Epstein Secrets

The most sensational of them was a purported document attrib- uted to Snowden concerning the NSA hacking of the cell phone of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. The story was published on October 23 on the Der Spiegel website. Appelbaum was the co- author of the story. Even though Snowden had by now been in

istent with @ Kucherena’s assertion that he had access to the archive. @ Adding to the intrigue, Poitras was apparently caught by surprise when the Merkel story broke in Der Spiegel. She urgently texted Snowden on what she called “background” (which ordinarily means that a journalist will not attribute

et documents from the British cyber service GCHQ, describing its plans to obtain a legal warrant to pen- @ etrate the Russian computer security firm Kaspersky to expand its @ “computer network exploitation capability.” What the GCHQ was revealing in this secret document was its own capabilities to monitor a

s expose purported U.S. government actions in foreign lands, including the alleged tapping of friendly government officials’ con- versations, such as Angela Merkel’s, these are implicitly conflated with the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, around which a | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 303 @ 9/30/16 8:1

ficial who requested anonymity, inter- view with author. 183 German federal prosecutor: Theodore Schleifer, “Germany Drops Probe into U.S. Spying on Merkel,” CNN Politics, June 13, 2015. 184 “Russian planners might have”: Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes, and Siobhan Gorman, “U.S. Scurries to Shore Up Spy

awfare Institute’s count: https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden -revelations. 116 British cyber service GCHQ: RT television report, “NSA, GCHQ Targeted Kaspersky, Other Cyber Security Companies,” June 22, 2015, http://www.rt.com /asa/268891-nsa-gchq-software-kaspersky/. 116 six government employees: Matt Apuzz

ve...”—Author’s interview with Source B 30. “German federal prosecutor concluded. ..”-- Theodore Schleifer, “Germany drops probe into U.S. spying on Merkel,” CNN Politics, June 13, 2015 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020412 261 31. “ NSA lost sight of. ..”-- Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Siobhan Gorman, “U.S. S

“Man up”—Interview with John Kerry, CBS This Morning (TV), May 28, 2014 6. “British cyber service GCHQ ...”—RT Television report “NSA, GCHQ targeted Kaspersky, other cyber security companies.” http://www.rt.com/usa/26889 1 -nsa-gchq- software-kaspersky/ 7. “He posted about it...”—Snowden’s wrote in chat ro