Edward Snowden: a timeline of events

Edward Snowden: a timeline of events:-

May 20, 2013	Edward Snowden, an employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton at the National Security Agency, arrives in Hong Kong from Hawaii. He carries four laptop computers that enable him to gain access to some of the U.S. government’s most highly-classified secrets.
June 01, 2013	The Guardian's journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill and documentary maker Laura Poitras fly from New York to Hong Kong. They meet Snowden in a Kowloon hotel after he identifies himself with a Rubik’s cube and begin a week of interviews with their source.
June 05, 2013	The Guardian publishes its first exclusive based on Snowden’s leak, revealing a secret court order showing that the U.S. government had forced the telecom giant Verizon to hand over the phone records of millions of Americans.
June 06, 2013	A second story reveals the existence of the previously undisclosed programme Prism, which internal NSA documents claim gives the agency “direct access” to data held by Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants. The tech companies deny that they have set up “back door access” to their systems for the U.S. government.
June 07, 2013	Barack Obama defends the two programmes, saying they are overseen by the courts and Congress. Insisting that “the right balance” had been struck between security and privacy, he says: “You can’t have 100% security, and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience.” The Guardian reports that GCHQ has been able to see user communications data from the American internet companies, because it had access to Prism.
June 08, 2013	Another of Snowden’s leaks reveals the existence of an internal NSA tool — Boundless Informant — that allows it to record and analyse where its data comes from, and raises questions about its repeated assurances to Congress that it cannot keep track of all the surveillance it performs on American communications.
June 09, 2013	Snowden decides to go public. In a video interview he says: “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.”
June 10, 2013	Snowden checks out of his Hong Kong hotel
June 12, 2013	Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post publishes the first interview with Snowden since he revealed his identity. He says he intends to stay in the city until asked to leave and discloses that the NSA has been hacking into Hong Kong and Chinese computers since 2009.
June 14, 2013	The Home Office instructs airlines not to allow Snowden to board any flights to the U.K.
June 16, 2013	The Guardian reports that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians’ communications at the 2009 G20 Summit.
June 20, 2013	Top secret documents published by The Guardian show how U.S. judges have signed off on broad orders allowing the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
June 21, 2013	A Guardian exclusive reveals that GCHQ has gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic and is processing vast streams of sensitive personal information it shares with the NSA.
	The U.S. files espionage charges against Snowden and requests that Hong Kong detain him for extradition.
June 23, 2013	Snowden leaves Hong Kong on a flight to Moscow. In a statement, the Hong Kong government says documents submitted by the US did not “fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law” and it had no legal basis to prevent him leaving.
June 24, 2013	Snowden, who has been expected to fly to Cuba on the only direct flight to Latin America from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, fails to take seat booked in his name.
June 25, 2013	Russia rejects U.S. demand for Snowden extradition
June 26, 2013	China hits out at U.S. accusations on Snowden

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Edward Snowden: a threat to U.S.?

Edward Snowden: a threat to U.S.?

Edward Snowden (29 years old), a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, who leaked secret documents detailing a widespread surveillance programme, is reported to be hiding out in a Hong Kong five-star hotel as the U.S. considers launching a criminal case against him. Mr. Snowden’s decision to flee to Hong Kong from Hawaii, where he was employed by the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, has come as a surprise, given that Hong Kong and the U.S. have, in the past, worked together closely on criminal cases under an extradition treaty Hong Kong signed with Washington shortly before the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

Mr. Snowden told The Guardian that he chose Hong Kong because they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent. Should the U.S. eventually choose to extradite Mr. Snowden as it begins a criminal prosecution, his fate will rest in the hands of Hong Kong’s courts, and on the possibility — however unlikely — of intervention by Beijing.

As a ‘Special Administrative Region’ of China, Hong Kong enjoys freedoms that the mainland does not have, such as a free press and an independent judiciary. Hong Kong also has its own Constitution — known as the Basic Law — although Beijing controls foreign policy and defence matters.

While the extradition treaty does make an exception for political cases, there is no recent record of Hong Kong refusing an extradition request from the U.S. It could, however, take months — if not years — for the Hong Kong courts to decide whether the case is political or criminal, if and when the matter comes before them. And, given the recent history of close cooperation on criminal cases, many Hong Kong lawmakers themselves see little likelihood of the territory openly defying on the U.S. on this case.

