Whistle-blower Edward Snowden chose Hong Kong to expose US in 2013, but would perceived lack of press freedom under national security law stop him today?
- Former security chief Regina Ip brushes aside lawyer’s claim that law deters whistle-blowing
- ‘I’d do it all again,’ says former asylum seeker who helped Snowden stay undercover in Kowloon
Whistle-blower Edward Snowden used Hong Kong to launch the world’s biggest intelligence leak a decade ago, but others would not be able to do that today because of the government’s tightened grip on media in the city, according to his former lawyer.
Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the explosive leaks which revealed the United States’ global spying activities, Canadian lawyer Robert Tibbo said the national security law introduced in 2020 had made the city “a place where whistle-blowing is almost impossible”.
“It is a real possibility that if Snowden were to happen again, reporters and anyone who helps him in Hong Kong would be arrested and charged under national security law,” he said.
They could be accused of collusion with foreign forces, one of the offences under the law which also prohibits acts of secession, subversion and terrorism. “The law is far too broad and ambiguous,” he said.
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Rejecting such fears, former security chief Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee argued that laws in the city were far less stringent than in other parts of the world and that freedom of expression was not under threat locally.
“I don’t think any whistle-blower will be in jeopardy in the future, unless they are involved in an offensive against China,” she said. “If Snowden comes again, he’ll be free to spill the beans about the US or any other country.”
Snowden, 39, is a former US National Security Agency employee who leaked thousands of highly classified documents which exposed how the US spied on its own citizens, world leaders and countries around the world.
He came to Hong Kong in May 2013, and from the Mira Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, began leaking documents to media outlets, including the Post. He said he chose Hong Kong because of its press freedom.
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He checked out of the hotel on June 10 and Tibbo, fearing that Snowden would be sent back to the US, helped him hide in the homes of three families of asylum seekers who were also his clients.
The US revoked Snowden’s passport and issued charges against him under espionage laws, but he slipped out of Hong Kong and made his way to Russia, which granted him citizenship last year. He is now living in Moscow.
Like Tibbo, former Central Intelligence Agency analyst John Kiriakou, who was jailed in a separate case for exposing the US government’s use of torture as an interrogation technique, said Hong Kong’s national security law could deter whistle-blowing.
Now an author and journalist living in Washington DC, from which he hosts the Political Misfits podcast, he said free journalism played a critical role in whistle-blowing.
“Firstly, journalists are often sceptical about whistle-blowers and therefore require lots of evidence,” he said. “Secondly, without the media, the revelations may as well not even be made.”
Kiriakou, who was sentenced to 30 months’ jail in early 2013 for giving classified information to a reporter, said Hong Kong’s national security laws meant that anyone involved in the whistle-blowing process could be prosecuted under the law.
“I think the consequences would be dire,” he said. “There is no guarantee that you are going to be able to tell the people why you did what you did in open court.”
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Between the time Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong in June 2020 and February last year, 20 journalists and press freedom advocates had been arrested under it.
But former security chief Ip, now convenor of the Executive Council, the city’s top decision-making body, said Hong Kong’s laws were far less stringent than in other parts of the world and freedom of expression was not under threat.
“There is no attack on freedom of expression,” she argued.
She also said many countries were acting to regulate internet freedom too.
“I don’t think we are doing anything particularly out of line compared with what other jurisdictions are doing,” she said.
‘Misplaced priorities’: Hong Kong accused of ignoring asylum seeker’s basic needs
Looking back at the events 10 years ago, Tibbo said he and the asylum seekers who helped Snowden came under pressure afterwards.
From 2013 to 2016, few were aware of the asylum seekers who helped Snowden. But that changed with the release of the film Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone, in 2016.
Vanessa Rodel, an asylum seeker who housed Snowden in a subdivided flat in Kowloon, recalled: “When the film came out, things got scary, journalists found where we lived and were knocking on our doors.”
Rodel, originally from the Philippines, came to Hong Kong as an asylum seeker in 2003. She and her stateless daughter were granted refugee status by Canada in 2019 and have resettled in Montreal.
She said International Social Services-Hong Kong (ISS), which is contracted by the Social Welfare Department to help asylum seekers, kept asking her where Snowden was and eventually cut off her benefits.
“I did not have anywhere to live or money for food,” she said.
Despite that, Rodel said she would not hesitate to help Snowden again. “I would not think twice about it. It was the right thing to do,” she said.
Tibbo said that in 2017, all his pending cases in court were suddenly pushed through and it felt like his workload was deliberately being increased to force him to leave Hong Kong.
“I had 50 or 60 clients and I suddenly started getting court dates for all of them,” he said.
He said the Immigration Department asked for him to stop representing the asylum seekers involved in the Snowden case, and accused him of breaching his professional code of conduct and having conflicting interests.
Tibbo returned to Canada in November 2017, but remains a member of the Hong Kong Bar Association and can represent clients in the city.
An ISS spokesman said it would not comment on individual cases due to privacy concerns. But it cautioned that it “may not be able to render assistance to service users at particular periods of time if they do not show up at service renewal, provide incomplete documentation to support the assessment and/or refuse the services rendered”.
An Immigration Department spokesman said: “ISS is commissioned by the Social Welfare Department to provide humanitarian assistance to eligible non-refoulement claimants. [The welfare department] may approach the Immigration Department for verification of the status of non-refoulement claims as necessary.”
