenandthefuture.info](http://snowdenandthefuture.info)

cheers

------
pascalmemories
Looks like this has turned into a hot topic as more details have evolved. To
my mind, this all seems to be a bit of an academic side-show, given how long
ago these events were.

What should probably be of concern is that Assange is talking about leaving
the Ecuadorean embassy in the UK AND the UK police have taken a much lower key
approach recently, removing officers from outside etc.

Has Assange not considered the risk that, given how friendly the UK was to
these flights [landing, refueling at Glasgow Airport for example], the flight
is probably sitting waiting at Heathrow right now?

If he steps out, he's more likely to be confronted by US agents, possibly
posing as UK police, who will detain him and whisk him off to the waiting
plane ? The convenient absence of real UK officers will allow for a daylight
snatch by the US and bypass the Sweden issue completely.

~~~
appleflaxen
Are you talking about Assange? The article is about Snowden.

~~~
thrwawy9374
I think the underlying issue is about rendition flights - so it's relevant to
Snowden for historical purposes but is relevant for Assange (another target)
for very current reasons today following the UN decision on arbitrary
detention.

The original comment therefor seems pretty valid.

Are you saying you don't think it is a valid comment dealing with the
underlying issue because it's not restricted to purely Snowden?

------
dfc
Side Bar: Why do all the articles about the "jewelry law" have quotes around
the phrase "jewelry law"? For example: "Denmark faces backlash over
'despicable' 'jewellery law'"

~~~
Kliment
Because it's not officially called that. The law itself is about confiscating
valuables from people who enter the country seeking protection, and it's been
dubbed the "jewelry law" by media to make it easier for people to imagine what
its effect will be (stealing people's jewelry as they enter).

~~~
ThomPete
They are not stealing peoples jewelries not sure where you got that from.

This is exactly the kind of unfortunate misconceptions about that law and it
requires context to understand what the point of it is.

Denmark is one of the countries who both take most and provide the most social
benefits to immigrants and asylum seekers.

There is almost no difference what a citizen and an asylum seeker/immigrant
gets in social welfare from the government. They have access to free
healthcare, free education, free housing and so on.

Denmark is one of the countries who accept the most too.

A system like that requires a lot taxation to even be possible and so Denmark
is one of the most highly taxed countries in the world.

What the law is attempting to make sure is that immigrants or asylums seekers
who come to Denmark and ask for the government to provide all these things to
them don't have any wealth. I.e. before the danish government starts giving
you access to the social welfare system you need to have spent your own wealth
first.

This is the same way they treat their own citizen btw.

And on top of that. This is something that Germany, Holland and Switzherland
is already doing. The law is much bigger than that and holds all sorts of
adjustments to deal with the underlying system. Someone just managed to
polemically pick some of this up and interpret it in a way that made it sound
like they where literally pulling gold teeth out of peoples mouth.

They aren't taking any of affectional value either.

So no they are not steal peoples jewelry as they enter.

~~~
alextgordon
The contention is whether the valuables are being traded voluntarily for
welfare, or whether they are being taken by force (i.e. _stealing_ ).
Presumably Danish citizens can choose whether to claim welfare or not.

Also, while a normal person might suppose that all jewellery must be of
"affectional value", I doubt the Danish state sees it the same way.

~~~
ThomPete
The law was never intentioned at taking jewelry or taking it by force. The law
was intended to make sure that you didn't have people showing up with lots of
valuables and collecting money from the system. Again the Danish system is
extremely giving. And lets put something in context here. People traveling
through several countries to get to Denmark seeking asylum do have a choice.
Many of them are men and left their family behind btw.

And yes the Danish state sees it that ways since it's explicitly in the law.

The whole thing is much to do about nothing. A bunch of danish people venting
their political opinions about danish domestic policy in international media.

That is their right but this leaves a lot of room for gross simplifications
and lack of context when discussing the law.

