Epstein Secrets

en a year earlier, Unfortunately, that room was occupied, but I was given a nearby room that served my purpose. Snowden had told Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the Guardian reporters he met in Hong Kong, that he had hidden out at the Mira hotel since his arrival in Hong Kong because he feared that the CIA m

t necessary), Bolivia, and Ecuador. Yet he did not apply for visas during this time period. Even as late as June 8, after meetings with Greenwald and Poitras, his name had still not been revealed, no criminal complaint had been issued against him, and there was no Interpol red alert for his deten- tion. He

security clearance ran out, he applied to renew it. The new clearance now required a new background check and filling out the govern- ment’s 127-page Standard Form 86. Since 1996, background investigations for the NSA, like much of the computer work at the NSA, had been outsourced to a private company. It had proc

h as putting their cell phones in refrigerators, remain visible to a sophisticated intelligence service such as the SVR. All the defensive tactics of Laura Poitras, including PGP encryption, Tor software, and air-gapped computers (computers that have never been connected to the Internet), did not keep secrets ab

rets about her sources entirely to herself. Snowden, at a time when he was stealing NSA secrets in February 2013, went to great lengths to impress on Poitras the need for operational security about his contacts with her, but that injunction did not prevent her from telling at least five people about her so

rvice hackers, since 2011. If the SVR had access to this personnel data, the research for a candidate would be greatly facilitated. From the 127-page Standard Form 86, which each applicant for a security clearance submits, the SVR could filter out intelligence workers employed by the NSA by their educational backgr

vidently did not want to expose himself to prosecution or defect from the NSA. That was Snowden’s role. By accepting the sole blame in the video that Poitras made about him in Hong Kong, Snowden shielded anyone else from suspicion, which was, as he told Poitras, his purpose. Whoever helped him may still be

“Mini Documentary Reveals Full Extent of ‘Stellarwind’ Domestic Spy Program,” Infowars, Aug. 28, 2012. 62 Poitras had other impressive credentials: “Laura Poitras: Secret No Longer,” New School News, Aug. 14, 2013. 63 “I didn’t. You chose yourself”: Snowden’s e-mails to Poitras were extracted from her film Cit

“Out of Control.” | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r.indd 324 @ 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019812 Notes to pages 232-252 | 325 228 127-page Standard Form 86: David Larter and Andrew Tilghman, “Mili- tary Clearance OPM Data Breach ‘Absolute Calamity,’” Navy Times, June 18, 2015. 229 Under Putin: Nicole Pe