Epstein Secrets

en a massive breach. Thousands of secret files bearing on com- munications intelligence had been stolen from a heavily guarded regional base in Oahu, Hawaii. The suspect was Edward Snowden, a twenty-nine-year-old civil- ian analyst at that base, who had fled to Hong Kong before the breach was discovered.

ates. Its staff worked mainly out of a single room in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The guiding spirit behind the Tor movement in the private sector was Jacob Appelbaum, a charismatic twenty-eight-year-old who had grown up in Northern California. Like Snowden, he had dropped out of high school. Appelbaum identified h

r exchange between him and Mills (who was in Honolulu). That day Mills informed Snowden that two government investiga- tors had come to their home in Hawaii, asking her about Snowden’s whereabouts. When he had failed to show up for work on June 3 it | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 91 @ 9/29/16 5:

nti-surveillance movement, including such well-known activists as Runa Sandvik (to whom he revealed his true name and address via e-mail), Micah Lee, Jacob Appelbaum, Parker Higgins, and Laura Poitras. “It is not statistically improbable that members of this circle were being watched by a hostile service,” a forme

gence by the NSA @ was hardly a secret. As the NSA expanded further, it delegated part of its work to regional bases, including ones in Utah, Texas, Hawaii, and Japan. The paramount task of the NSA remained monitoring the channels of communications that an adversary might use. The vast prolifera- tion of

telling at least five people about her source, including Micah Lee, the Berkeley-based technology operative for the Freedom of the Press Foundation; Jacob Appelbaum, the Tor proselytizer; Ben Wizner, the ACLU lawyer; Barton Gellman; and Glenn Greenwald. “It is not me that can’t keep a secret,” Abraham Lincoln jok

not believe an investigative book should be written without the author visiting the crime scene and other pertinent ven- ues, I undertook research in Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, and Moscow. Where possible, I flew the same flights that Snowden did. I am grate- ful to Ena and Ines Talakic for their assistance

and Ines Talakic Snowden’s home in Hawaii: Courtesy Ena and Ines Talakic Lindsay Mills: Luis Silos NSA headquarters: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File Jacob Appelbaum: Axel Heimken via AP Images Runa Sandvik: AP Photo/John Locher CryptoParty: Courtesy Ena and Ines Talakic Anatoly Kucherena: AP Photo/Alexander Zemli

e number of its most secret files had been stolen. The suspect was Edward Snowden, a 29 year old civilian analyst at the NSA’s regional base in Oahu, Hawaii, who had fled to Hong Kong. The stolen documents revealed, among other things, the secret tools and capabilities that the NSA employed to do its job.

nia, and the United States. Its staff worked mainly out of a single room in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The guiding spirit behind the TOR movement was Jacob Appelbaum, a charismatic 28-year old who had grown up in northern California. Like Snowden, he had dropped out of high school. Appelbaum identified himself to

ted as a hero for defying the US government. He had not sacrificed himself, he had transformed himself. He had risen from being a lowly technician in Hawaii whose talents went largely unrecognized, to the status of an international media star in Moscow. In his new messianic role, he could make Internet ap

the anti-surveillance movement, including such well known activists as Runa Sandvik (who he supplied his true name and address via email), Micah Lee, Jacob Appelbaum, Parker Higgins, and Laura Poitras. “It is not statistically improbable that members of this circle were being watched by a hostile service,” a forme

workers, such as Ames, it is plausible that it spotted Snowden through his Internet rants against U.S. surveillance. Even if it had missed Snowden in Hawaii, a disgruntled ex-civilian employee at the NSA would have received its full attention after he contacted Russian officials in Hong Kong. While the ta

llance, far from being an off-hand leakage of information, were supplied by him in written answers to interrogatives sent to him by Laura Poitras and Jacob Appelbaum while Snowden was still on the NSA payroll in May 2013. If he intended to damage the NSA’s ability to monitor unsuspecting individuals abroad, he cle