Bolivian leader's plane rerouted because Snowden suspected on board

The fact that they pull this very undiplomatic stunt off shows just how afraid they are of him.
That alone pleases me.

Another thing, in all the news reports on TV you only see the part about his passport being revoked when they talk about his statement. Nothing of the other is reported, and the statement has yet to be broadcast in full in anything I have seen. I've only red it online.

Edit: Also, the Streisand effect is operating at full force here.

reply to post by Zaphod58

I'm sure you are absolutely correct, but I think this still sends a chill through the international community. Of course, under the Code Napoléon, one is presumed guilty until proven innocent, isn`t one?

Still . . .

Originally posted by HomoSapiensSapiens

I'm wondering what they would have done if the Bolivians had said "No" and continued flying - would they have seriously shot the plane down? Yeah, right!

I don't think from what I've seen it was as simple as not allowing the plane to fly through their airspace. The plane also needed to refuel. That's why it had to turn around and land in Vienna. You might can test the legality of laws or rules of another nation, but they really didn't want to test the laws of gravity when the fuel ran out!

With that said, this is a blatant violation of international law. Preventing the movement of the leader of another countries plane as others before me have said is just wrongly illegal. Especially since there was absolutely no hard evidence this guy was on there.

Even with that evidence, if the US had had a fugitive from another country aboard Air Force One along with our president, the equivalent of being forced to land would equal an act of war.

Originally posted by webpirate
With that said, this is a blatant violation of international law. Preventing the movement of the leader of another countries plane as others before me have said is just wrongly illegal. Especially since there was absolutely no hard evidence this guy was on there.

Even with that evidence, if the US had had a fugitive from another country aboard Air Force One along with our president, the equivalent of being forced to land would equal an act of war.

If might be a treaty violation at best, but there is no international law that says any country has to let another leader fly through their airspace. If that was the case then at the height of the Cold War the Soviets and Americans would have had to let their opposite leaders fly through their airspace, taking pictures of bases or whatever they wanted as they went over.

The Chicago Convention allows free overflight of commercial aircraft, but this wasn't a commercial flight, so it doesn't apply. For military flights negotiations usually occur to allow the flight to transit, but at any point the nation in question has the right to revoke airspace clearance for any aircraft.

reply to post by Dianec

I have pretty much forgotten about Mr. Assange (or had until recently). That's because they let him go quietly - Snowden will stay in the public eye because of how the government is behaving. Maybe it's an unconscious cry for help by the Feds?

I find this an interesting point. It used to be that people who were considered spies who exposed sensitive material to foreigners were held accountable. I always thought that there was something strange behind the wikileaks thing and for that reason stayed away from those threads. Assange just got caught on some silly sex scandal which tells me he may not be all he pretends to be, because sex scandals are often used by the Elites for people who don't do what they demand. I bet Snowden didn't have any sex scandals to expose so the Elites have to use other methods against him, like getting foreign countries to deny air space.
I don't know about the unconscious cry for help from the Feds. I see it as them exerting control over someone who exposed their nasty game. Seems forcing plans to change their landing schedules is pretty not unconscious.

reply to post by SuperFrog

Just imagine, situation/control room similar as viewed in Bourne Identity dedicated to Snowden

hmmm maybe this is the Bourne Identity in real life. I bet Snowden doesn't have Damon's fighting skills though. Maybe the info he has is embedded in rfid chip and the feds don't want to be obvious about it. It would be easy enough to confiscate usb flash drives wherever he goes.

Our lives are on our laptops – family photos, medical documents, banking information, details about what websites we visit, and so much more. Thanks to protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, the government generally can’t snoop through your laptop for no reason. But those privacy protections don’t safeguard travelers at the U.S. border, where the U.S. government can take an electronic device, search through all the files, and keep it for a while for further scrutiny – without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever

For doctors, lawyers, and many business professionals, these border searches can compromise the privacy of sensitive professional information, including trade secrets, attorney-client and doctor-patient communications, research and business strategies, some of which a traveler has legal and contractual obligations to protect. For the rest of us, searches that can reach our personal correspondence, health information, and financial records are reasonably viewed as an affront to privacy and dignity and inconsistent with the values of a free society

www.eff.org...