That the former CIA employee fled the U.S. for the Chinese territory has also raised some eyebrows, particularly in the wake of heightened tensions between both countries over cyber security and hacking attacks, an issue that figured prominently during the recent talks between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping.

Snowden enrooted from Hong Kong:- Rejecting requests from the U.S. for Edward Snowden’s extradition, the Hong Kong government allowed the whistleblower to board a flight to Moscow. The former CIA employee arrived Moscow and was said to be headed to a third country, where he is likely to seek asylum.

            WikiLeaks, the whistle blowing website, had been closely involved in facilitating his ‘safe exit’ from Hong Kong and was helping him find ‘asylum in a democratic country’.

            The Hong Kong government in a statement said it could not stop          Mr. Snowden from leaving because there was ‘no legal basis’ for it to do so. Explaining their decision, authorities said documents provided by the U.S. seeking Mr. Snowden’s arrest did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law. U.S. officials said they were puzzled by how            Mr. Snowden had been allowed to travel to Moscow as they had revoked his passport earlier.

{Earlier, Russia said it is willing to consider granting asylum to American whistleblower Edward Snowden if he applies, the Kremlin has said.  The Kremlin offer came as Mr. Snowden checked out from a five-star hotel in Hong Kong and disappeared. He had fled to Hong Kong from Hawaii after leaking top secret documents about a U.S. global electronic surveillance programme. Experts said Hong Kong was not a very safe place for                      Mr. Snowden to hide from American authorities as it has an extradition treaty with the U.S.

Russia has a consulate in Hong Kong. There is no extradition pact between Russia and the U.S. and the Kremlin may be all too happy to thumb its nose at America. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. rejected several Russian requests to extradite businessmen accused of economic crime. Moscow was also infuriated by what it called the “kidnapping” and conviction in the U.S. of Russian nationals, Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, accused respectively of arms and cocaine smuggling. A senior Russian parliamentarian said Russian asylum for Mr. Snowden would send a signal that, “Moscow takes under its wings victims of political persecution.”}

U.S. certain Snowden in Russia, Moscow pleads ignorance:- The United States has warned countries against giving shelter to fugitive Edward Snowden, or letting him travel internationally, as the former CIA contractor landed in Moscow and is said to be on his way to the South American country of Ecuador through Havana and Venezuela. The United States has been in touch via diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries in the Western Hemisphere through which Snowden might transit or that could serve as final destinations.

The US is advising these Governments that Snowden is wanted on felony charges, and as such should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States. Meanwhile, top US lawmakers doubted the intentions of both China and Russia in the latest unfolding development regarding Snowden, who flew from Hong Kong to Moscow.

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Edward Snowden: a timeline of events

Electronic Snooping by U.S.: India in top 5 list

Continuing its series of exposés on the manner in which the United States has been harvesting electronic communication from national and international communication traffic, The Guardian newspaper has acquired top-secret documents about a data mining tool used by the National Security Agency (NSA), called Boundless Informant, “that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.”

A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in what The Guardian describes as a top secret NSA “global heat map” gives an insight into the sheer volume of data being collected by America’s most secretive intelligence agency: In March 2013 alone, it harvested a whopping 97 billion “pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.”

Most intensively watched countries by U.S.
#	Country
1	Iran
2	Pakistan
3	Jordan
4	Egypt
5	India

Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, says the newspaper, with more than 14 billion reports in that period, followed by 13.5 billion from Pakistan. Though the U.S. administration may justify the focus on these two countries because of the nuclear programme of the former and because many terrorist groups operate from the territory of the latter, the fact that India clocks in fifth with 6.3 billion pieces of information collected from the country’s computer and data networks in one month alone is bound to cause alarm and consternation in New Delhi. Jordan and Egypt are the third and fourth most intensively watched countries.

Though the Obama administration has attempted to reassure domestic public opinion in America that its spying operations are mainly directed outwards, The Guardian says the Boundless Informant documents show the NSA “collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from U.S. computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013.”

The newspaper reproduced one of the NSA’s colour-coded “heatmaps,” according to which countries are more extensively monitored. The colours range from green, for the least amount of surveillance, to yellow, orange and finally red for those subjected to the most surveillance. India is coded orange. The extent of the NSA’s surveillance of Indian communication traffic is greater than its electronic snooping efforts in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.