Hong Kong wants answers on Snowden's hacking claims

Zach Coleman | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption HK protesters march to US Consulate in support of Snowden Protesters march to the US consulate in Hong Kong in solidarity with Edward Snowden.

Politicians want answers from Obama administration

Two political parties staged separate protests at the U.S. Consulate

Most in Hong Kong assumed that China was to blame for any hacking episodes

HONG KONG — Politicians were asking for answers from the Obama administration on Thursday about allegations from an American computer analyst that a U.S. secret surveillance program hacked into Hong Kong computer systems.

Two political parties staged separate protests at the U.S. Consulate on Thursday, with the New Forum demonstrating against the alleged U.S. hacking in Hong Kong and China and the League of Social Democrats voicing support for Edward Snowden.

About a dozen people showed up for the protests; a larger one is planned for Saturday.

Civil Party leader Alan Leong Kah-kit said Snowden has raised a serious allegation and that Hong Kong should take the issue up with President Obama.

"The Hong Kong government should take the issue up and ask Obama whether it has been the case. It is the least it should do at the moment," he told the South China Morning Post newspaper.

Snowden, 29, fled to Hong Kong with a trove of classified material he allegedly stole from his job for a consulting firm doing work for the U.S. National Security Agency. He revealed to the news media details of an NSA program that sweeps up data on phone calls and e-mails in the United States to identify patterns of possible communications between terrorists.

Until Snowden divulged the secret program most in Hong Kong assumed that China was to blame for any hacking episodes, according to Simon Shen, co-director of the International Affairs Research Center at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Snowden named Shen's university as one of hundreds of NSA targets in Hong Kong and mainland China in an interview published in Thursday's edition of the Post, but it was the only one he specifically identified.

Meanwhile, Leung Chun-ying, who heads Hong Kong's government as chief executive, repeatedly told an interviewer in New York with Bloomberg Television that he "cannot comment on individual cases" when asked about Snowden.

Asked specifically if the city would comply with a U.S. extradition request, he said, "I can only say that we follow existing laws and policies."

The Obama administration has not announced whether it has made such a request. Members of Congress, such as Peter King, R-N.Y., have been demanding to know why such a request has not been made, accusing Snowden of theft, violation of his security clearance oath and treason.

The White House has said it will not comment while an investigation is ongoing.

Hong Kong legislator James To told a local newspaper he was considering inviting Snowden to testify to the Legislative Council on cybersecurity and U.S. hacking activities.

"I am interested to know how vulnerable our cybersystems are, and I want to ask Mr Snowden questions and verify his claims," he said.

At Chinese University, Shen said he wasn't sure why the NSA might target his school but added, "There are a few strategically important points in the Chinese University of Hong Kong."

The school hosts the Hong Kong Internet eXchange, a service for routing Internet traffic within Hong Kong to avoid the need to use overseas servers.

In a statement, the school said, "The university has not detected any form of hacking to the network" and added that the exchange and the school's backbone network "are closely monitored round-the-clock to ensure normal operation and defend against network threats."

A government spokesman similarly said, "the government has no reported hacking incidents involving data leakage on its computer systems," but added that agencies have put in place defenses to protect their systems. "The government strives to combat all kinds of technology crime."

Chinese University may have been of interest to the NSA beyond its infrastructure. University researchers are engaged in research projects with government counterparts in mainland China and elsewhere. Shen cited the example of the Dragon Programme, which is a joint project of the National Remote Sensing Center of China and the European Space Agency for Earth observation research and application development.

Chinese University also runs a joint program with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in "advanced integration technology," a brain research project with China's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, a research center for "radar remote sensing" with the China Center for Resources Satellite Data and Applications and the Joint Center for Intelligent Sensing and Systems with the National University of Defense Technology, among others.

Historically, Shen noted, the university was a key research base for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency when Hong Kong was under British rule and China was closed to most Western visitors. It remains one of the leading research centers for scholars coming to study China.

In China, which the USA has said is involved in cyberattacks, officials said the revelations showed that it is America and not China that is committing such acts.

"I have always said, the United States' accusations about Chinese hacking attacks have always been a case of a thief crying for another thief to be caught," said Air Force Col. Dai Xu on his microblog site.