Snowden’s Hong Kong Escape Attempt Involves High‑Profile Journalists, Possible Foreign Diplomatic Contact, and Intensive Chinese Surveillance

186 The day after his attempt to pressure the Washington Post, he asked Greenwald to drop everything he was doing and immediately fly to Hong Kong. He had, it will be recalled, already sent Poitras an enciphered file, and told her she would get the key once she and Greenwald followed his instructions. Presumably, he wanted Greenwald’s story and the video done in Hong Kong before he became a suspect. If they had immediately flown to Hong Kong that May, it still might have left Snowden an escape window. As Snowden found out, when dealing with journalists, things do not always go as planned. Greenwald, although agreeing to come to Hong Kong, waited in New York for two days while the Guardian editors completed their due diligence. Poitras waited with him. As a result of this delay, Snowden’s clock ran out. Greenwald and Poitras did not arrive at his hotel in Hong Kong until June 3° It would be only hours before he became a prime suspect. “It was a nervous period,” Snowden recalled. Although he bravely told the Guardian, “there was no risk of compromise/” That claim was, at best, wishful thinking on his part. By this time, he was no longer invisible. Not only had he registered at the hotel under his true name and provided his credit card, but he was he in contact with three high-profile journalists, two well-known hacktavists and, as he suggested to Gellman, a foreign diplomatic mission. Even if Snowden had failed to persuade the Washington Post to publish a coded identifier, the mission’s interest would likely be piqued when the newspaper published it first story on June 5". Even if adversary intelligence services had missed Snowden and his archive of NSA documents earlier in May, they would not neglect the availability of such a prize after the NSA stories broke in the Guardian and Washington Post on June 5". Greenwald even went on TV in Hong Kong, revealing to every interested intelligence service, in the unlikely event that that they did not already know, that a defector from the NSA was in Hong Kong. Now there was no point in keeping his identity a secret. On June 9" Poitras released the famous video showing Snowden a secret NSA documents, At this point, Snowden shone so brightly as a beacon that every player in the in the intelligence game would realize that Snowden was a pawn to be captured. Snowden still was able to fog over his travel plans, at least in the media, by telling reporters that he intended to remain in Hong Kong and fight extradition in court, but certainly the Russian officials whom he contacted knew he had other plans. They had even relayed his request to go to Russia to Putin. His movements were also no secret to sophisticated intelligence services. In an era in Hong Kong ii which cell phones emit their GPS location every 3 seconds and CCTV cameras scan many street intersections, it is not easy to conceal one’s whereabouts. In Snowden’s case, his photograph was constantly on television, posters and giant billboards. Even if he threw away his own phone, his retinue of lawyers and helpers could be tracked with ease. China, who’s President, Xi Jinping was meeting President Obama for the first time in Rancho Mirage, California on June 9", would have certainly been keenly interested in the unfolding Snowden affair. After all, Obama had publically put on his agenda that week calling Xi to task for Chinese cyber espionage. Such a charge was undermined by Snowden’s globally-publicized accusation that the United States was engaged in massive cyber espionage. In any event, as US intelligence verified, China had, almost immediately after the release of the video, instituted a full court press of Snowden in Hong Kong. Its security apparatus presumably had the means to monitor his room as well as those of Poitras and Greenwald. From that moment on, it is not likely that any communication or movement, Snowden made during his next 18 days in Hong Kong would escape its scrutiny. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020338