Showing posts with label espionage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label espionage. Show all posts

Thursday, May 29, 2014

#Snowden Jumps the Shark With NBC Interview - Updated

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Brian Williams of NBC is the first major network news person to interview Edward Snowden in Moscow. Reviews are mixed so far, but I think it's safe to say that a wider audience isn't going to work out too well for the ultra-spy-in-exile. The more he talks the deeper the hole, so to speak. As this interview was obviously timed to coincide with the release of Glenn Greenwald's book about Snowden, it may not have the boost in sales that they were looking for.

Snowden seems to be jumping the shark, although I'm sure the Libertarian Wikileaks Anonymous crowd will swoon over his sexy snake-oil voice and geek-martyr persona.

Previous Related Posts:
Snowden Can Make Himself "Unrecognizable"
Critics Go To War Over Sourpuss Glenn Greenwald's Book
All Hail the Snowden Pulitzer
Crime or Punishment? Snowden Remains Stuck in Moscow Airport
Snowden: Messages from Moscow
Edward Snowden Releases NSA Secrets
Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain

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Selected Quotes from #InsideSnowden
. . . when they say I’m a low-level systems administrator, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d say it’s somewhat misleading.
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I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word, in that I lived and worked undercover overseas, pretending to work in a job that I'm not, and even being assigned a name that was not mine.
But I am a technical specialist. I am a technical expert. I don't work with people. I don't recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States. And I've done that at all levels from, from the bottom on the ground all the way to the top. Now, the government might deny these things, they might frame it in certain ways and say, "Oh well, you know, he's -- he's a low level analyst."
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I think it's important to remember that people don't set their lives on fire. They don't walk away from their extraordinarily, extraordinarily comfortable lives for no reason.
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I think the most important idea is to remember that there are times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.
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I have no relationship with the Russian government at all. I've never met the Russian President. I'm not supported by the Russian government. I'm not taking money from the Russian government. I'm not a spy.
I personally am surprised that I ended up here. The reality is I never intended to end up in Russia. I had a flight booked to Cuba onwards to Latin America, and I was stopped because the United States government decided to revoke my passport and trap me in the Moscow airport.
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If I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home.

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UPDATE: One part of the interview has been debunked today by the NSA:

From the Interview:
Snowden: I actually did go through channels, and that is documented. The NSA has records, they have copies of emails right now to their Office of General Counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks from me raising concerns about the NSA’s interpretations of it – legal authorities. I reported that there were real problems with the way the NSA was interpreting its legal authorities. And I went even further in this, to say that they could be unconstitutional, that they were sort of abrogating our model of government in a way that empowered presidents to override our statutory laws. And this was made very clear. And the response was, more or less, in bureaucratic language, was, ‘You should stop asking questions.’

The U.S. Government Replied today by releasing one email exchange from Snowden, which they say is the only one received asking questions of the General Counsel to the NSA:
Read Snowden's Email and NSA Reply Here

From ABC News:
The NSA said in statement that Snowden’s email “did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed.”
“There was no additional follow-up noted,” the NSA said. “There are numerous avenues that Mr. Snowden could have used to raise other concerns or whistleblower allegations. We have searched for additional indications of outreach from him in those areas and to date have not discovered any engagements related to his claims.”
Snowden told NBC News that he also raised his concerns with his co-workers and superiors, many of whom he said were “shocked” at the programs he described. In December 2013, Snowden similarly told The Washington Post he brought his misgivings to four supervisors in two departments.
“I asked these people, ‘What do you think the public would do if this was on the front page?’” Snowden told the Post. “How is that not reporting it? How is that not raising it?”
In the Washington Post report, an NSA spokesperson said the agency had not found “any evidence” to support Snowden’s claims about raising concerns internally. Then, the NSA did not note the email it published online today.

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Responses to #InsideSnowden













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On Snowden's Persona







































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From Russia, With Love













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Snowden Has Fans - "He's a Patriot!"













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He's a Spy, Dammit!

























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What about Glenn Greenwald?





















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John Kerry's Opinion



















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What Does Snowden Watch on TV?
 











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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Snowden Can Make Himself "Unrecognizable" According to Greenwald

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Previous Related Posts:
Critics Go to War over "Sourpuss" Greenwald's Book
All Hail the Snowden Pulitzer
Snowden Evolves into Max Headroom
Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain?

