A Day in the Life of a Snowden-Chasing Journalist at Sheremetyevo International Airport

[struggle4progress]

—By Tim Murphy
Fri Jul. 5, 2013 12:39 PM PDT

~snip~

7:40 a.m. Arrive at Terminal F. Confidently inform your editor that you believe Snowden is likely to show up at a coffee shop with working power outlets.

7:42 a.m. Chase the story! Camp out at a coffee shop with working power outlets ...

11:35 a.m. Lanky bespectacled twenty-something white male spotted slouching through terminal F. This is it!

11:38 a.m. Bespectacled twenty-something white male is Dieter Hoefengarden, 27, a freelance ornithologist from Munich who's here on holiday and wants to know why you chased him through terminal F. He tells you you're the fourth reporter he's talked to today.

~snip~

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/snowden-journalist-sheremetyevo-international-airport

[Tx4obama]

1. Snowden is confined to his room in the locked wing of the hotel.

See the two page article on the link below...

Trapped in Transit: Orwellian Moscow Airport Hotel

-snip-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Eastern Europe News Director Ian Phillips flew from his home base of Prague in the Czech Republic to Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport with the goal of getting to the bottom of the mystery of fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden. What followed was a surreal 21 hours.

———

The woman at the transit desk raises an eyebrow and stares at my flight itinerary, which includes a 21-hour layover in Moscow before a connection to Ukraine. "Why would ANYONE stay here in transit for so long? There are so many earlier connections you could have taken. This is strange behavior."

After a nearly two-hour wait inside the terminal, a bus picks me up — only me — from the transit area. We drive slowly across the tarmac, through a barrier, past electronic gates covered in barbed wire and security cameras.

The main part of the Novotel is out of bounds. My allotted wing feels like a lockup: You are obliged to stay in your room, except for brief walks along the corridor. Three cameras track your movements along the hallway and beam the images back to a multiscreen monitor. It's comforting to see a sign instructing me that, in case of an emergency, the locks on heavily fortified doors leading to the elevators will open.

When I try to leave my room, the guard outside springs to his feet. I ask him why room service isn't responding and if there's any other way to get food. He growls: "Extension 70!" I rile him by asking about the Wi-Fi, which isn't working: "Extension 75!" he snarls.

-snip-

Full two page article here: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/trapped-transit-orwellian-moscow-airport-hotel-19520480#.UdSvbqwkz58

[struggle4progress]

2. That might indeed be the case

I posted that same story last week in Good Reads

[Tx4obama]

3. Oops. I posted it in Good Reads too - on Wednesday. I didn't see yours.

Mine, here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101667621

[struggle4progress]

4. No harm. It's a big website and lots of stuff gets posted multiple times.

I've frequently posted stuff that's been posted before

[Tx4obama]

5. Well, it's a good article so the more the merrier I guess :)

[struggle4progress]

6. Exactly