

No clear answers why Snowden remains free despite U.S. request for his arrest - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/snowden-not-yet-arrested-despite-us-request/2013/06/22/ab944ca4-db23-11e2-a9f2-42ee3912ae0e_story.html?tid=rssfeed

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tsotha
The tone of the article made me laugh. WaPo seems to expect China to ask "how
high?" when the US says "Jump!" The Chinese have to decide how they're going
to approach this, and there's no reason for them to take Snowden into custody
until they do.

~~~
trevelyan
It is actually a Hong Kong issue at this point, and there are a ton of (even
British) lawyers in HK who would die to take this case. China is not likely to
do anything to interfere in any fashion that might suggest an encroachment of
the autonomous rule Hong Kong enjoys.

~~~
tsotha
And yet ultimately the decision will be made in Beijing, publicly or no.

~~~
trevelyan
Why do you think/say so?

China sees its management of Hong Kong as a precursor for handling
reunification with Taiwan. That issue (territorial integrity) is hands-down
the most sensitive political issue in China which means that the government
will think about fifteen times before taking actions which will cause problems
with Hong Kong (relations are already at an all-time low).

There is simply no way the Chinese government will violate Hong Kong political
independence in such a ham-fisted manner given the huge publicity surrounding
this case. Which means that assuming the Hong Kong police decide this is an
arrestable offense and take Snowden into custody (having just been in Hong
Kong literally yesterday, my guess is that no-one knows where he is), the
question of what happens to him will play out in the Hong Kong courts and the
court of public opinion, and it is very likely that he won't be extradited for
years if at all.

~~~
tsotha
I don't think Hong Kong has any political independence to violate. Decisions
are already made in Beijing and then passed to Hong Kong's government to
implement.

In this particular case the Chinese government has an official mechanism to
override extradition decisions, but I don't think there's any reason for them
to actually need it.

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barkingcat
This is a no-op article. Obviously if there's an arrest out for a person, and
the person is not arrested yet - it means that the person is still no found /
not in custody. Unless the paper meant to point to some kind of
collusion/corruption (which it makes no claims of) - there is nothing to see
here.

Saying "We can't catch person cause he is missing/at large" adds nothing to
the discussion.

~~~
nknighthb
It's actually not clear that there is a warrant for his arrest in Hong Kong,
only a request by the US to Hong Kong authorities.

Right now I'm guessing Hong Kong and Beijing authorities are both dearly
wishing Snowden had chosen somewhere else, and wondering what exactly to do
with him. Until they figure that out, staying silent is probably the best
thing they can do.

~~~
sbierwagen

      Right now I'm guessing Hong Kong and Beijing authorities 
      are both dearly wishing Snowden had chosen somewhere else
    

Flip the actors. What if a Chinese spy had fled to the United States and
started to feed the press information on how the Chinese government had hacked
essentially every computer system in the US; and in return the Chinese issued
an arrest warrant, and demanded that the US send him back to the mainland so
he could be tortured to death?

~~~
nknighthb
If you had a point you were trying to make, it was lost in the absurd
hyperbole.

~~~
altcognito
Where is the absurd hyperbole? That he would be tortured? Look at the case of
Manning. Look to what the three NSA whistleblowers said awaited him when he
returned.

As a US citizen, I _want_ to believe this is hyperbole and nonsense, but the
fact is, this is exactly what we should be doing - turning the mirror upon
ourselves and performing a real self-examination of who we are as a country.

~~~
nknighthb
Manning is not dead (hence, not "tortured to death"), and he is also subject
to the military justice system, which Snowden is not.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Manning was tortured. Sleep deprivation for many months is recognized as
torture under international law, right?

~~~
nknighthb
If you stop looking for a reason to argue and instead read my words with
dispassion, you'll realize I never said he wasn't tortured.

------
avemuri
Furthermore, it is not clear why he hasn't returned to the US, plead guilty,
and thrown himself at the mercy of the courts. As requested.

~~~
kelnos
Mainly because that's an incredibly stupid thing to do: the courts would show
no mercy.

~~~
tdurden
sarcasm by the OP...maybe?

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alexqgb
Not a single major bankster thrown in jail and now we're lecturing other
countries about the Rule of Law? Hilarious.

~~~
rdouble
Except isn't that exactly the rule of law? Making up laws after the fact and
then convicting people of them is the opposite of the rule of law.

~~~
alexqgb
Wait, what? You don't honestly believe that no laws were broken in the
inflation and collapse of the housing bubble, do you? You're just trolling,
right? I'm sorry, you were being serious? Oh boy, where to begin...

Try [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Yves Smith, who runs NC, has been covering this issue doggedly, as have Bill
Moyers and Matt Taibbi, both of whom appear together here.

[http://billmoyers.com/segment/matt-taibbi-on-big-banks-
lack-...](http://billmoyers.com/segment/matt-taibbi-on-big-banks-lack-of-
accountability/)

And then there's PBS's Frontline, which did a devastating program on "Too Big
To Jail" that focused on HSBC's money laundering for Mexican drug cartels, and
specifically on why the Justice Department's refusal to prosecute in spite of
having overwhelming evidence of unambiguously criminal conduct.

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/untouchables/)

Their number two official (Lanny Breuer) made the mistake of admitting, on
camera, that is was because Justice saw HSBC as too big to jail. Specifically,
they feared that criminal convictions would trigger a series of events leading
to a a global financial collapse. This explanation happened to account for the
total absence of prosecutions for a wide range of well-documented violations
at all the major banks engaged in a variety of criminal endeavors. Breuer
resigned suddenly right after the program aired, causing huge headaches for
his boss, Eric Holder, who first admitted that Breuer's assertion was true
before backtracking.

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-
fin...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-
crisis/untouchables/eric-holder-backtracks-remarks-on-too-big-to-jail/)

For the best introduction to this broader range of crimes, see "Inside Job",
which focuses on the interlocking forms of corruption and unpunished
illegality that allowed the whole crisis to develop in the first place. You
can watch it in full, for free, here (kudos, by the way, to Sony Pictures
Classics for making it so publicly available).

[http://vimeo.com/62026076](http://vimeo.com/62026076)

It was made well enough to win an Oscar, so you'll probably find it worth your
time.

~~~
rdouble
Yes, I'm pretty familiar with this topic. I'm not trolling, I just don't know
what else was supposed to be done. It was a big complicated affair. My mistake
here was contributing to the political noise that is taking over HN.

~~~
alexqgb
Fair enough. Sorry about the ton of bricks.

------
maaku
Hong Kong / China is not U.S. territory. How is this not clear?

~~~
Mikeb85
Some people think the US rules the world. There are plenty of countries that
don't give a shit about the US...

~~~
tsotha
There aren't any countries that can afford to not give a shit about the US,
but that's not the same thing as saying they need to buckle to every whim in
Washington.

