Epstein Secrets

insights. Through the eyes of the KGB, a penetration of American intelligence was clearly opportunistic. If these practices continued, they put the Snowden case in a new light for me. If Russian intelligence considered it worthwhile to send an ex-civilian worker at the NSA, such as Ronald Pelton, from Wa

ebruary 19, 2015 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020402 21 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Enter Assange 1. “Thanks to Russia ...”--Julian Assange, “How 'The Guardian' Milked Edward Snowden's Story,” Newsweek, April 20, 2015 “Julian Assange had made...”-- David Leigh and Luke Harding, “Julian Assange: the teen hacker who became insurgent

hor’s Interview with former CIA officer who requested anonymity (Hereinafter Source E.) 3. “The only person there to...”—Mavanee Anderson interview, “Edward Snowden's Friend Mavanee Anderson Exclusive Interview,” MSNBC,’Last Word,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=beQUMdolBWE 4. “He received an unfavorable evaluation,,,”—Er

14. James Bamford. “Edward Snowden: The Untold Story,” Wired, August 2014. (Hereinafter Bamford Wired.) “We’ve crossed lines.” --- Snowden quoted by Bamford, Wired “Congressman Ron Paul organized...”—Rebecca Shabad, “Former Rep. Ron Paul launches petition for Snowden clemency,” The Hill, February 13, 201

s, Donald Maclean and Kim Philby, See “The Spy Cases,” Appendix A of this book. Intention of staying in Russia...”-- Snowden NBC Interview. Op cit. Bamford, Wired. Op. cit. Jane Mayer “Snowden Calls Russian-Spy Story “Absurd” in Exclusive Interview,” New Yorker, January 21, 2014. December 28, 2014. “Sta

led comprehensively, and each level of oversight, each level of re- sponsibility that should have addressed this, abdicated their re- sponsibility. —EDWARD SNOWDEN, Moscow, 2013 Wi SNOWDEN in Hong Kong was attempting to reel in the journalists, Lindsay Mills returned to Honolulu from her “island-hopping” trip t

as attempting to reel in the journalists, Lindsay Mills returned to Honolulu from her “island-hopping” trip to find their house partially flooded and Snowden nowhere to be found. In a brief note Snowden left her, he said he was away on a business trip and indicated that, at least tem- porarily, their eight

n documents that the NSA reported were com- promised. He offered, however, no more specific details on the mag- nitude of his theft. Nor did he offer Bamford any way to verify his assertion other than to say that he had purposely left behind “a trail of digital bread crumbs” at the NSA base in Hawaii so th

entation of more sophisticated secu- rity procedures, such as the polygraph examination and extensive background checks. In 1995, eleven years before Snowden joined it, the CIA’s inspector general completed a study of the KGB’s use of false defectors to mislead the U.S. government from the end of the Cold

sses of a nation’s potential adversaries. The most impor- tant of these in peacetime is communication intercepts. It was just such state secrets that Edward Snowden took from the NSA in the spring of 2013. Before that breach, America’s paramount advantage in this subterranean competition was its undisputed domina

nterviews. Most of these were with the journalists who had published his story, but one was with James Bamford for his 2014 Wired piece. According to Bamford, it took nearly nine months to arrange the meeting. “I have been try- ing to set up an interview with him [Snowden]—traveling to Ber- lin, Rio de Jan

oward NSA surveillance. It there- fore seems entirely plausible that he found a co-worker willing to cooperate or, vice versa, a co-worker found him. Snowden might not have been aware of his new accomplice’s true motives or affili- ations, but without some co-worker’s providing him with entry to the sealed

ith author. | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 308 @ 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019796 Notes to pages 23-25 | 309 23 The only person: “Edward Snowden’s Friend Mavanee Anderson Exclusive Interview,” Last Word, MSNBC, June 12, 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v= beQUMdolBWE. 25 “was trying to break into”:

OVERSIGHT_019794 Notes PRoLoGuE Snowden’s Trail: Hong Kong, 2014 3, “No Such Agency”: The best description of the birth of the NSA can be found in Bamford, Puzzle Palace, 1-4. 4 the NSA learned: General Keith Alexander, interview with author. 4 twelve-minute video: This video can be seen at http://www

101 Even though Snowden had greatly exaggerated the positions he held with the CIA and DIA, no effort was made to check them by the team of journalists. Instead, MacAskill w

t does those sorts of things.” He had succeeded in defining himself for the public. The Guardian story accompanying the video carried the headline, “EDWARD SNOWDEN: THE WHISTLE BLOWER BEHIND THE NSA SURVEILLANCE REVELATIONS.” Snowden’s identity as a whistle-blower was now established in the media. Overnight, Sno

researching his 2014 article on Snowden for Wired magazine, he was given access to all the documents Snowden gave to Poitras, Greenwald and Gellman. Bamford used a sophisticated indexing program to search through the database specifically for The Merkel material. , Even so, he did not find any. He reporte