

Bolivia says Morales' plane diverted, apparently over Snowden - airnomad
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/03/us-usa-security-snowden-bolivia-idUSBRE9611AT20130703

======
jgrahamc
FlightRadar24 has the recorded track of his flight, FAB1, here:
[http://www.flightradar24.com/#!/2013-07-02/16:35/FAB1](http://www.flightradar24.com/#!/2013-07-02/16:35/FAB1)

The odd thing about the claim that Snowden was aboard is that FAB1 took off
from Vnukovo but Snowden is apparently in Sheremetyevo.

Here's a picture of plane turning round over Austria and then descending and
landing in Vienna:
[http://i.imgur.com/cuUQkWV.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/cuUQkWV.jpg)

UPDATE: News reports say that FAB1 is leaving VIE shortly and it is now
appearing on FlightRadar24's live view.

~~~
kriro
I was not even aware that site exists. Pretty fascinating stuff, thx for
posting.

I'm surprised Poland let him pass if Snowden was really supposed to be on
board. US-Polish relations are generally pretty good.

Russia->South America without clashing with the US seems like an interesting
problem. If Italy,France,Spain,Portugal is blocked you pretty much have to
take a giant detour, go through Africa or try flying out east of Russia (which
immediately puts you close to the US). Probably have to go on a very southeast
route right away...which basically means he might have been better off going
Hong Kong->Ecuador if he could have negotiated that option sooner

~~~
viraptor
> US-Polish relations are generally pretty good.

Are they that good? I got an impression they were pretty good while Poland was
still promised things like joining the visa waiver program. Now I think many
people are quite annoyed at the outcome / delaying for years. The whole
project of rocket interception sites is also bringing up some interesting
questions lately.

~~~
spottr
Currently Polish government is so pro-USA that our Minister of Foreign Affairs
preemptively declined asylum for Snowden using his Twitter [1][2]. It's funny,
because instead of building better relations with our neighbors "we" are
constantly trying to please the US. This trend continues despite being given
nothing but empty promises for years. So yeah, our gov likes to think and say
(loudly) that those relations are pretty good -- hard to say if it's because
they want to keep their face or for whatever reason. I think that US also
likes this arrangement a lot, because free service can't be bad [3].

[1]
[https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/status/351959186072027139](https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/status/351959186072027139)
[polish]

[2]
[https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/status/352062021082165249](https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/status/352062021082165249)

[3] [http://rt.com/news/poland-drops-charges-
investigation-136/](http://rt.com/news/poland-drops-charges-
investigation-136/)

------
buro9
Now we know what will happen to Snowden if he is granted asylum by a country
that can only be reached by flight.

The flight permits will be rescinded, the plane forced to land and subjected
to a search, and if Snowden is present I suspect he will be arrested and
extradited to the USA on the basis that the asylum is invalid on the grounds
that it was not granted in the destination country.

Russia really is his best chance.

Edit: Which makes me wonder, did Bolivia help spread this rumour (on behalf of
Ecuador or Venezuela) to test what would happen

~~~
zokier
> the plane forced to land

Forced how? I doubt anybody would be willing to shoot a civilian plane down to
get Snowden, especially if the plane in question was also carrying a president
or other high ranking people. So the pilot could relatively safely ignore any
demands to land.

~~~
marvin
They still have to refuel...

~~~
jonmrodriguez
Wouldn't it be possible and not that hard to outfit a private plane with
supersize fuel tanks, occupying the entire cargo area?

~~~
jlgreco
Fuel is a lot denser than cargo tends to be; I suspect this would be harder to
do safely than you might expect. You'd need to make sure the balance is okay
and stays okay throughout the flight (can't have it slosh around).

You could surely get Boeing to retrofit one of their planes like that, but I
don't think it is something a 3rd party could slap together on short notice.

------
osivertsson
Guardian is doing pretty good live reporting on this fascinating story:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-
snowden-a...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-
asylum-live)

~~~
runn1ng
It's funny how this story goes international.

