Where went the Snowdens of yesteryear?

Really, you can't make this stuff up! The infamous "NSA leaker" has fled Hong Kong for the former Soviet Union, evidently with the hope that the Ecuadorian embassy might take him in, a la Julian Assange in self-imposed exile in London:

Pity the taxpayers of Ecuador, condemned to provide food and lodging for all the "leakers" of the world! Perhaps Barack Obama, Valdimir Putin, and Rafael Correa could strike up a new international treaty, whereby Russia will reopen one of its Gulag hostelries for the care and comfort of international fugitives.