Why not just tell the Guardian journalists to meet him in Ecuador, and leak the story there?
Who knows? I think this is more an IMHO than a GQ.
Maybe all his high-minded rhetoric is a smoke screen and he was planning to sell information to China - who laughed at him when it turned out that they already had everything he knew.
He was in Hawaii. Look at some airline schedules to see what his options were for travel (Expedia…). I think for Ecuador he would have to travel through the continental U.S.
Since this requires speculation, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Because he wanted to escape the totalarian US government and go to the paragon of freedom, China. Apparently they weren’t free enough in China so he went to the least repressive government on the planet, Russia.
I think he truly believed it was the best place to go. He planned on remaining in Hong Kong longer but between some internal pressures from China to leave and an “accidental” invite from Ecuador he flew the coup. He’s been getting some pointers from another “expert” who’s trapped in a foreign land, Julian Assange.
Wasn’t there also some speculation that the Chinese government wouldn’t turn him over to the U.S. once his story broke?
So why didn’t he wait to have the Guardian release his name until he got there? Nobody even knew what he’d done until he deliberately revealed it.
Apparently “they” were already looking for their missing agent shortly before he released his identity and intentions.
Folks,
Hong Kong is not “China”. It has a different government, different language (Cantonese
not Mandarin), different uniforms and customs agents. The Guardian probably has a Hong
Kong office and Ecuador probably has only one Guardian reporter. I was surprised the
networks reported Snowden in “China” and not specifically Hong Kong.
Just try saying that anywhere inside China. HK may have some freedoms that the mainland does not have, but its master is still China.
I read in an article or Snowden’s Guardian video, that he picked Hong Kong because it wouldn’t put up red flags with the NSA/Intelligence. I guess if you have a high level security clearance, traveling to certain countries looks suspicious.
What I can’t figure out is, since it appears Snowden had been planning this leak for months, why didn’t he plan his final destination better. If he wanted to get to Iceland(or other country) and couldn’t make reservations due to NSA surveillance, just fly to England or France first. Then book a second flight or ferry. Or Ecuador, would have been easy, vacation in Mexico first.
Cold War answer:
To get to “The Other Side”. 
I would not be surprised if his thought process was:
- Get the information
- Scoot to HK, let the Chinese know that I have this data.
- Give data to China.
- They’ll be so damned grateful, they’ll have to give me asylum… after all, they just received State Secrets - they can’t let me go back to the USA and say “Look what China now knows!”
- If, for some reason, they don’t see my brilliant logic, then Russia. Putin’s a cool guy and he’ll be thrilled to stick it to the US of A. Repeat step 4. (At least Russia isn’t some drab Commie state any more - they have Hot Chicks aplenty! And shopping! They’re just like the US, but nicer.)
- At the worst, I’ll be hailed as a global hero and somebody will want me!
If I were in his position, I don’t know that I’d have been able to come up with a better plan. Doing any kind of research before hand would have been very risky. Knowing the kind of crazy surveillance the government is conducting, I’d be too paranoid to ask Google for a list of countries that won’t extradite someone in his position. And regardless, he’s still not in the custody of the US government. No matter what country I picked, I’d assume that they’d have me in a week. So I don’t even know that Hong Kong to Russia was that bad of a choice anyway.
Just wanted to point out that China also isn’t a “drab Commie state” anymore. Hot chicks? You should see the xiǎojiě 小姐 (girls) walking down the Bund in Shanghai. Shopping? I’d say both Beijing and Shanghai have Moscow beat.