Not odd at all. If he'd gone to a country with good US relations he would have been extradited. Russia and China don't want to be seen giving into requests from the US so along with Latin America were two of the safest places for him.

Yes but Latin American countries wouldn't have as much interest in his Intel as the other Russia and China. If he was just seeking asylum Ecuador would have been a much better choice for him. They have already given Assange asylum so I would think that would have been a better first option than HK.

Latin American countries also wouldn't have the power to tell the US to piss off (as we've seen in July). He asked for asylum there but there was no way he could fly to these countries.

I suspect Latin America is still his long term endplay. I note the Russian asylum is a temporary 1 year deal.

What I find odd are people finding odd he went to US's rivals in such a situation. I wonder, where do you suppose he should have gone? US-controlled Europe?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend should be pretty obvious once you're running from a government that does not think twice about murdering their own citizens.

Yes but the point is he brought his treasure trove of intel with him.

What sort of cold war spy movie scenario are you imagining? If he wanted to give the data to the Russians or Chinese, he could just have uploaded it somewhere for them to grab. On the other hand, I would assume that he knows how to encrypt things well enough that nicking his laptops while he's not looking would be pretty much useless.

yes. And how can you be 100% sure that he has not given what's on those laptops to the Russians voluntarily ?

Who cares if we can't be sure? We can't be sure if he hasn't released a super-hacker sci-fi bacteria infection on New York, either.

Only time will tell.

We should care that we can't be sure about something as important as Snowden's dealings with Putin government, if only to slow down rush to judgement, when situation is uncertain.

Did he? How do you know?

Read the interviews with him. He took Hong Kong because that's where he could travel without raising suspicion. Russia was supposed to be a layover.

In the end, it worked out very well for him, because he ended up in powerful countries who weren't in a hurry to do the US Government any favors, but the implication that he's "aiding the enemy" by running to the US's biggest rivals is ludicrous.

> I mean I wonder what kind of info he has given (if any) to these countries.

I assume those countries already had their hands on that information (and more). If it was easy for Snowden to get his hands on it, it would have been just as easy for them.

This information falling in foreign hands isn't much of a problem I would guess. The real fear is more information leaking to the biggest enemy: the public. I would not be surprised if part of the dealing of granting him asylum was that he stop leaking to the public.

Not odd at all. His options were either US-averse Latin American countries (Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba) or China-Russia. And between those, he took maybe the safest, as said latin american countries may not be able to protect him if the US gov is truly determined to get him.