“A spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent?”

NSA leaker Edward Snowden was quoted today saying that he chose to flee to Hong Kong because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.”

This statement is so far off base it beggars the imagination. We’re talking about the People’s Republic of China here, and even if Hong Kong still has some remnants of the rights they enjoyed as a British colony, they are quickly going the way of the dodo and continue to exist only by the tolerance of Beijing.

Here’s that “commitment to free speech,” in a 2006 article for the New York Times about a covert surveillance law that makes the Patriot Act look like child’s play: Hong Kong Surveillance Law Passes.