Surviving a Month in a Russian Airport: How a U.S. Citizen Escaped the Death Penalty with a Rubik's Cube
Unravelling history's most monumental data breach and upholding your principles despite consequences.
Edward Snowdon became the world's most famous whistleblower.
Some say he's a traitor.
Others celebrate him as a truth-teller.
When journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laure Poitras stood outside a Hong Kong restaurant, Snowdon famously told them to look for a man holding a Rubik's Cube.
The information and documents he held were so sensitive that the U.S. government could charge him (and they did) under the Espionage Act, which can come with lifetime imprisonment and even the death penalty.
For all he knew, the U.S. authorities could have intercepted the journalists' communications, and he was about to fall into a trap.
Unsurprisingly, he was f**king paranoid.
While communicating with journalists before his identity was revealed, Snowden used the online alias "Cincinnatus."
The name refers to a Roman military leader who voluntarily gave up power after achieving his goals, symbolising Snowden's intentions as a whistleblower.
When the Journalists made it to Snowdon's hotel room, he piled pillows along the gaps in the doorjamb in case somebody walked past the hallway and could overhear his conversation.
As Edward Snowden retrieved data from his laptop, he pulled his hood over his head. He shielded his screen, wary of potential prying eyes outside the window or surveillance cameras that could capture his password.
The 29-year-old National Security Agency analyst handed over thousands of classified documents, which showed the U.S. government was conducting mass surveillance on Americans and people worldwide.
The NSA collected data on people's phone calls, emails and internet activity regardless of whether the government suspected them of wrongdoing.
His documents showed Google, Apple, and Facebook gave the U.S. government access to their servers and user data.
The leaks also disclosed that the U.S. was hacking into foreign governments and companies and spying on foreign leaders.
It also showed partner agencies in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. cooperated with the U.S. on mass surveillance operations. Yuck.
They did all this under the Patriot Act.
In the wake of 9/11, a law allowed the government expansive powers to get records about people with lower suspicion and probable cause than traditional standards.
Snowdon Commented
“9/11 is what woke these guys (government) up. They went well, we screwed up, and Americans died.
Everyone asked how to stop this because no one wanted to feel unsafe.
No one wanted to feel like the building would come down the next time you went there.
But what Dick Cheney (Vice President) did was take the dial of what you’re not allowed to do, and he changed it until it broke and snapped off, and there was nothing we (NSA) couldn’t do anymore”.
Ruthless Justice
It's like stirring the hornet's nest when you f**k around with the U.S. government.
We've seen violations of the Espionage Act usually result in making an example out of "traitors."
Leaking classified information is how you step on a landmine and dig your own grave.
The most famous was Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning before transitioning), who was found guilty of obtaining and distributing classified military information to the WikiLeaks website infamously founded by Julain Assange.
WikiLeaks is the same group Edward Snowdon got help from to try and escape from Hong Kong.
U.K. authorities have held Assange in Belmarsh prison in London, awaiting his extradition hearing. If extradited to the U.S. and convicted Under the Espionage Act, he too could face up to 175 years in prison. He's not even American, lol.
Manning received a 35-year sentence with the first three years pre-trial in conditions that "amounted to torture".
Amnesty International Reported:
"Chelsea was confined in a windowless six-metre cell for 23 hours daily, without personal possessions, bed sheets, and sometimes even her glasses. While considered a suicide risk, Chelsea was only allowed to wear her boxer shorts in her cell and was sometimes forced to go without her underwear".
Very unladylike.
Information leaked by Manning included details of human rights abuses where U.S. soldiers killed 12 people, including civilians, with an Apache helicopter in a secret attack.
During interviews, Snowdon said, "I knew about Chelsea Manning, you know, going into this, there was never any question about how her case would be settled. It's tough to vocalise putting myself in that same position.
Snowdon looked resigned as if he'd rather face the devil than share Manning's fate.
The U.S. government made 3 critical errors.
Catastrophic screw-ups are par for the twisted course regarding the U.S. government.
Following the meeting in the hotel room, journalists ran with the story the next day, which drew global attention almost immediately, and it was as obvious as a slap in the face that Snowdon leaked the documents.
Soon after, "government officials" called for Snowdon's deportation.
And so the avalanche of blunders began.
Paperwork was sent to Chinese Authorities, which they received on a Friday, out of office hours, which meant the U.S. would have to wait until Monday for a response.
When Monday morning arrived, Chinese officials flicked open their laptops only to find that Edward Snowden's middle name was wrong.
James wasn't his middle name; it was Joseph.
The situation was becoming an embarrassing clusterf**k for the U.S., who also didn't cancel Snowdon's passport for reasons Chinese officials are still scratching their heads about.
Nonetheless, America blamed China while the rest of the world pulled up a pew and munched on some popcorn.
Over that weekend, when America sent the deportation paperwork to an empty office, Wikileaks helped Snowdon escape.
Terminal F.
America shooting themselves in the foot allowed Snowdon a small window to get out of Hong Kong and into Russia, where their secret service offered a deal where he could leave the airport immediately if he agreed to give up classified information, which he allegedly declined.
So they declined his request for Asylum.
The Russian intelligence service and President Vladimir Putin refused Snowden entry into Russia, so he was left to fend for himself in the airport's transit zone for a month.
He lived in a room for a month which didn't have a window or a shower.
The U.S. picked up some "intelligence" in another clanger of a mistake.
Rumours circulated that Snowden might seek Asylum in Bolivia, among other countries.
President Morales was returning to Bolivia from a trip to Russia, and there were suspicions that Snowden might be on the same plane. As a result, some European countries (the real traitors) denied Morales's plane access to their airspace.
France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy closed their airspace to Morales' plane based on suspicions that Edward Snowden might be on board.
The plane was forced to land in Vienna, Austria, for an unscheduled stop to scour the aircraft.
It was confirmed Snowden was not aboard and was still stuck at terminal F.
While the grounding of Morales' plane did not directly lead to Snowden's Asylum in Russia, it was part of the broader narrative that the U.S. government were doing whatever the f**k they wanted.
It added fuel to diplomatic tensions that influenced the outcome of his case.
The Russian government cited humanitarian reasons for granting Snowdon Asylum, but it was an "up yours" with both fingers to the U.S.
It was a message of defiance from Russia: If you think you’re running the show, here’s a reality check.
Snowdon has been in Moscow ever since, in exile, but is hailed a hero.
Closing Thoughts
Edward Snowden made an immense personal sacrifice and risk to uphold his principles and expose what he believed to be gross violations of privacy and civil liberties by the U.S. government.
It was a meticulously well-thought-out plan to extract and leak information to the world.
Snowdon bought his entire office Rubik's cubes and reportedly snuck a data chip out of the office in one of the tiles of the square puzzle.
It’s the same Rubik’s Cube he later used to identify himself to journalists without being caught.
When he was given Asylum in Russia, where he still is today, Snowdon's lawyer, in a twist of irony, gave him Dostoyevsky's book called Crime and Punishment.
The main character in the book struggles with a sense of moral alienation and formulates a theory that some extraordinary individuals are above the law.
It speaks to his story perfectly.
“It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere”.