Epstein Secrets

1 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019479 | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_rt.zindd 2 @ 929N6 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019480 HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft Edward Jay Epstein AR ALERED A. KNOPE NEW YORK | 2017 | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_rt.zindd 3 @ 929N6 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_O

| Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_rt.zindd 8 @ 929N6 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019486 Contents Prologue Snowden’s Trail: Hong Kong, 2014 000 part onE SNOWDEN’S ARC CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 Tinker 15 Secret Agent 22 Contractor 28 Thief 3

nvolving maintaining the computer technology necessary to monitor threats. Despite a cut in pay, Snowden took that job. “Snowden was an IT guy, not a SIGINT analyst,” a former NSA Signals Intelligence officer pointed out. “He was working as a contracted infrastructure analyst for NSA’s Information Assuran

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

ional intelligence, justified the secret intelligence budget by saying in an open session of Congress, “We are bolstering our support for clandestine SIGINT [signals intelligence] capabilities to collect against high priority targets, including foreign leadership targets,” and to develop “groundbreaking c

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

tional Intelligence justified the secret intelligence budget by saying in an open session of Congress, “We are bolstering our support for clandestine SIGINT [signal intelligence] capabilities to collect against high priority targets, including foreign leadership targets,” and to develop “groundbreaking cr