This seems to be more symbolic, since he still is able to travel, but I would expect a very different symbol from the US: I want that you delete all the data you have collected about me and I want an official apology for all the spying. Furthermore I want you to stop the distinction between US citicens and citizens of other countries when it comes to human rights. How do you justify that? Of course I expect the same from every other government with similar behavior. Let's start the 21. century now.
Do you travel in Europe? I am pretty sure there are a few intelligence and domestic security operations there as well. You seem to be demanding a stop to all of them (but selectively the US, as if you don't believe anyone else is doing them).
I just landed in Madrid, coming from Vienna. It was an international flight, but since it was within the EU, I didn't have to show my ID once. I bought my ticket online, I checked in online. At the security checkpoint, I showed my boarding pass on the phone. When boarding the plane, they scanned the boarding pass on my phone.
I could have just given my phone to someone else to travel.
There's a lot less surveillance of travellers in the EU compared to the US.
Why is it not a fair comparison? Someone claimed travellers in the EU were subject to similar surveillance as in the US. As far as I understand, you need to show an ID even for domestic flights in the US.
I assume that only US entry/exit points "scan" US passports to determine whether a passport is valid or faked etc. (Or maybe European partners do too?)
But for entry and exit in most of the world, a foreign passport is just the physical object itself -- a foreign passport may be scanned, but just to record its details for domestic purposes, not to check its authenticity against any kind of international database. I assume that, in most countries, entering on a false foreign passport is a local crime, but do most country's laws or procedures say anything about foreign passports that have been "revoked" by the home country before their expiration date?
Though he wasn't deported to the US, but was held there for a few months, perhaps a year, before being allowed to fly to Iceland and claim asylum. That was arranged by chess friends of Fischer in Iceland, not Fischer himself.
I don't think Cuba or Venezuela would care if he has a valid passport. He seems to have already got diplomatic treatment from the two countries. The US' mistake was waiting until the 21st to revoke his passport.
What are the legal specifics of a case like this? Does this mean his US citizenship has been revoked, ergo he is a stateless person? Would love to know.
> Does this mean his US citizenship has been revoked
No. Under the 14th Amendment, the government cannot forcibly revoke the US citizenship of anyone born in the US. See Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967): "Congress has no power under the Constitution to divest a person of his United States citizenship absent his voluntary renunciation thereof".
If I understand correctly, he's still a US citizen. He is now like any other American who doesn't have a passport, except that he finds himself outside of the country.
I hope you are trolling. A US passport means nothing to a man in this situation. The country he wishes to enter can decide if they want to let him in or not. Its got nothing to do with passports.
They don't exactly have a lot of authority of foreign soil. It'd be like Greek agents going to Canada to try to manhandle a Greek citizen onto a plane without the support of local law enforcement, and even that's very tricky. They just wouldn't have the authority to do so and would probably be in violation of local law. It would cause an even greater media circus.
There's no such thing as pre-approving extradition. You couldn't, say, get the British government, a government that is quite amenable to extradition requests, to do so because he's not there. Extradition takes some time and is subject to local laws and its judicial system. It's not an easy or trivial process.
Snowden's wise to make things public for his own safety and transparency.
The US is showing no signs of letting up on attempting prosecute him under their laws. I'm not sure why you think it's unlikely he'd be prosecuted, especially as there seems to be more public apathy than backlash.
Snowden isn't an Eichmann. And believe it or not, but not everybody even wants to be Mossad.
If the US does get Snowden, he will go to trial for his charges. There is not a special class of highly classified secrets which the government thinks is OK to disclose. HN is not representative of people in the US
