USB sticks and encrypted hard drives containing top-secret slides stolen from the NSA littered a room in the Mira luxury hotel in Hong Kong. Edward Snowden was joined by two journalists from The Guardian and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras with her camera. He prepared everything so well.
When Snowden gave a face and a name to the revelations of mass NSA surveillance in June 2013, he didn't spare a detail, except: where would he go now, and how would he get there?
Snowden's face was flickering over screens around the globe when Hong Kong-based human rights lawyer Robert Tibbo rang in the early hours of the morning. Snowden, the man on all channels, was stuck in his hotel, hunted by everybody. Tibbo did not think for long. There was only one place where he could hide him.
A race against time began, like something out of a spy novel. Despite the prominence of the Snowden case, the locations where he sought refuge immediately following his famous video interview would remain secret for over three years, until being unmasked in the National Post in September 2016.
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