From Hong Kong/Peking to Moskow, to Austria/France, to Venezuela.

~~~
mtgx
It's good that just like with the Wikileaks scandal, it exposes which
countries are vassals to US.

~~~
tankenmate
Which is information that Bolivia and Venezuela would like to have hard
confirmation of.

EDIT: it also gives a good indication of the US's reaction times to such over
flights.

------
kkkaaa
imagine the chinese would force Obama to land in Bolivia because they think he
is carrying Ai Weiwei.

~~~
cskau
The Extradition Treaties states that one of the many things you can be
extradited for is "unlawful imprisonment". Realizing that, I figure the world
community at large could request to have say Bush and/or Obama extradited for
the things going on in Guantanamo.

Of course they might object that these fellows enjoy diplomatic immunity and
that it's completely ludicrous. But if this incident has shown us anything I
believe it's that US & Friends really don't care much about such minor
details.

------
nsns
Did the US just facilitate Snowden's asylum? They seem to be locked in eternal
overreach.

~~~
omegant
They don't seem to be handling this very intelligently, more like a bully than
anything else. It would be much easier to let Snowden get to a country in
southamerica and then after some weeks press under the table to get him
arrested. Now doing all this pressing all they get is Snowden in China or
Russia's arms.

~~~
mattvot
If you assume the goal of all this is to deter future leaks, I'd say they are
doing a pretty good job. Snowden has so much uncertainty and risk in the next
few weeks that I bet borderline whistle-blowers are rethinking their plan.

Arresting him quietly without the media gets them Snowden, but not the
deterrent.

~~~
grey-area
Snowden saw how Manning, Binney, Drake and others were treated, and it didn't
stop him.

~~~
GVIrish
If anything, seeing how those guys got treated is why Snowden fled the
country. I can imagine that future whistleblowers are going to seek asylum
first, then blow the whistle.

------
mtgx
A funny comment I picked up from Reddit:

> "Bolivia should cut all cocaine exports to the US, and push Colombia to do
> the same, within a week you would see all US politicians panicking and
> killing each others trying to check first into rehab"

~~~
tptacek
That's funny because, what, all US politicians use cocaine?

~~~
eliasmacpherson
Table B.7 Cocaine Use in Past Year, by Age Group and State: Percentages,
Annual Averages Based on 2006 and 2007 NSDUHs District of Columbia 5.10 [1]

DC out in front by more than a nose, historically too. Probably not just
politicians at the trough though.

[1]
[http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k7state/AppB.htm#TabB-1](http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k7state/AppB.htm#TabB-1)

~~~
contacternst
Judging by the demographics of DC... I suspect the vast majority of that
cocaine is crack.

------
RivieraKid
I wonder what would happen if the plane simply refused to leave Spain's or
France's air space and continued on their flight.

~~~
mossplix
miltary escort

~~~
RivieraKid
elaborate please

------
tcoppi
AP is now reporting that France didn't block the plane:
[http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NSA_SURVEILLANCE?S...](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_NSA_SURVEILLANCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-03-06-11-50)

------
ImprovedSilence
Why are there no news reporters just "traveling" the same airport as Snowden,
Reporting on the situation and taking new pics. I can't be that easy to hide
in an airport, and it can't be that hard to wander around an international
airport for awhile when waiting for a long layover... something about the
reason we haven't had any of that kind of reporting smells pretty fishy to
me... also, how many CIA agents do you think have "traveled" through that
airport in the past few days, keeping tabs on things...?

------
shell0x
It's sad to see that France and Portugal go this way. No one should support
the government of the United Shit of America, especially when you know they
are spying on you.

------
wslh
Spreading a rumour like this is a good way to assess yourself about friends
and enemies waiting for the real "implementation".

------
stfu
Question: Wouldn't it be super easy to check a private plane for how many
passengers are on board? Just watching the passengers board with a
thermographic camera should do the trick.

~~~
ig1
It would probably be an illegal search in violation of diplomatic immunity.

(airports aren't allowed to scan diplomatic pouches)

~~~
stfu
I'm sure there is some obscure aviation security policy that makes this a
maintenance requirement...

