Snowden on the run: How is the NSA leaker eluding U.S. authorities?
(CBS News) Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor charged with leaking U.S. state secrets, continues to elude American authorities, touching down in Moscow Sunday night on a flight from Hong Kong. There are reportsSnowden is expected to fly to Cuba or Venezuela en route to possible asylum in Ecuador, and U.S. officials are demanding the Russian government hand him over.
Secretary of State John Kerry warned that there will be "serious consequences" if Russia allows the former CIA technician to board a flight out of Moscow. Snowden is believed to be waiting at the Russian airport still.
U.S. authorities did not issue a red alert with Interpol and failed to pull Snowden's visa as they negotiated with Hong Kong over the last two weeks, an unusual move that CBS News' John Miller, a former deputy director at the FBI, relates to the ongoing talks with Hong Kong.
The negotiations were "going very smoothly up until Friday," June 21, Miller said, when Hong Kong "stopped calling back" after weeklong discussions regarding the U.S. extradition request and a forthcoming provisional arrest warrant.
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"And when they call back, they said, 'We've reviewed your papers and we find insufficient grounds,'" Miller said.
The city of Hong Kong said in a statement that Snowden left "through a lawful and normal channel" and claims the the American request for Snowden's arrest did not comply with Hong Kong law and as such, there was "no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
"All that is nonsense. This is not about insufficient grounds...something happened there," John Miller said Monday on "CBS This Morning." Miller insists that in his mind, the city of Hong Kong or "big China" "quite clearly" double-crossed the U.S. "Somebody cut a deal over there and strung the U.S. along," according to Miller.
Miller touched on the four laptops Snowden was reportedly carrying with him. Intel experts have said the Chinese government likely had the opportunity to download the data on the hard drives before he fled the country. "If he hasn't double and triple-encrypted those [hard drives], that would be very surprising to me," Miller said, given Snowden's experience as NSA intelligence personnel. However, stolen intelligence remains an ongoing concern for U.S. officials.