So, the Guardian is reporting this morning that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong — legally, since the Hong Kong government had not yet agreed to requests from the US to detain him. As of 5:20 this morning (Eastern Time), he was “over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisors”. This was sourced to the WikiLeaks twitter account, meaning that the only way this story could be more of the moment is if Snowden married Zooey Deschanel and returned with her and three hand-raised dragons to reconquer the Oval Throne (ICYMI).

Update: Sorry. Should have made clear. The flight Snowden is was headed for Moscow, and was scheduled to land about now (9:25am Eastern). The WikiLeaks legal team is working to find a democratic country that would be willing to offer asylum.

Rumor is that his target destination may be Venezuela.

Update #2: Snowden has applied for asylum from Ecuador.