213 12 times zones away to meet an anonymous source, Brazil also would have been a more certain place to meet Greenwald. If some consideration by Snowden precluded Brazil as a destination, Snowden could have also gone to Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, Iceland, or Venezuela, which are also countries that do not have active extradition treaties with the United States. Yet, instead of proceeding to a country from which he could not have been extradited, he flew to Hong Kong, which had a vigorously enforced extradition agreement. His reason for choosing was not to keep a previously arranged rendezvous with a journalist. As previously mentioned, when he left Hong Kong not a single journalist had agreed to meet him in Hong Kong. Indeed, Gellman considered Hong Kong, as he put it, “in the jurisdiction of a country that’s unfriendly to the United States,” and notified Snowden that he would not be able to journey to Hong Kong. Yet, even without any appointments with journalists, he chose to fly to Hong Kong. So his choice was not based on either evading extradition or on accommodating journalists. He chose Hong Kong for another reason. He told Greenwald Hong Kong, as a part of China, could provide him protection from any countermeasures by U.S. intelligence agencies. He made that consideration clear, saying that that Snowden’s “first priority was to ensure his physical safety from US interference.” Hong Kong “was part of China’s territories, he [Snowden] reasoned, and American agents would find it harder to operate there than other places,” according to Greenwald. Snowden further reckoned that China’s control over Hong Kong prevented “American agents from breaking down the door” of the hotel room and from seizing him. Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA station chief, told me that Snowden was correct in his assessment of that Hong Kong advantage. Drumheller said that Hong Kong was “home court” for the Chinese intelligence services. It played a: dominant role” in running the police, a