On Edward Snowden opened a criminal case for espionage

US public prosecutors opened a criminal case against Edward Snowden, a system administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton, who worked under a contract with the National Security Agency and handed over to the press dozens of secret NSA documents on mass surveillance of citizens. Now a computer geek is hiding, presumably, in Hong Kong.

The lawsuit against Snowden filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the head office of his former employer Booz Allen Hamilton is registered and where he has been repeatedly sentenced to prison terms for crimes in the field of national security, writes The Washington Post.

Snowden is accused of espionage, theft and misappropriation of state property, according to informed sources. After the institution of the criminal case the authorities had legal grounds for the request for extradition. If he is found in Hong Kong, he will surely use his right to appeal against the request for extradition. In this case, the legal process is likely to drag on for years .
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Hong Kong has a certain autonomous status within China. The extradition agreement between the United States and Hong Kong has an exception for political cases, which may well be considered the case of Snowden. In this case, the extradition procedure against him will be automatically terminated.

In addition, Snowden still has time to seek political asylum in another country. The organization Wikileaks has already held talks on this matter with the authorities of Iceland, and one of the Icelandic businessmen has announced that he is ready to transport Snowden on his plane on a charter flight.

The Guardian newspaper almost every day publishes all the new documents from those that Edward Snowden handed over. Apparently, the process will continue for a long time, so that we will learn a lot more about the NSA.

For example, two new secret NSA memorandums were published yesterday. The first of these contains procedures for identifying foreign nationals to be tapped , and the second document describes the procedures for minimizing data collected by the National Security Agency in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court). .

According to these documents, the choice of foreign citizens for wiretapping is carried out, including on the basis of who uses software for cryptography and steganography. Cryptographically encrypted records are not to be deleted and are stored on NSA servers until decrypted, since "there are reasonable assumptions that the encrypted information may be relevant to future foreign intelligence requirements." That is, if the user decides to use Tor or PGP, then thereby sends a signal to automatically record their traffic.

The petition in support of Snowden has almost collected the required 100 thousand signatures.