Whether Mr. Snowden broke any laws under the Espionage Act is not in question. He did.
Has NSA routinely, with malice afore thought, broken US laws & regulations regarding surveillance of US citizens, is still being sorted out. Several former intelligence employees suggest that this is separate from Mr. Snowden's other acts and the question of whether he is a "hero" for American Liberties or "villain" of espionage.
This is also now being suggested through multiple editorials & reporters. All the while, Mr. Snowden's releases of information on intelligence activities have grown larger and more damaging regarding activities against foreign targets like China and Russia. Particularly damaging as these seem to coincide with specific global political events including US President Obama meeting with the Chinese President Xi and then the G8 meeting where President Obama suggested a nuclear draw down as well as discussions on Syria with Russian President Putin. Discussions that went no where and left the United States appearing weaker on the global stage.
While pundits are discussing US government conspiracies to allegedly monitor all US electronic communications, the real conspiracy is staring them in the face. Mr. Snowden's acts of releasing info on alleged US domestic surveillance can no longer be separated from his other acts regarding foreign intelligence operations.
The first release of information did exactly what it was supposed to do: distract. It was a decoy and US and global media are "hoovering" it up, while the real story is that Mr Snowden "hoovered" specific intel FROM, not just "on" or "about", a very specific program which he technically was not cleared to have access to.
That bares repeating. He copied very specific intel FROM a specific program including targeted foreign systems, computers, organizations, people, IPs, emails, etc. That does not show his alleged "good intentions" to expose a specific bad act of a government agency against it's own citizens since he did not limit his acquisition or release to those specific acts.
That is proven even more true when that intel included foreign activities and targets that was subsequently released as noted above. The total quantity and type of information that is yet unknown. At least by the public.
Mr. Greenwald has claimed that there are literally thousands of documents to be combed through and evaluated. We know by the release of information on the intelligence gathering against China to a Hong Kong paper that Mr. Greenwald & his fellows from the Washington Post do not have the only copies. Further, that this specific information was readily known and provided with apparent ease which undermines the idea that it was "discovered" by an incidental review of the information.
Mr. Snowden did not "luck into" a job at Booz Allen, but specifically worked towards gaining this position and access to information. He did this through networking and subterfuge on his application. He did this to gain access to that intelligence. For whom or under what direction, if any, is still to be discovered.
The entire episode, from start to finish, reads like a spy thriller or the script of a spy movie. Mr. Snowden is acting from a very cleverly developed script. Even some of his comments read like one liners from classic movies about spies and journalism (North by Northwest and Citizen Kane to name two). That script includes a "good hearted, but ultimately flawed" pole dancing girlfriend whom Mr. Snowden graciously left behind, holding the bag.
What essentially gives the game away that this is a pre-arranged script for espionage is the time frame of events. Mr. Snowden had been employed by Booz Allen for only a few months prior to this event. Hardly long enough to "discover" and review all of the information taken, decide there was a criminal government act underway, much less determine and arrange media contacts on that information, investigate and evaluate a country to escape to for "legal protection", arrange a safe place to stay, money, more media contacts, identity, etc.
Even an alleged genius such as Mr. Snowden would be hard pressed to achieve these feats alone in the allotted time frame. This intelligence information was "the target", not an incidental discovery of a system administrator who accidentally discovered the range and scope of this program while plunking around his keyboard.
Another interesting part of this story is that long before Mr. Snowden obtained his position at Booz Allen, his tech forum account had specifically asked how to write a work around script for Windows to allow the download of two files/folders per day. It would be safe to assume the purpose of this information was to be able to gain information slowly without setting off any particular alarms from any monitoring system.
This is the likely method by which Mr. Snowden downloaded information to the four or more thumb drives or lap tops he then walked out of the office. Simple, but effective. Also thought out and arranged ahead of time. Based on that information, simple extrapolation of days worked means he left with between forty and sixty files with an unknown number of attachments or documents. Depending on whether the "two per day" method was maintained.
Another question is raised when Mr. Snowden claims to have been making a $200k/yr salary at Booz Allen. The company disputed that claim indicating Snowden only made $122k/yr. Mr. Snowden then claimed that $200k was the most he'd been paid at any of his jobs.
The media and various pundits are hypnotized by the "decoy" first release of information on the program while Mr. Snowden is sitting on a trove of intelligence with an unknown scope and value to an unknown number of foreign nations. Many of whom are no friends to the United States, United Kingdom or other allies. It is myopic to assume that this information "only" contains electronic intelligence, without information on human assets, contacts or activities. People's lives endangered, not just inanimate computer systems.
Mr. Snowden knew what information he was looking for and planned how to obtain it before he had access. This is the essence of "espionage".
Mr. Snowden and his potential co-conspirators or handlers have created the spy thriller of the year. A well thought out script with specific plot points, not accidents of fate. A script that has been refined over a length of time that started before Mr. Snowden's employment at Booz Allen.
In this script, Mr. Snowden started this second act by portraying himself as a patriotic American protecting civil liberties. He ended that act by releasing foreign intelligence on foreign targets, negating any idea of patriotism as the rationale for his behavior. He has essentially blown his cover.
The third act in this spy thriller begins with the United States issuing a provisional warrant for Mr. Snowden, laying preliminary charges under the Espionage Act. For those watching "the Great Game", the US has decided to force China's hand into the open by belaying his extradition or straight offering him "asylum".
Stay tuned for the next act of Mr. Snowden, International Man of Mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment