Where's Snowden? Still Lying Low

Now that the Justice Department has accused Edward Snowden of espionage and theft and asked Hong Kong to detain him, what's the holdup? "No clear answer," says the Washington Post. In other words, the stuff that lawyers dream of—a byzantine tangle of legal complications surrounding Hong Kong's ability to do so, and one that will be followed by an even greater legal mess when the Justice Department eventually asks that he be extradited. The latter could take "years" to resolve if Snowden chooses to fight it, reports the Guardian.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Hong Kong police don't know where he is, but to fix that, they'd just need to pick up the New York Times: It says that for a week now, he's been "staying in an apartment in Hong Kong’s Western neighborhood that is controlled by the Hong Kong government’s security branch." Snowden himself apparently asked to go there for his own protection "against a possible rendition attempt by the United States." Meanwhile, an Icelandic businessman says he's keeping a plane at the ready in China to zip Snowden away to Iceland at a moment's notice, notes Reuters. (More Edward Snowden stories.)