Snowden examined by Ecuadorian embassy doctor at Moscow airport upon arrival -- RT

[bsteadman]

Snowden examined by Ecuadorian embassy doctor at Moscow airport upon arrival – RT source

RT
6/23/2013

Excerpt:

The plane carrying whistleblower Edward Snowden has landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The former CIA contractor, who left Hong Kong in a bid to elude US extradition on espionage charges, is on his way to a ‘third country’ via Russia.

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, told Australian Sydney Morning Herald paper that Snowden will be met by “diplomats from the country that will be his ultimate destination” in the airport, who’ll accompany him on a further flight to his destination.

Earlier on Sunday, a spokesperson from the Hong Kong government confirmed that Edward Snowden had "legally and voluntarily" left the country.

“Mr. Edward Snowden left Hong Kong today (June 23) on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel,” said the Hong Kong government in a press release. The statement also said the documents for Snowden’s extradition submitted by Washington “did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law.”

“As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for a provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.”
WikiLeaks legal aid

Whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks has rallied behind Snowden and said they are assisting him in his bid for political asylum in a “democratic country.” The group announced on Twitter that they helped obtain “travel documents” and ensured his safe exit from Hong Kong. Diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks legal team were also accompanying the NSA leaker on his flight to Moscow, WikiLeaks said in a statement.

A source from Aeroflot told Interfax that Snowden took flight SU213 to Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin was unaware of Snowden’s plans to fly to Moscow. The US has filed an extradition order against Snowden for espionage, theft and conversion of government property.

It is understood that Moscow will not be Snowden’s final destination, he could potentially fly on to Ecuador or Iceland where he has allegedly seeking asylum through intermediary. A diplomatic source told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass that no request for asylum in Russia had been received from the former CIA employee.

Citing a source close to Snowden, Russian news agency Interfax reported that the whistleblower’s final destination will be Venezuela with a transfer in Havana, Cuba. He will reportedly be on flight SU150 to Havana, leaving Moscow on Monday and then on flight V-04101 to Caracas.

“He chose such a complicated route in the hope that he would not be arrested on the way to his final destination of Venezuela,” the source told Interfax.
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View the complete article, INCLUDING FREQUENT UPDATES, at:

http://rt.com/news/snowden-fly-moscow-aeroflot-125/

[bsteadman]

Free Republic is running a thread titled, 'Snowden on Aeroflot flight to Moscow - reports', which was started 6/23/2013 by 'kronos77'

The thread references a 6/23/2013 RT article - http://rt.com/news/snowden-fly-moscow-aeroflot-125/

View the complete Free Republic thread at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3034512/posts

---

To: RummyChick

Part of me thinks there is much more to the story that what is on the surface ...

Been following your posts on this topic as yours is an opinion I've long respected here on FR.

I honestly don't think there's more to this than meets the eye. Snowden blew the lid off the NSA spying on you and I via the internet, social media, facebook, etc.. etc.. etc.. The NSA has HUGE data correlation capabilities, many of which make Hadoop pale by comparison.

Snowden's upset (rightfully so..) that our Government is spying on us, the very American's and Citizen's that the same Government is supposed to protect and in the process, leave us alone. (Not spy on us.)

I really think if Snowden had any "secrets" to our intelligence gathering capabilities, he'd have been "disappeared" by now.

If anything, our Government is trying to cover its tracks by making Snowden the bad guy - when the Government itself "is the bad guy." I think most people see through that facade.

Everything else that's transpired these last few weeks has been nothing less than an attempt to embarass America and specifically, AMERICANS for being so naieve that our Government would never spy on us. We accuse (rightly..) other Governments of spying on their citizens. China is a prime example of spying on its citizens via the internet. In the same breath, many American's defend our Government saying what China does could never happen here.

Guess what? It has. It started under Echelon during the Clinton Administration, grew under Bush and has mushroomed and been exposed under Obama.

PRISM isn't "new." IMO it's simply a maturation of technologies, information gathering processes, and data correlation technologies all brought together under a single program to monitor us.

No, I'm not paranoid. It's happening. If you're read anything I've posted since being here in 1998 I'm about the last person on FR who buys into conspiracy theories. On this topic, I happen to have some expertise on how the technologies the Government uses can be exploited to do the things they are.

Back to Snowden: at this point, he's nothing more than a tool for our Intel community rivals to embarass the USA. Those politicians who accuse Snowden of "treason" who should be "hanged" are doing nothing more than putting their thumb in our eyes in an attempt to blind us to what's really going on.

Sadly, some of those same politicians I had much respect and admiration for, but not anymore. Not now that they've exposed their true feelings towards you and I, the American People.

Respectfully,
USC.

69 posted on Sunday, June 23, 2013 10:06:06 AM by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))

[bsteadman1]

Lionized as a hero, Edward Snowden psyop for Amnesty?