This started with people claiming the government would take peoples wedding
rings which is ironic since wedding rings is mostly a western tradition and
muslims aren't even allowed to wear gold wedding rings.

This is just one example of how absurd the whole discussion is and the level
of manipulation that have gone into framing Denmark as an especially bad
nation.

The fact still remains that Denmark is one of the countries that gives most of
it's GPD to immigration and refugees, one of the few countries who live up to
the goals set by the UN on how much a nation should be spending on aid.

It's beyond any rational claims to portray Denmark the way it's being done
right now. At the end of the day though it will mean absolutely nothing.

This is a much bigger discussion than some anal focus on some minute part of
that law.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "The law was intended...|

The intention of a law and how it enforced can be quite different. This law
could be abused, I think that's the issue.

>> "People traveling through several countries to get to Denmark seeking
asylum do have a choice. Many of them are men and left their family behind
btw."

There's a reason the men are leaving their families behind. Travelling across
Europe can be very dangerous - I'm sure some of the men who lost children to
drowning off the coast of Greece wish they'd left their families behind. The
men take the dangerous journey, get some shelter for their family in a new
country, and then move the family there safely. Not all asylum seekers have
had their homes destroyed/are at immediate risk of being killed. You would
typically start trying to get out before your city is being bombed so it makes
sense to leave your family in relative safety where they have shelter/food/a
community to help them.

>> "muslims aren't even allowed to wear gold wedding rings."

Not all people seeking asylum in Europe at the minute are Muslim.

~~~
ThomPete
Denmark have no history of treating it's refugees or asylum seekers that way.
They are just doing what Germany, Holland and Switzcherland is already doing.
And you should turn it on it's head. The law was made to make sure people
don't misuse the danish wellfare system. It's the same rule that apply to it's
own citizens.

It is estimated that more than half of the refugees are economic
immigrants/refugees not actually refugees. Sweeden is sending back up to
80.000 for exactly that reason. They aren't in any danger.

Claiming that it can be dangerous traveling across Europe is so absurd I don't
even know what to say. Is it more dangerous than what they escaped? If thats
the case why travel to Denmark? You are contradicting yourself.

Most people who seek asylum are actually muslims so yes.

------
tootie
Bringing him back the US would be extradition, not rendition. Rendition means
sending him someplace away from American courts to be [interrogated harshly].

~~~
tomp
So... wouldn't this be a rendition from Denmark to USA (where he would be - no
doubt - interrogated harshly)?

~~~
tootie
Interrogated over what? He's publicly confessed repeatedly to what he's done.
AQ subjects were tortured because the administration believed at the time they
could find out about upcoming plots. Snowden has already done his business,
boasted about it and fled the nation. If he ever set foot in the US he'd be
very easily convicted by due process without needing to answer a single
question.

~~~
arethuza
Perhaps _pour encourager les autres_.

~~~
feintruled
I'm sure he will get some ridiculous 2,000 year prison sentence, no need to
torture him to make the point.

~~~
RobertoG
Manning has been tortured. As a member of the army I suppose there are some
differences but it's not so difficult to think that the same could happen.

~~~
pekk
Manning was convicted of espionage, imprisoned, and put into solitary
confinement under the legal authority of UCMJ. Unfortunately, this is all
legal, backed by the popular view that sentencing should be punitive and serve
as a deterrent. Think of all the people in solitary confinement who, unlike
Manning, were never in the public eye.

~~~
RobertoG
Manning was:

imprisoned in solitary confinement, barred from exercising even in his cell,
under constant surveillance, without pillows or sheets,

all this, before the trial.

[http://www.salon.com/2010/12/15/manning_3/](http://www.salon.com/2010/12/15/manning_3/)

[http://www.mintpressnews.com/chelsea-manning-chronicles-
her-...](http://www.mintpressnews.com/chelsea-manning-chronicles-her-
incarceration-140-characters-at-a-time/204554/)

I agree with you about all the other people in solitary confinement.

