Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tmoehle 1038 days ago
Snowden did not flee to Russia. He was on his way to Berlin with a stop in Moscow, but before he was able to board the plane (if I remember correctly even before his plane landed in Moscow) the US revoked his passport so he couldn’t get on the plane to Berlin. It was not his choice to be stranded there.
2 comments
myvoiceismypprt 1037 days ago
@statedeptusa cancelled snowden's passport a day before he arrived in moscow (you can google)

perhaps snowden flew to moscow once his passport was cancelled, with help from china, as part of a diversion

link
zirgs 1038 days ago
I think that those stories about him "being stranded" are bullshit and he always intended to flee to Russia.

Flying to Berlin doesn't make sense. Germany is a NATO member and a US ally. He'd be extradited ASAP.

link
knorker 1038 days ago
The US really did revoke his passport.

You're saying the US government helped Snowden cover up his plans?

That's some lizard people level conspiracy theory you got there.

link
zirgs 1037 days ago
Yes, his passport was revoked - but now he has another one and he's still in Russia. As far as I know Russian citizens can travel to other countries.
link
dijit 1037 days ago
At this point why bother? He was in Russia 7 years when he finally applied and got a passport, his (now) wife was pregnant, it was the height of COVID.

Russia has also shown that they're not interfering with him as long as he doesn't speak about anything Russia is doing.

Contrast that with his destination countries that he originally wanted to go to, all of which are also of course "enemies of the US" (which is the only reason he's safe there), one of which has been strongarmed by the US directly (Bolivian prime minister forced to land and be searched, breaking international law[0]) and one of which has already permitted one of it's refugees to be captured on sovereign soil.

I should also add that a lot of countries would not grant asylum to a person who is in what they would consider a safe country. I know for instance it's a point of much contention in the UK that an asylum seeker must stop in the first safe country.

Additionally, since Putin's "special military action" (invasion of another sovereign country) there actually are a lot of restrictions for Russian citizens travelling, both outbound and inbound. -- and even if you manage to wave away all of that: he isn't in a better position anywhere else and he still has to travel over US Allied countries to get there.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

link
knorker 1037 days ago
That's a completely different topic, separated by 7 years.

Back to what you said:

> those stories about him "being stranded" are bullshit

He really really was stranded. He had no passport, and the only place he could go without one would send him directly to prison without even a right to raise his defence of "public good" in his trial.

So unless you're saying "he wasn't stranded, he could choose to go to prison forever", that's not really true.

And as we later found out, the US would force even diplomatic planes to land and be searched for Snowden.

Sweden was playing US lapdog with Assange, so presumably would be the case for Finland too, even if not NATO at the time.

link