Although that document explains mainly about the US border, it could conceivably happen at any International airport.

If he really was on the plane, they could totally just dye his hair black, give him a bit of a tan, teach him a little spanish, give him a cover ID, throw him in a suit with an earpiece, so he could pretend he was security for Morales, and allow one or two people to do a quick walk-through of the plane.




Okay, I don't know if that would work... but it could (maybe).

Originally posted by intrptr
If Snowden boards a plane it will be forced down by American fighter jets as soon as it crosses over international waters. This happened before with the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

This is why he hasn't flown out of Moscow. I doubt he will.

If they are smart they will squirrel him out of the country some other way. They have to. Snowden is a liability to whichever nation takes him in.

That could be true-- and that could also be another reason it "makes sense" to fly him out of the country with a foreign politician. If the US "forced down" a plane containing a foreign president over international waters, that would be a diplomatic nightmare.

Originally posted by jarrodpace
The United States is exposed as spying on these nations, yet, they still go out of their way not to upset the American government.

GUTLESS! There are no American allies, only puppets!

It is looking more and more like poor Snowden is done for...

FREEDOM IS DEAD!

Government officials work with each other globally in their own interests, not those of the citizens of their particular nation.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by Dianec

 

I have pretty much forgotten about Mr. Assange (or had until recently). That's because they let him go quietly - Snowden will stay in the public eye because of how the government is behaving. Maybe it's an unconscious cry for help by the Feds?

I always thought that there was something strange behind the wikileaks thing and for that reason stayed away from those threads. Assange just got caught on some silly sex scandal which tells me he may not be all he pretends to be

edit on 3-7-2013 by ThirdEyeofHorus because: (no reason given)

Like you said, you stayed away from the Assange threads so you have no idea what the Sex scandal is, seriously though go look up this 'sex scandal', As far as I'm aware that version of 'rape' its not illegal in Britain and I'm not sure but I don't think it was actually the females who pressed any kind of charges.

Now, WHY would they not allow it? Either there is some covert threat or coercion from the US about it flying through the airspace, or they themselves are such "allies" that they are proactively doing anything to help the US. Either way, they are lapdogging it.

reply to post by Liquesence


The info he has on their respective nations' intel agencies is no doubt enough to scare certain western "democracies" out of involvement.

This Snowden affair is becoming a thriller that not even the best thriller writer could have thought out.

Look to the list of major violations that already have been commited:

1 The NSA breaking into the EU internal computer network can only be considered as a Cyberattack. Last year the US government and the pentagon said that a severe cyber attack from a foreign nation against the US could be considered as an Act of War by the United States. Yet they do it themselves against their " friends".

2 Denying the airforce 1 of a friendly nation the airspace be other nations is an diplomatic insult of a high order. This while foreign leaders are actually immune according to international law. But apparently immunity only accounts for the American prsident in an American airforce 1. It only shows how desperate the white house / NSA / pentagon is to get Snowden. But it also shows how weak the European governments (read puppets) are to actually do it. Especially considering they were bugged themselves.

3 The phone calls gathered world wide by the NSA were a violation of the consituation of teh US. But they are not just a violation of American privacy rights, I would argue that they are in fact a violation of basic human rights of all citizens around the globe. Not just American citizens.

4 The director of the NSA lied to a congressman about the storage of phone calls. What is of course utterly deceiving the American public. And thereby deceiving the only potential democratic conrrol there still is over the NSA.

And this real story gets longer by the day...

