the david patten ngo david back dot com welcome to the show so much news to talk
about the huge breaking worldwide story of course the birth of came card
actually ends
i can i can even get there i can't even pretend like to be would present that
story lewis's breaking news
now now it's not news it's it's not uh... it's not a good day for for
mankind we do have serious news in terms of edward snowden heat i don't even know
where to start so initially we had
of report that edward snowden had left hong kong and was on his way to moscow
russia
the idea was that he would be going there accompanied by at least at the
very least wiki weeks attorney harrison
and
eventually would make his way potentially too
cuba venezuela iceland or ecuador
as more information was released it seemed that ecuador or venezuela where
his ultimate destinations
and that in may be passing through kia brewer
ultimately it did not pan out because as far as we now know he never boarded the
flight
moscow to havana cuba it is unclear
where he is presumably he is within russia although maybe the the idea was
uh... at maybe it's like you see in the movie sometimes where he buys a ticket
to havana
and under his name and then under another name gets onto a flight going
somewhere else right maybe it's uh... distraction maybe he has been seized by
russian authorities maybe they say hey we don't want extradited to the u_s_
but what we do want to be like copy all those n_s_a_ documents you've got so
come with us and then we'll let you go
it's unclear what's happening right now we just don't know
strange situation uh...
i'm sure a lot of people are interested in in where he has and what he knows
before he left hong kong federal prosecutors from the u_s_ filed a
criminal complaint against edward snowden
and they charged him with staffed unauthorized communication of national
defense information
and will for communication of classified communications intelligence information
to an unauthorized person
according to the complaint it's a mouthful but what you need to know is
that those last two charges were brought under the nineteen seventeen espionage
act each charge carries a sentence of maximum of ten years if convicted
snowden is the eight
to be charged under the espy ana act under president obama for leaking
information that is more than on under all previous presidential
administrations combined under the espionage act for leaking information i
will make that clear
do you believe that he will make it louis ultimately to ecuador venezuela or
or what wherever his destination is there that it made may be cut short in
russia
uh...
uh... i don't think so i think you will
i'm cheryl eventually end up where he wants to go
m i've tried on an imagined russia taking him uh...
seizing him
it just doesn't seem like that like a smart move
one thing i've been thinking of is he said initially he had no intention of
avoiding the
the the justice from the ad from the united states but of course that runs
counter to going to hong kong in the first place and now leaving hong kong
after he has been charged by the u_s_ and going to other countries to me that
seat not i would be doing the same thing but but uh... he does seem to be trying
to have a justice in the united states
but also
his concern his the reason for releasing these n_s_a_ documents was his concern
over lack of civil liberties
and certainly in considering
cuba or venezuela at least going to places that don't have a particularly
good record on civil liberties and and openness and and having honest
government i mean for all of the good things that progress is like to talk
about about cuba and i believe we should not have
uh... but we we we gotta believe that we should have trade with cuba cuba is what
happen to those elections back in the fifties that they were going to have
that we're still waiting around for those
and of course venezuela i thought extensively about civil liberties in
human rights problems in venezuela so is that an inherent contradiction in time
well if i don't know how many federal snowed in thinks that uh... he's going
to get her better
system of justice in caracas gridlock
yet arken more that i would call a contradiction i mean he's in a situation
where
he's just gotta go where he's got to go uh... or maybe that's what it is never
ecuador venezuela not exactly free press there
but uh... he has limited options now
no question