Just heard it on the radio in the car. At 5pm Moscow time, he is expected to land.
Snowden’s latest spill – see the Guardian – concerning the US cyber-snooping on China, smacks of treason rather strongly. I could only welcome his disclosures on how the US has the ability to spy on its own citizens and how abuse of this ability seems, sooner or later, virtually inevitable. I was glad to see the British intelligence, perhaps the most powerful and unprincipled in the world, slapped for their no-holds-barred approach – the setting up of fake Internet cafes for one.
But I am convinced that spying on the PRC is a bloody Good Thing.
China’s spying on/in the West has been aggressive and shameless. The PRC is an alien monster that has to be contained, and I am more than happy to see Americans at least trying. If you’re an American and you fear your government may be browsing through your files, by all means get yourself some encryption. There’s enough of privacy-protection software and services in the market and using it is like having curtains in your bedroom. People are not supposed to peer inside but they inevitably do and will do so make sure they cannot see much anymore.
But as an American, you have the First Amendment and you have access to loads of information. There are cost of course, either money for access to specific info, or a self-education effort to make sense of it.. But if you’re stuck in mainland China, God help you.