HN Explorer

Ask HN: If you were Edward Snowden where would you have gone?

10 points by kylelibra ↗ HN
Just curious from this crowd, if you were Snowden and knew you were going to go on the run, where would you go? The list of countries without extradition treaties to the US isn't exactly a list of places I'd want to spend the rest of my life.

13 comments

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pmtarantino
List of countries: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_countries_have_no_extraditio...
icedchai
from that page: The reality is that the US can request extradition through diplomatic contacts from any country even if no treaty already exists.
kylelibra
I agree. From what I've read about other famous fugitives, it seems you're much better off if the country wanting to find you doesn't know where you are in the first place. A country where you can remain hidden is better than one where you can't, even if the latter has no extradition treaty.
Zaephyr
I suppose it depends on whether the objective is to go to ground or fight it out in court.

Looking at pmtarantio's list, I'd have to go with the Maldives. At least life on the beach would be nice until I got rendered by SEALs coming up out of the surf.

mattzito
Brazil - Glenn Greenwald, your primary reporter you're working with is based there, big country, cost-effective when you're on a budget, and Greenwald would have a local network of people who could help hide you, and Brazil doesn't extradite political prisoners.

Not to mention, borders on a ton of other countries with fairly porous borders, so you have the possibility of moving from one country to another.

I'm sure there's a lot more options that would crop up depending on a variety of factors. But if you're Snowden you want:

- A network of friends and associates you can trust to help support you, emotionally, physically, and fiscally

- To be in a country where the information you're in possession of might be valuable to that country, and could be used as a bargaining tool

- A country with good, but not great, relationships with the US (so no UK, Canada, EU is probably out).

- A country with a huge bureaucracy and judicial system - you want it to take years to extradite you

Hong Kong makes little sense on most of those, other than the judicial system.

kylelibra
You make some really good points, but why do you say "a country with good, but not great, relationships with the US?"
mattzito
This is hard to define in quantifiable terms, but you don't want a country that's besties with the US, or too heavily dependent on them, because they'll be too willing to jump through hoops to avoid making them angry.

But you also don't want a country that is enemies or has strained relations with the US - they're very likely to take advantage of you/snowden for their own gain. Or arrest you and torture you for the information you have.

You want a country where they like the US, have normal diplomatic relations, but don't necessarily want to seem like a puppet of the americans. They should have a strong belief in protecting individual freedoms.

Also, when you try to get asylum/protection in a country like Brazil or Ecuador or Iceland, etc. - no one can stand up and say, "He's helping our enemies".

xauronx
To jail, because I'm really naive.
kphild
I would have gone to New York, grown a long hair and lived low profile. I would create a fake profile on Elance if I had to earn money.
thesmileyone
If the USA really want him, they will pretend to let him go into the wild and sometime before the end of his life a black-bag team will grab him. There simply is no such thing as safe anymore.
memracom
Russia. It is a big place with lots of choices of interesting places to live. And there is no way that the USA could ever get you out, even with rendition teams, except possibly in the capital Moscow. In fact, In Russia it is easy to disappear completely so that even the Russian state no longer knows where you are. Find a girl, go off an build a cabin in the woods, and live out your life off the grid. There are countless Russian doing just that all over the country because it is just so vast. Even Canadians, who pack themselves in a narrow strip along the US border, have no idea how vast Russia is. Snowden has done his job, leaked the info and demonstrated the incompetence of the US intelligence establishment in protecting its classified data. Other who desire to do similar data collection and leaking now have a roadmap as to how to proceed. Of course there are other countries where you can disappear like Brazil, New Guinea, Parts of Indonesia, but nowhere would give you the government shield that Russia can give. Time to learn Russian. You could be fluent in 3 years and then just disappear. Actually you could likely also disappear in some relatively urban areas once you become fluent, as long as you can keep moving.
sergiotapia
Bolivia. Move to Bulo Bulo o Guayaramerin, you will _never_ be found. Buy some land, some cattle, stay low and live a peaceful life in a quite town in the jungle.
rdl
Hong Kong, remained there fighting extradition until the leaks were exhausted, then showed up for court in the US, ideally in late 2014. Ideally, find a fairly libertarian member of congress of either party (or a coalition) to request me to testify in open congress, and be brought back escorted by congresspeople to do so.