[ctdonath]

anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

This seems to. I've wondered variants of the same thing: there's a lot of authoritative commentary surrounding an issue which nobody talking has authority on (to wit: "those who know don't talk, those who talk don't know").

If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Poster's point was exactly that "how do they know he's there?" isn't being covered.

Obviously the overall topic is interesting (having completely taken over the HN front page at one point not long ago); "how do we know X?" is relevant thereto.

[rcamera]

There is no point in discussing this, as this entire thread will be based on assumptions and not facts. The only 'fact' one could get would be a picture of Snowden in Russia or someplace else dated very recently, but if there was such picture, it would be in the news already.

[ctdonath]

Today there IS a very big point in discussing this. Snowden is either in that Russian airport, or he is on the President of Bolivia's plane which just had its diplomatic immunity violated. His provable whereabouts are now a big factor in world diplomatic relations.