Epstein Secrets

am headed by Richard “Rick” Ledgett, who was then director of the NSA’s Threat Opera- tions Center at the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Ledgett was the logical choice to head the damage assessment inves- tigation because the center’s regional branch in Hawaii was under his command. Ledgett fl

n camera in his Hong Kong interview in June 2013 that NSA investi- gators would have “a heart attack” when they discovered the extent of the breach. Ledgett, the NSA official who had conducted the damage assess- ment, while not having a heart attack, confirmed that Snowden had taken a massive number of do

te sheets and covers, white head- board, white bathrobe, white skin—Snowden seems like a figure in some obscure ritual, being readied for sacrifice,” George Packer wrote about the film in a widely read article in The New Yorker. This powerful narrative, as lucidly articulated by Poitras, Green- wald, and other

ell was transferring files held at Fort Meade to backup computers in Hawaii. He “was moving copies of that data there for them,” said Deputy Director Ledgett, “which was perfect cover for stealing the [NSA] data” through the fall and winter of 2012. The security mea- sures at the Hawaii base presented no o

ing the Manning files on WikiLeaks.) In Berlin, Appelbaum went to extreme lengths to protect him- self from American surveillance. For example, when George Packer interviewed him for The New Yorker in 2014, he insisted on meet- | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 53 @ 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_0

position since the top- secret unit was responsible for discovering and countering the threats posed by Chinese, Russian and other adversary nations. Ledgett was also the logical choice to head the damage assessment investigation since the Center’s regional branch in Hawaii was from where highly-sensitive

leased the Manning files on Wikileaks. In Berlin, Appelbaum went to extreme lengths to protect himself from American surveillance. For example, when George Packer interviewed him for the New Yorker, in 2014, he insisted on meeting with Packer naked in a sauna so he could be sure Packer did not have a recording

ld walk out the door,” Snowden interview, German NDR TV, January 26, 2014. http://www.tagesschau.de/snowden-interview- englisch100.pdf “According to Ledgett, the perpetrator...” Tabassum Zakaria and Warren Strobel, “After 'cataclysmic' Snowden affair, NSA faces winds of change,” Reuters December 13, 2013

r I The Great Divide 1. CitizenFour can be seen in its entirety on-line at https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/ 2. “Sitting on his unmade bed...”— George Packer, “The Holder of Secrets,” New Yorker, October 20, 2014 3. “This powerful narrative...” See Greenwald, op. cit. pp. 248-254. Snowden “Trapped: Interv