Snowden should be questioned on extent of US privacy intrusions
Lau Nai-keung says China has the right to lawfully detain and debrief him
Who is Edward Snowden, and what is he up to? So far, the whole act is so strangely perfect, and the Western media so extraordinarily helpful, that it seems like a movie plot that's too good to be true in the real world. So much so that even some liberals in the West, such as Naomi Wolf, have openly cast doubt on the saga and warned people not to take it literally.
Of course, it is most embarrassing to the US government, whose official line is that the Prism project is necessary for homeland security. But this did not answer the pointed question of whether it is necessary to hack into people's personal data, grossly violating privacy rights, to quench the country's paranoid fears about terrorist attacks.
If that is indeed justifiable, then the US has no right to point its dirty finger at China for its internet actions.
China is under greater threat of terrorist attack, and its government has a duty to protect the life and property of its citizens. Some of those officially classified as terrorist organisations in China are called "freedom fighters" in the US.
The Snowden affair is also a great embarrassment to our dissidents who claim to champion human rights and frequently use this as an excuse to bash China. Given that Snowden surfaced in Hong Kong, they knew they had to say something but they did not want to harm their cordial relations with the US. So they chose to duck the real issue and instead focus the discussion on whether the Hong Kong government should hand Snowden over to the US, which he has obviously betrayed. Snowden has been portrayed as a freedom fighter and the US as the villain.
By spinning the issue, some of the pressure has been shifted from the US to the Hong Kong government, and ultimately the central government. Some Western politicians and journalists have even claimed Snowden is a Chinese spy, or has defected to China.
Indeed, why of all places would he choose Hong Kong to fight his corner? His flattering remarks about the city were not at all convincing.