Snowden charges first step in perhaps long extradition
By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball | Reuters
By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball
The United States has filed espionage charges against Edward Snowden,
a former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who admitted
revealing secret surveillance programs to media outlets, according to a
court document made public on Friday.
The charges are the government's first step in what could be a long legal battle to return Snowden from Hong Kong, where he is believed to be in hiding, and try him in a U.S. court. A Hong Kong newspaper said he was under police protection, but the territory's authorities declined to comment.
Snowden was charged with theft of government property, unauthorized
communication of national defense information and willful communication
of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person,
said the criminal complaint, which was dated June 14.
The latter two offenses fall under the U.S. Espionage Act and carry penalties of fines and up to 10 years in prison.
A single page of the complaint was unsealed on Friday. An accompanying affidavit remained under seal.
Two U.S. sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was preparing to seek Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong, which is part of China but has wide-ranging autonomy, including an independent judiciary.
The Washington Post, which first reported the criminal complaint
earlier on Friday, said the United States had asked Hong Kong to detain
Snowden on a provisional arrest warrant.
Hong Kong's Chinese-language Apple Daily quoted police sources as
saying that anti-terrorism officers had contacted Snowden, arranged a
safe house for him and provided protection. However, the South China
Morning Post (SCMP) said Snowden was not in police protection but was in
a "safe place" in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Police Commissioner Andy Tsang declined to comment other than to say Hong Kong would deal with the case in accordance with the law.
Snowden earlier this month admitted leaking secrets about classified
U.S. surveillance programs, creating a public uproar. Supporters say he
is a whistleblower, while critics call him a criminal and perhaps even a
traitor.
He disclosed documents detailing U.S. telephone and Internet
surveillance efforts to the Washington Post and Britain's Guardian
newspaper.
On Saturday, Hong Kong's SCMP said Snowden had divulged information
to the newspaper showing how computers in Hong Kong and China had been
targeted.
The SCMP said documents and statements by Snowden show the NSA
program had hacked major Chinese telecoms companies to access text
messages, attacked China's top Tsinghua University, and hacked the Hong
Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which has an extensive fiber optic
submarine network.
The criminal complaint was filed in the Eastern District of
Virginia, where Snowden's former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, is
located.
That judicial district has seen a number of high-profile
prosecutions, including the spy case against former FBI agent Robert
Hanssen and the case of al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui. Both were
convicted.
'ACTIVE EXTRADITION RELATIONSHIP'
Documents leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast
amounts of Internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from
large companies such as Facebook and Google, under a government program
known as Prism.
They also showed that the government had worked through the secret
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gather so-called metadata -
such as the time, duration and telephone numbers called - on all calls
carried by service providers such as Verizon.
President Barack Obama and his intelligence chiefs have vigorously
defended the programs, saying they are regulated by law and that
Congress was notified. They say the programs have been used to thwart
militant plots and do not target Americans' personal lives.
U.S. federal prosecutors, by filing a criminal complaint, lay claim to a legal basis to make an extradition
request of the authorities in Hong Kong, the Post reported. The
prosecutors now have 60 days to file an indictment and can then take
steps to secure Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong for a criminal
trial in the United States, the newspaper reported.
The United States and Hong Kong have "excellent cooperation" and as a
result of agreements, "there is an active extradition relationship
between Hong Kong and the United States," a U.S. law enforcement
official told Reuters.
Since the United States and Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty
in 1998, scores of Americans have been sent back home to face trial.
However, the process can take years, lawyers say.
Under Hong Kong's extradition process, a request would first go to
Hong Kong's chief executive. A magistrate would issue a formal warrant
for Snowden's arrest if the chief executive agrees the case should
proceed.
Simon Young, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, said
the first charge of theft against Snowden might find an equivalent
charge in Hong Kong, needed to allow extradition proceedings to move
forward, but the unauthorized communication and willful communication
charges may be sticking points that lead to litigation and dispute in
the courts.
What ever the Hong Kong courts decide could be vetoed by the
territory's leader or Beijing on foreign affairs or defense grounds.
An Icelandic businessman linked to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks
said on Thursday he had readied a private plane in China to fly Snowden
to Iceland if Iceland's government would grant asylum.
Iceland refused on Friday to say whether it would grant asylum to Snowden.
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