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According to the Greenwald-Poitras book about Snowden, the man can change his appearance like a chameleon. This has led to some levity on Twitter.

Book Quote Via Business Insider
While in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden claimed to be able to change his appearance such that he would be unrecognizable.
According to an excerpt Glenn Greenwald's new book, Snowden made the claim when discussing concern about leaving the Mira hotel without being noticed by reporters:
I conveyed these concerns to the lawyers. "Does he have any ideas how to prevent that?" one of them asked.
I passed the question on to Snowden.
"I'm in the process of taking steps to change my appearance," he said, clearly having thought about this previously. "I can make myself unrecognizable."











Via Instagram
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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Edward Snowden and the Chinese Phoenix

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Previous Posts:
Edward Snowden Releases NSA Secrets
Edward Snowden: Hero or Villain?
Author Naomi Wolf Becomes Snowden Truther

I think he's a Traitor, and he's committed crimes in effect by violating agreements due to the contracts he had.
. . . I’m deeply suspicious because he went to China. That’s not a place where you would ordinarily want to go if you are interested in freedom, liberty and so forth. It raises questions whether or not he had that kind of connection before he did this.
I'm also concerned that he had help from inside the agency. Was there somebody else at NSA who had access to a lot of this stuff and passed it?
~ Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Fox News

I hope, I pray and I ask that you will not release any secrets that could constitute treason. I sense that you're under much stress [from] what I've read recently, and [ask] that you not succumb to that stress ... and make a bad decision.
. . . I would like to see Ed come home and face this. I shared that with the government when I spoke with them. I love my son.
~ Lonnie Snowden, father of Edward Snowden, on Fox News

I feel for the guy, and for what his life is going to become. I pity him.
He's in for a world of hurt, for the rest of his life. I feel sorry for him. He's going to go through life not being able to trust anybody. And I think that in the end, it'll end badly for him -- one way or another, they'll get their hands on him. He's going to pay for it. He's doomed.
. . . I don't know if he has an arrangement with the Chinese government. If he doesn't, I would be worried that the Chinese may deport him to the United States to gain some concession in return. I'd be terrified of that, if I were him. Who would trust the Chinese government? He is utterly vulnerable and knows that there are a lot of people who really want to hurt him now. If I were him, I would at this point probably be having second thoughts. Asking myself "What did I do? What have I brought down upon my head? Did I really do this?"
The fact is, he can never come back home.
~ Christopher Boyce, jailed and convicted Spy known as "Falcon" in the book and movie "Falcon and the Snowman" in an interview with CNN



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Excerpts from Edward Snowden's Question and Answer via Guardian UK, Moderated by Glenn Greenwald, June 18, 2013

. . . I'm being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein, and King, the better off we all are. If they had taught a class on how to be the kind of citizen Dick Cheney worries about, I would have finished high school.

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Snowden: . . . the US media has a knee-jerk "RED CHINA!" reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct. Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

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Snowden: . . . the US Government, just as they did with other whistleblowers, immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home, openly declaring me guilty of treason and that the disclosure of secret, criminal, and even unconstitutional acts is an unforgivable crime. That's not justice, and it would be foolish to volunteer yourself to it if you can do more good outside of prison than in it.

Second, let's be clear: I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous. These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target

All I can say right now is the US Government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.

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Snowden: I was debriefed by Glenn and his peers over a number of days, and not all of those conversations were recorded. The statement I made about earnings was that $200,000 was my "career high" salary. I had to take pay cuts in the course of pursuing specific work. Booz was not the most I've been paid.

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Snowden: More detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming, but in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc analyst has access to query raw SIGINT databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want. Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on - it's all the same. The restrictions against this are policy based, not technically based, and can change at any time. Additionally, audits are cursory, incomplete, and easily fooled by fake justifications. For at least GCHQ, the number of audited queries is only 5% of those performed.

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Question: MonaHol
17 June 2013 4:37pm
Ed Snowden, I thank you for your brave service to our country.
Some skepticism exists about certain of your claims, including this:
I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.
Do you stand by that, and if so, could you elaborate?

Snowden : Yes, I stand by it. US Persons do enjoy limited policy protections (and again, it's important to understand that policy protection is no protection - policy is a one-way ratchet that only loosens) and one very weak technical protection - a near-the-front-end filter at our ingestion points. The filter is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the "widest allowable aperture," and can be stripped out at any time.

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