Snowden’s Leaks on China Could Affect Its Role in His Fate
Bobby Yip/Reuters
Passengers on a train in Hong Kong watched news of Edward J. Snowden, who is reported to have shared data of computers there.
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: June 14, 2013 311 Comments
HONG KONG — The decision by a former National Security Agency contractor
to divulge classified data about the United States government’s
surveillance of computers in mainland China and Hong Kong has
complicated his legal position, but may also make China’s security
apparatus more interested in helping him stay here, law and security
experts said on Friday.
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The South China Morning Post, a local newspaper, reported on Friday that
Edward J. Snowden, the contractor, had shared detailed data showing the
dates and Internet Protocol addresses of specific computers in mainland
China and Hong Kong that the National Security Agency penetrated over
the last four years. The data also showed whether the agency was still
breaking into these computers, the success rates for hacking and other
operational information.
Mr. Snowden told the newspaper that the computers were in the civilian
sector. But Western experts have long said that the dividing line
between the civilian sector and the government is very blurry in China.
State-owned or state-controlled enterprises still control much of the
economy, and virtually all are run by Communist Party cadres who tend to
rotate back and forth between government and corporate jobs every few
years as part of elaborate career development procedures.
Kevin Egan, a former prosecutor here who has represented people fighting
extradition to the United States, said that Mr. Snowden’s latest
disclosures would make it harder for him to fight an expected request by
the United States for him to be turned over to American law
enforcement. “He’s digging his own grave with a very large spade,” he
said.
But a person with longstanding ties to mainland Chinese military and
intelligence agencies said that Mr. Snowden’s latest disclosures showed
that he and his accumulated documents could be valuable to China,
particularly if Mr. Snowden chooses to cooperate with mainland
authorities.
“The idea is very tempting, but how do you do that, unless he defects,”
said the person, who spoke anonymously because of the diplomatic
delicacy of the case. “It all depends on his attitude.”
The person declined to comment on whether Chinese intelligence agencies
would obtain copies of all of Mr. Snowden’s computer files anyway if he
were arrested by the Hong Kong police pursuant to a warrant from the
United States, where the Justice Department has already been reviewing
possible charges against him.
A Hong Kong Police Force spokeswoman said earlier this week that any
arrest would have to be carried out by the Hong Kong police and not by
foreign law enforcement. The Hong Kong police have a responsibility to
share with mainland China anything of intelligence value that they find
during raids or seizures of evidence, according to law enforcement
experts.
Patricia Ho, a lawyer who specializes in political asylum at Daly and
Associates, a Hong Kong law firm, said that if Beijing decides that it
wants Mr. Snowden to stay in Hong Kong for a long time, the simplest way
to do so would be for mainland officials to quietly tell Hong Kong’s
government officials not to hurry the legal process.
The United States and China have long accused each other of monitoring
each other’s computer networks for national security reasons. The United
States has also accused China of hacking to harvest technological
secrets and commercial data on a broad scale from American companies and
transferring that information to Chinese companies to give them a
competitive advantage.
Tom Billington, an independent cybersecurity specialist in Washington,
said that mainland China could benefit by obtaining a copy of the data
that Mr. Snowden gave to The South China Morning Post. The data, if
independently verified, could help Chinese officials figure out which
computers have been hacked, patch security holes, itemize compromised
data, analyze the quality of computer security defenses and develop
techniques for hardening other Chinese computers against future
surveillance by the N.S.A.
“It certainly would seem valuable data for the Chinese,” Mr. Billington said.
According to The Guardian newspaper of Britain, Mr. Snowden showed up
with four laptop computers for a meeting with its journalists in Hong
Kong. But The Los Angeles Times has reported that Mr. Snowden originally
smuggled electronic files out of the National Security Agency in Hawaii
using a USB thumb drive.
Simon Young, the director of the Center for Comparative and Public Law
at the University of Hong Kong, said in a statement that it would be a
violation of Hong Kong law to disclose any information that had been
shared confidentially by the Hong Kong or mainland Chinese governments
with the United States.
“These recent developments underline the importance of Mr. Snowden
obtaining immediate legal advice in Hong Kong, especially before any
further disclosures are made,” Mr. Young said.
Mr. Young did not suggest whether any of the data shared by Mr. Snowden
would fall into this category. But the Hong Kong government has a
history of close law enforcement cooperation with the United States,
particularly in the area of counterterrorism. The Hong Kong police have
long focused on trying to prevent the territory’s freewheeling financial
system from becoming a base for Al Qaeda-related money laundering.
The South China Morning Post said that one target of N.S.A. hacking
identified by Mr. Snowden was the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which
hosts the city’s main hub for Internet connections to the rest of the
world. “The University has not detected any form of hacking to the
network, which has been running normally,” the university said in a
statement.
The newspaper said that it had not independently verified the accuracy
of the data that Mr. Snowden provided. But the United States government
has not questioned the authenticity of any of the documents he has
released.
The Global Times, a nationalistic mainland Chinese newspaper under direct control of the Communist Party, published an editorial on Friday calling for China to glean as much information as possible from him.
“Snowden is a ‘card’ that China never expected,” the commentary said.
“But China is neither adept at nor used to playing it.”
The commentary also called for China and Hong Kong to treat Mr. Snowden
kindly enough so that others with national security secrets will not be
discouraged from fleeing here. “China should make sure that Hong Kong is
not the last place where other ‘Snowdens’ want to go,” it said.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that Britain had issued an alert
to airlines around the world warning them not to bring Mr. Snowden to
its soil, and threatening them with a fine of 2,000 pounds, or $3,125.
Geoffrey Robertson, of London, who was an initial lawyer for Julian
Assange during the WikiLeaks dispute, criticized the alert as unusual
because it was being applied to someone who has denounced government
policies.
“This is a power hitherto used only against those who incite terrorism,
race hatred and homophobia — never before against whistle-blowers,” Mr.
Robertson wrote in an e-mail. “The British government is simply afraid
that its judges, who are fiercely independent, and the European court
would embarrass its closest ally by ruling that Snowden could not be
extradited because, even if his “revelations” prove to be mistaken, he
would be subjected to oppressive treatment akin to that being meted out
to Bradley Manning,” the American Army private accused of having leaked
secrets in the WikiLeaks case.
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