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A Look Back: CIA Sent Secret ‘Rendition’ Plane to Snatch Edward Snowden
Originally published June, 2014
On June 23, 2013, Edward Snowden landed in Moscow from Hong Kong. As per the Register, he planned to fly to Cuba, and then ultimately to Latin America. But the State Department promptly canceled his passport.
All of this followed Snowden’s earlier revelations via The Guardian, principally, that the US and other governments conducted clandestine mass surveillance of virtually the entire world’s population.
The Register article, “ CIA rendition jet was waiting in Europe to snatch Snowden,” details the plane’s movements: On June 24, 2013, after Snowden arrived in Moscow, “an unmarked Gulfstream V business jet-tail number N977GA-took off from a quiet commercial airport 30 miles from Washington DC.
“Early next morning,” the report reads, “N977GA was detected heading east over Scotland at the unusually high altitude of 45,000 feet. It had not filed a flight plan, and was flying above the level at which air traffic control reporting is mandatory.”
Air traffic controllers may not have been interested, but amateur flight trackers certainly were.
“[E]ven if pilots have turned off automated location data feeds, ordinary enthusiasts equipped with nothing more than suitable…
