The Hilarious Reason Hong Kong Wouldn't Give the U.S. Edward Snowden

Hong Kong authorities have previously said that they allowed NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden to leave the city because the U.S. government's request for his arrest did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law and that further documentation was needed. It now appears that at least part of the reason was that the U.S. forgot to specify what Snowden's middle initial, "J," actually stood for. Oops. You would have thought that this would have been the easiest detail to get right.

Oiwan Lam, a Hong Kong based journalist for the website Global Voices, tweeted that according to Hong Kong's Secretary of Justice Rimsky Yuen, the U.S. was not clear enough about the spelling of Snowden's name as it did not specify whether the "J" in Edward J. Snowden stood for Joseph or James:

It makes sense to be safe rather than sorry. I mean, imagine if Hong Kong authorities had extradited the wrong Edward J. Snowden.