Snowden conjures up the ghosts of our long-lost spooks

The Snowden storm has revived memories of a mysterious agency in British-ruled Hong Kong: the Special Branch, or "SB", which operated within the Royal Hong Kong Police Force.

The whistle-blower's fate was literally up in the air yesterday after he boarded a commercial flight to Moscow en route to a third country, just hours after the US government charged him with espionage.

As he left Hong Kong, one of the big questions left unanswered was: did the Hong Kong government ever get in touch with him directly?

When pressed for details on the case last Friday, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying gave a vague response that more would be revealed "at an appropriate time".

It elicited some jokes about the government not managing to find out where the American is holed up under its own nose, and about Snowden choosing to hide here as we no longer have any of our own secret agents.

SB, also known by locals as "political branch", seems like a word from ancient times here in 2013, 16 years after the handover and 18 years after it was disbanded. Its duties concerned intelligence gathering and security in Hong Kong during colonial times. But in 1995 the intelligence-gathering role was eliminated and all records were transferred back to London. That was understandable as Britain had no desire to leave sensitive documents around for Beijing. The security role ended up merged into the police VIP protection unit. The winding up of SB was without doubt a political decision by London. Beijing complained to the British about scrapping the section and taking away confidential files.

However, since then, Hong Kong has become a city without a specific government agency with the power to carry out secret surveillance on civilians in the name of security - the exception being investigations concerning suspects involved in very serious crimes, where a court permit must be obtained.