Canada Free Press
Judi McLeod
6/23/2013

Excerpt:

Get ready Mr. and Mrs. America! Your president, back on American soil from Africa just one day before, will present you with a red, white and blue wrapped present in time for Independence Day. It’s Amnesty in a beribboned July 4 package, but with the help of Judas-like sellouts, including Marco Rubio, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and other RINOs siding with In-Office-Forever-Democrats, it will be called ‘Bringing Fellow Americans Out of the Shadows’.

And while it’s well on the way to going down, all eyes have been on that Artful Dodger hero, ‘The Red Herring that Brought Amnesty to America’, Edward Snowden.

The big picture on the Drudge Report earlier today day was a Chinese banner reading “Save Snowden, Save Freedom”.

“HONG KONG (AP)—A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a “third country” because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory’s government said Sunday.”

Surprise, surprise.

Is anyone other than Canada Free Press (CFP) and Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid suggesting that the Obama administration has to leave Snowden as ‘The Spy Who Never Comes in from the Cold’ in order to pull off its latest psyop mission?

“The White House had no immediate comment about Snowden’s departure, which came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.” (AP, June 23, 2013).

How pointed? The mission is an epic fail and slippery Snowden is on his way to Venezuela via Moscow and Cuba.

Doesn’t anyone find it more than passing odd how the horse is always long out of the barn before the Obama administration reacts?

The ‘juice’ of the Snowden-on-the-run story comes from Moscow, China and the entire looking-for-a-hero-to-worship social media.
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View the complete article at:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/56082

[bsteadman]

N.S.A. Leaker Leaves Hong Kong on Flight to Moscow

The New York Times
Keith Bradsher and Ellen Barry
6/23/2013

Excerpt: for The New York Times

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government announced on Sunday afternoon that it had allowed the departure from its territory of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has acknowledged disclosing classified documents about United States government surveillance of Internet and telephone communications around the world.

The government statement said that Hong Kong had informed the United States of Mr. Snowden’s departure.

A Moscow-based reservations agent at Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, said that Mr. Snowden was aboard flight SU213 to Moscow, traveling on a one-way ticket to Moscow. The Aeroflot flight landed in Moscow on Sunday afternoon.

Mr. Snowden’s final destination was unclear, but there were signs that it might be beyond Moscow. The Russian foreign ministry said that Mr. Snowden appeared to be making a connection in Moscow to another destination, but did not say where.

Russia’s Interfax news service, citing a “person familiar with the situation,” reported that Mr. Snowden would remain in transit at an airport in Moscow for “several hours” pending an onward flight to Cuba, and would therefore not formally cross the Russian border or be subject to detention. Someone close to Mr. Snowden later told Interfax that he planned to continue on to Caracas, Venezuela.

“He chose such a complex route in the hope that he will not be detained and he will be able to reach his final destination — Venezuela — unhindered,” the person said.

WikiLeaks, the organization that released extensive classified American diplomatic communications three years ago, said in a statement on its Twitter feed that it had “assisted Mr. Snowden’s political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers” and safe exit from Hong Kong, and said in a follow-up Twitter posting that, “Mr. Snowden is currently over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisers.”

The Aeroflot agent said that Mr. Snowden is traveling with one other person, with the surname Harrison, but the agent declined to release the other traveler’s first name, saying that she did not have the authorization to do so. The closest adviser to Julian Assange, who orchestrated the release of the Wikileaks diplomatic cables three years ago, is named Sarah Harrison, and WikiLeaks later confirmed that she was assisting Mr. Snowden.

His departure from Hong Kong was a setback for the United States, which had been pressing Hong Kong to surrender him to American law enforcement officials. The Hong Kong government said on Sunday, in its first detailed statement about Mr. Snowden, that the United States had made a legal request for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr. Snowden, but that the Hong Kong government had concluded that the request “did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law.”

The statement said that Hong Kong had requested more information from the United States but had not received it. Because the government “has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong,” the statement said.

In a statement Sunday, a Justice Department spokeswoman, Nanda Chitre, confirmed that Hong Kong authorities had told Washington of Mr. Snowden's departure and said that the government would pursue Mr. Snowden's case. "We will continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel,” Ms. Chitre said.

The statement from the Hong Kong government also said it had written to the United States government to ask for clarification about media reports that Mr. Snowden had released documents showing that United States government agencies had hacked computer systems here, adding that the Hong Kong government, “will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.”

Late Saturday, a Hong Kong newspaper, The South China Morning Post, reported additional details of the N.S.A.'s spying on Hong Kong and China, apparently based on an interview with Mr. Snowden on June 12. Mr. Snowden told the newspaper that the N.S.A. had tapped into Chinese mobile phone companies to read millions of text messages, hacked dozens of computers at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University and other computers operated by Pacnet, a major telecommunications company with headquarters in Hong Kong and Singapore.

While there was no independent confirmation of the claims, all the operations described by Mr. Snowden are consistent with the N.S.A.'s aggressive monitoring of foreign communications. And the newspaper’s report could win Mr. Snowden more public support in China and Hong Kong.

In Moscow, Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, said the Kremlin had not been informed of Mr. Snowden’s plans to travel to Russia.
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View the complete article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/wo...cials-say.html