“He targeted my company”: King, “Ex-NSA Chief Details Snowden’s Hiring at Agency, Booz Allen.”
he would not have password access: Former NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
engaged in a minor subterfuge: Hosenball, “NSA Contractor Hired Snowden Despite Concerns About Resume Discrepancies.”
“playing with fire”: Spencer Ackerman and Ewen MacAskill, “Snowden Calls for Whistleblower After Claims by New Pentagon Source,” Guardian, May 22, 2016.
establish a paper trail: Director of National Intelligence, IC on the Record (blog on Tumblr), May 27, 2014, http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/post/87218708448/edward-j-snowden-email-inquiry-to-the-nsa-office. Snowden response, in “Edward Snowden Responds to Release of E-mail by U.S. Officials,” Washington Post, May 29, 2014.
He returned on April 13: Lindsay Mills’s blog.
a brief medical leave: Former NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
needed to get passwords: Stephen Braun, “NSA to Congress: Snowden Copied Co-worker’s Password,” Military Times, Feb. 13, 2014.
software applications called spiders: David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, “Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A.,” New York Times, Feb. 8, 2014.
Finally, Snowden had to: Former intelligence officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
These later acquisitions: The document can be seen in the National Security Archives, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB436/docs/EBB-059.pdf.
CHAPTER 9 Escape Artist
“I’m not self-destructive”: Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
“I took everything”: Edward Snowden and Peter Taylor, “Are You a Traitor?,” transcript, Panorama, BBC, Oct. 15, 2015 (aired on BBC Oct. 10, 2015).
At this point: Former DIA officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
He had visited Hong Kong: Lindsay Mills’s blog.
According to Albert Ho: Bradsher, “Hasty Exit Started with Pizza Inside a Hong Kong Hideout.” Also, Keith Bradsher, interview with author.
for the next ten days: Former DIA officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“his first priority”: Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 43.
“That whole period”: Rusbridger and MacAskill, “I, Spy.”
He e-mailed Gellman: Gellman, “Code Name ‘Verax.’ ”
Gellman could not make: Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 51–52.
more pressure on Gellman: Gellman, “Code Name ‘Verax.’ ”
“I’ve been working on”: Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 11.
Continuing his string pulling : Greenberg, “These Are the Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks.”
asked Appelbaum to help: Appelbaum, “Edward Snowden Interview.”
Greenwald was awaiting: Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 16–18.
Gibson authorized Greenwald’s trip: The description of The Guardian’s reaction to Greenwald’s offer of a scoop was reported by Luke Harding, a Guardian reporter commissioned to write The Snowden Files, a book that Oliver Stone bought the film rights for from The Guardian for $700,000. See Harding, Snowden Files, 100–115.
Snowden arranged for Micah Lee: Lee, “Ed Snowden Taught Me to Smuggle Secrets Past Incredible Danger.”
CHAPTER 10 Whistle-blower
“They elected me”: Gellman, “Edward Snowden, After Months of NSA Revelations, Says His Mission’s Accomplished.”
“I feel alone”: Lindsay Mills’s blog.
“so we don’t have a clue”: Greenberg, “These Are the Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks.”
“On timing, regarding meeting”: The description of the meetings with Snowden in Hong Kong, June 3–June 9, is taken from Poitras’s documentary Citizenfour. The film can be found at https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/.
“The initial impression”: Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 30.
“Minutes after meeting”: Packer, “Holder of Secrets.”
One possible reason: Snowden, interview with Williams; Bamford, “Edward Snowden”; Jane Mayer, “Snowden Calls Russian-Spy Story ‘Absurd’ in Exclusive Interview,” New Yorker, Jan. 21, 2014.
the Guardian policy required: Harding, Snowden Files, 114–16.
The next morning he: Packer, “Holder of Secrets.”
Tibbo and Man planned: Patrick Koehler, “The Hong Kong Layover in Snowden’s Getaway,” New York Times, Sept. 8, 2016.
“I am in a safe house”: Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 8.
The journalist chosen: Lam, “Post Reporter Lana Lam Tells of Her Journey into the Secret World of Edward Snowden.”
“I was being tailed”: Corbett, “How a Snowdenista Kept the NSA Leaker Hidden in a Moscow Airport.”
CHAPTER 11 Enter Assange
“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 in Information War,” Guardian, Jan. 30, 2011.
Sarah Harrison: Sarah Ellison, “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” Vanity Fair, Oct. 2013.
Snowden telephoned Assange: Assange interview, in Giles Whittell, “Julian Assange Unmasked,” Sunday Times (London), Aug. 29, 2015.
“Snowden told me they had abused Manning”: Michael Sontheimer, “Spiegel Interview with Julian Assange,” Spiegel Online International, July 19, 2015.
