US spy leaker Edward Snowden ‘missing’ in Hong Kong

A contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked details of top-secret US surveillance programs has disappeared from his hotel in Hong Kong ahead of a likely push by the US government to have him sent back to the United States to face charges.

Edward Snowden (29) checked out of the hotel yesterday. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to be still in Hong Kong

He provided the information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA’s broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook and went public in a video released yesterday by the Guardian newspaper.

The disclosures by Snowden have sent shockwaves across Washington, where several politicians have called for the extradition and prosecution of the ex-CIA employee who was behind one of the most significant security leaks in US history.

There were some signs, however, that Snowden’s stance against government surveillance and his defence of personal privacy was resonating with at least some Americans.

Supporters flocked to Snowden’s aid on the Internet - more than 25,000 people signed an online petition urging president Obama to pardon Snowden even before he has been charged. A separate effort on Facebook to raise funds for Snowden’s legal defence netted nearly $8,000 in just a few hours.

In Hong Kong, officials were cautious in discussing a spy drama that could entangle US-China relations just a few days after Mr Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping met at a summit in California where cyber security was a prime topic.

Snowden told the Guardian that he went to Hong Kong in hopes it would be a place where he might be able to resist US prosecution attempts, although the former British colony has an extradition treaty with the United States.

Yesterday, some local officials suggested that Snowden might have miscalculated.

“We do have bilateral agreements with the US and we are duty-bound to comply with these agreements. Hong Kong is not a legal vacuum, as Mr. Snowden might have thought,” said Regina Ip, a Hong Kong lawmaker and former security secretary.

Snowden said he turned over the documents to The Washington Post and the Guardian in order to expose the NSA’s vast surveillance of phone and Internet data.

The former technical assistant at the CIA, who had been working at the NSA as an employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said he became disenchanted with Mr Obama for continuing the surveillance policies of George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor.

“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded,” Snowden told the Guardian, which published the video interview with him, dated June 6th, on its website.

In Washington, several members of Congress and intelligence officials showed little sympathy for Snowden’s argument. The US Justice Department already is in the initial stages of a criminal investigation.

“Anyone responsible for leaking classified information should be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” said Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

Reuters