The difference between Obama and Bush dissapears by the day. The disrespect for international law, privacy rights and human rights gets stunning. Yet Obama is talking in Africa beautiful stories about freedom, human rights and internatiojnal cooperation. And while telling this, he is pushing other countries to deny airspace against the airforce 1 of a friendly nation.
And for years he criticized China for spying. Now it looks like the Chinese spying was piece of cake in comparison to NSA spying. Yet when the major spying comes out he says " all counties spy". Well spying at this level (billion phone calls per month) is only comparable to the spying of countries like the Soviet union, China, Iran and Syria. Quite a league.
How far can hypocrisy go?

reply to post by Podius1

Bolivia should recall it's ambassadors from France and Portugal for consultations. JMO.

Peace!

It would seem that they want the Feench ambassador expelled from Bolivia

Demonstrators marched on the French embassy in La Paz, burning the French flag and demanding the expulsion of the ambassador to [sic] Bolivia.

BBC

And South American leaders (all grossly insulted) are planning a meeting this coming Thursday. Way to go public relations (propagandist) people.

Originally posted by christina-66
reply to post by Podius1

 

Bolivia should recall it's ambassadors from France and Portugal for consultations. JMO.

Peace!

It would seem that they want the Feench ambassador expelled from Bolivia

Demonstrators marched on the French embassy in La Paz, burning the French flag and demanding the expulsion of the ambassador to [sic] Bolivia.

BBC

And South American leaders (all grossly insulted) are planning a meeting this coming Thursday. Way to go public relations (propagandist) people.

They should. It is shameful what happened with the Bolivian president. It is a major insult. And a violation of his immunity. Tthere needs to be a serious discussion in Europe and the US over what happened here. And what I learned from the ecnomic crisis the last years is that there is only a possibility of change if a lot of trouble is made with large demonstrations. Without action nothing changes. So yes, let the South-American nations stand up for the small country of Bolivia. Also small countries deserved to be treated with respect.

Originally posted by lightyears
And a violation of his immunity.

Diplomatic Immunity does NOT give you the right to fly through anyone's airspace. It keeps anyone from boarding your plane on the ground, but it does not give you the right to fly anywhere you want to, through anyone's airspace without permission.

reply to post by lightyears


Any country is two square meals from revolution - the UK government is certainly aware of that fact and therefore provides a just about adequate level of social security. Until people get hungry they're not going to make a move (even when they have a CCTV camera at their front door - or a hacked webcam on their laptop).

Originally posted by Zaphod58

Originally posted by lightyears
And a violation of his immunity.

Diplomatic Immunity does NOT give you the right to fly through anyone's airspace. It keeps anyone from boarding your plane on the ground, but it does not give you the right to fly anywhere you want to, through anyone's airspace without permission.

I read your earlier post And maybe you are right about that it is not strictly acoording to law. But it is at least very very very unusual that countries with bilateral diplomatic relations with each other deny each others airspace. In international diplomacy this is certainly insulting and very disrespectful. Even Iranian Amadinjehad was not denied to travel by plane to New York. Altough Iran has no bilateral ties with the US.

reply to post by lightyears


It's rare, but it's not unprecedented. If I remember correctly (I may be wrong, but I vaguely remember this), when Ahmadinejad came to New York, he came on an Iran Air owned aircraft, not a military aircraft. Then the fiction of the Chicago Convention could be maintained. It's different with a military aircraft, which doesn't fall under the Chicago Convention.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by lightyears

 

It's rare, but it's not unprecedented. If I remember correctly (I may be wrong, but I vaguely remember this), when Ahmadinejad came to New York, he came on an Iran Air owned aircraft, not a military aircraft. Then the fiction of the Chicago Convention could be maintained. It's different with a military aircraft, which doesn't fall under the Chicago Convention.

But doenst he still need to get an OK from th department of inetrnational affairs?
I think you probably still need an ESTA to travel to the USA. Even if it is for 1 day. So that was probably granted.
Anyway, Iran is a country where the US has no diplomatic relations with. No embassy. Nothing. This is diferent from Bolivia and France. France has an embassy and relations with Bolivia what makes it much more unusual. By the way I read on BBC that France apologised.