Assange called Harrison: Corbett, “How a Snowdenista Kept the NSA Leaker Hidden in a Moscow Airport.”
“We were working very hard”: Ibid.
U.S. government informed: Jane Perlez and Keith Bradsher, “China Said to Have Made Call to Let Leaker Depart,” New York Times, June 23, 2013.
Tibbo wanted Snowden to remain: Tibbo, interview with author.
“The purpose of my mission”: Rusbridger and MacAskill, “I, Spy.”
CHAPTER 12 Fugitive
“If I end up in chains”: Snowden video on the Guardian site, June 17, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/17/edward-snowden-video-interview.
insert an encrypted key: Gellman, “Code Name ‘Verax.’ ”
“I can’t help him evade”: Gellman quoted in Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.”
asked Fidel Narváez: Juan Forero, “Ecuador’s Strange Journey from Embracing Snowden to Turning Him Away,” Washington Post, July 2, 2013.
“My only comment”: Lam, “Post Reporter Lana Lam Tells of Her Journey into the Secret World of Edward Snowden.”
his passage through: Perlez and Bradsher, “China Said to Have Made Call to Let Leaker Depart.”
Snowden first met Harrison: Corbett, “How a Snowdenista Kept the NSA Leaker Hidden in a Moscow Airport.”
Assange continued creating: Assange interview, in Whittell, “Julian Assange Unmasked.”
“Anyone in a three-mile radius”: Corbett, “How a Snowdenista Kept the NSA Leaker Hidden in a Moscow Airport.”
$20,000 fee: Station KGUN9, “Documents: Snowden Paid 20K for UA Skype Talk,” ABC 15 Arizona, April 1, 2016, http://www.abc15.com/news/region-central-southern-az/tucson/documents-snowden-paid-20k-for-ua-skype-talk.
first live interview in Moscow: Snowden met with James Bamford, the author of the 1982 book The Puzzle Palace, in Moscow in June 2014. Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
CHAPTER 13 The Great Divide
“That moral decision”: Edward Snowden, statement, https://wikileaks.org/Statement-by-Edward-Snowden-to.html.
“Sitting on his unmade bed”: Packer, “Holder of Secrets.”
This powerful narrative: See Greenwald, No Place to Hide, 248–54; Snowden, interview with Williams.
“There was no question”: Emily Bell, “Snowden Interview: Why the Media Isn’t Doing Its Job,” Columbia Journalism Review, May 10, 2016.
When two NSA analysts: “Claim US Spy Caught with Secrets,”
Los Angeles Mirror, Aug. 2, 1960, 1. Also see Rick Anderson, “Before Edward Snowden,” Salon, July 1, 2013.
“man up”: Interview with John Kerry, CBS This Morning, May 28, 2014.
By the Lawfare Institute’s count: https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations.
British cyber service GCHQ: RT television report, “NSA, GCHQ Targeted Kaspersky, Other Cyber Security Companies,” June 22, 2015, http://www.rt.com/usa/268891-nsa-gchq-software-kaspersky/.
six government employees: Matt Apuzzo, “C.I.A. Officer Is Found Guilty in Leak Tied to Times Reporter,” New York Times, Jan. 26, 2015. The notable exception to the policy of seeking imprisonment of intelligence workers found guilty of passing classified information to journalists is the extraordinary case of the ex-CIA director General David Petraeus. Petraeus had given classified information from his personal notebooks to his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell. Although none of this information appeared in her 2012 biography, All In: The Education of Davis Petraeus, he had violated his oath to protect this information. Yet in a 2014 deal with the Justice Department, Petraeus was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and sentenced to two years’ probation and a $100,000 fine. See Eli Lake, “Petraeus, Justice, and Washington’s Culture of Leaks,” Bloomberg View, March 4, 2015.
he posted about it: Snowden wrote in chat rooms on the Ars Technica site between May 2001 and May 2012. His posts are quoted by Mullin, “NSA Leaker Ed Snowden’s Life on Ars Technica.”
“an act of civil disobedience”: Mayer, “Snowden Calls Russian-Spy Story ‘Absurd’ in Exclusive Interview.”
Ben Wizner, a lawyer: Wizner called his representation of Snowden the “work of a lifetime.” Hill, “How ACLU Lawyer Ben Wizner Became Snowden’s Lawyer.”
“We’ve crossed lines”: Snowden quoted by Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
“Snowden a whistleblower”: Cheryl Arvidson, “Distrust of Government Apparent in Snowden Case,” Leader’s Edge, Oct. 2013.
“they can trust”: “Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 23, 2015.