------
tome
Is it usual to ask planes carrying criminal suspects to be forced to land?

~~~
haakon
Nothing is "usual" about the Snowden situation, anyway.

~~~
tome
I'm trying to gauge whether this is a genuinely strange situation by the
standards of international policing.

~~~
jonknee
Yes, it's unprecedented to stop and frisk a world leader on suspicion of
someone on board.

------
camus
That tells a lot about all these European countries that are just puppets of
the US government,especially France where I come from... Maybe we should stop
the hypocrisy and let Washington govern us directly, we could save a lot of
money this way.

~~~
petercooper
This was actually briefly discussed between the UK and US in the 70s:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wilson-wanted-uk-to-be-
us-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wilson-wanted-uk-to-be-us-
state-1075874.html)

~~~
mtgx
That's funny, going from wanting to be the US' "51st state" to not even
wanting to be a full EU member, which I think makes a lot more sense (to be
one).

~~~
alan_cx
In general.....

The anti EU people in the UK see the EU as socialist, liberal and left wing.
The anti EU people in the UK are...... you guessed it... right wing. Fairly
extreme right in UK terms, but probably still left wing by US standards. So,
for them, the US is an aspiration further right.

IMHO, the EU makes total sense, even if there are many problems with it, and
even the US government have urged the UK to get more in to Europe and stop
antagonizing it. Partly I think the US likes having the UK as a gateway to
Europe. I just wish we in the UK got more out of that deal than we do, like
equality and fairness in our deals.

Right now, despite my criticism of the US, I'd prefer to be a 51st state,
since we'd Brits would no longer have no rights over US excesses. We could sue
"our" government, or what ever Americans do!!! Ah, nonsense of course, we need
to get on in Europe better.

~~~
mtgx
But why do you think you'd do any better than Americans right now? From what I
can tell, it's even worse in UK with GCHQ and with all the cameras and
whatnot, and people have "gotten used to it".

~~~
alan_cx
Forgive me I don't quite understand.

Do better than Americans?

Do you mean if the UK was in the EU proper, we Brits doing better than
Americans? If so, Im not really referring to the NSA thing, rather our social
economic position in general.

As for spying, and what not, no. In many ways we are worse off, with less
ability to do much about it. Yes, we in the UK have more CCTV than any other
country on the planet. Yes we just "got used to it", apparently. No, we don't
have a constitution to protect us, but even then it seems the US gov can still
circumvent the constitution as and then it sees fit.

If you mean a choice between being in the EU proper and being a 51st state,
then I think it ridiculous to even think about being a 51st state. If nothing
else, geography and culture. Despite the shared language, we actually have
less in common with Americans than the French, but confuse similarity with a
shared language. The comment was intended to be flippant. The idea of American
courts fills me with dread. I would genuinely, hand on heart, rather kill
myself than face the US idea of justice. Which is one of the reasons I oppose
our amusing one sided extradition treaty where the US only has to accuse, no
evidence required. But if we want an American for trial, we have to provide
evidence, and go through much more due process. We signed up in good faith for
an equal deal, we ratified it, the US ignored it. Because we Brits are
spineless suckups, we keep to our side of the deal, with out any complaint.
This is why you might see me say things like our gov will happily betray its
own people to the US.

Despite our problems, I'd rather have our problems, and EU problems, than US
ones any day of the week. I would never ever want to be American or governed
by Americans. Simply, US culture is not something I either understand or
identify with once you get below the surface. No problem with America existing
as it stands, and if that is how Americans want to be, then I completely
support that, in the same was I support people who want to have, say, an
Islamic government. Its their right to choose. Also, always remember our
histories. We, US, UK, and that hypothetical Islamic country, all have
different histories and reasons for being where we are. We are different.
Equally valid, but different. And as the French say, vive la différence.

I really hope that answers your question. If I have missed you point entirely,
after all that, then I'm going to cry under my desk!!!!