“Thanks to one man’s”: Rebecca Shabad, “Former Rep. Ron Paul Launches Petition for Snowden Clemency,” Hill, Feb. 13, 2014.
his son Senator Rand Paul: See Katie Glueck, “Rand Paul Backs Snowden, Bashes Clapper,” Politico, Jan. 5, 2014.
“We actually buy cell phones”: Snowden quoted in “New The Guardian Interview with Edward Snowden,” Guardian, July 17, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-interview-transcript.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Edward Jay Epstein, “What Really Happened to Strauss-Kahn,” New York Review of Books, Dec. 22, 2011. Vance made his statement on the Charlie Rose show, Feb. 19, 2016.
Apple made headlines: Mike Isaac, “Apple Still Holds the Keys to Its Cloud Service, but Reluctantly,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 2016.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Newt Gingrich, “A Government Snoop That Puts the NSA to Shame,” Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2015.
the FISA court: http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/courts_special_fisc.htm.
“His approach was”: Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick, “For NSA Chief, Terrorist Threat Drives Passion to ‘Collect It All,’ ” Washington Post, July 14, 2013.
Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman, “N.S.A. Collection of Bulk Data Is Ruled Illegal,” New York Times, May 5, 2015. This court decision was stayed three months later on August 27, 2015, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals on procedural grounds. By this time, however, the legal issue was rendered moot by Congress. See http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/2015/.
knowledge of the service providers: Timothy B. Lee, “Here’s Everything We Know About PRISM to Date,” Washington Post, June 12, 2013.
“Edward Snowden is not the ‘whistleblower’ ”: Nicole Mulvaney, “NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers Discusses Freedom, Privacy, and Security Issues at Princeton University,” NJ.com, March 14, 2015.
“Snowden stole from the United States”: Mark Hosenball, “U.S. Spy Agency Targets Changed Behavior After Snowden,” Reuters, May 12, 2014.
“The vast majority”: “Snowden Leak Could Cost Military Billions: Pentagon,” NBC News, March 6, 2014.
“over 900,000” military files: The document was obtained via a Freedom of Information request by Vice. See Leopold, “Inside Washington’s Quest to Bring Down Edward Snowden.”
“has caused grave damage”: Hearings Before Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jan. 27, 2014. See http://www.dia.mil/News/SpeechesandTestimonies/ArticleView/tabid/11449/Article/567078/dia-director-flynn-unauthorized-disclosures-have-caused-grave-damage-to-our-nat.aspx.
The CIA’s assessment: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 298.
“the greatest damage”: Transcript of interview with General Keith Alexander, Australian Financial Review, May 8, 2014, http://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/interview-transcriptformer-head-of-the-nsa-and-commander-of-the-us-cyber-command-general-keith-alexander-20140507-itzhw#ixzz3m6TkuRa1.
“I don’t look at this”: Jeremy Herb and Justin Sink, “Sen. Feinstein Calls Snowden’s NSA Leaks an ‘Act of Treason,’ ” Hill, June 6, 2013.
duck-rabbit cartoon: Jastrow, Fact and Fable in Psychology, 202–4.
“I haven’t shot anybody”: Mark McClish, “The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald,” Statement Analysis, Jan. 3, 2013, http://www.statementanalysis.com/lee-harvey-oswald/. Like Snowden, Oswald was a high-school dropout from a broken family who joined an elite unit of the U.S. military but failed to get an honorable discharge, became hostile to policies of the U.S. government, and defected to Russia. See Edward Jay Epstein, Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978), 64–104.
Clapper answered that: The transcript was published by The Washington Post, Jan. 29, 2014. For Clapper’s earlier closed-door testimony, see Steven Aftergood, “The Clapper ‘Lie’ and the Senate Intelligence Committee,” FAS, Jan. 6, 2014.
On his application to Booz Allen: Hosenball, “NSA Contractor Hired Snowden Despite Concerns About Resume Discrepancies.”
in contacting Laura Poitras: Greenberg, “These Are the Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks.”
“read” in the news reports: Snowden Q&A, Moscow, July 12, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQSVurlAak.
“Consul General–Hong Kong”: James Gordon Meek et al., “NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Seeks Asylum in Ecuador,” ABC News, June 23, 2013.
“had an enormous interest”: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 284.
the Enigma machines: Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma, 286–94.
CHAPTER 14 The Crime Scene Investigation
“Any private contractor”: Snowden, interview with Williams.
Fifteen miles northwest: U.S. Navy Information Operations Command, “History of NIOC Hawaii,” http://www.public.navy.mil/fcc-c10f/niochi/Pages/AboutUs.aspx.
General Alexander: Alexander, interview with author.
The NSA had also notified: Former NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
NSA did not immediately share: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 283–88.
briefed by the NSA: See “Unclassified Declaration of David G. Leatherwood,” U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Case 1:10-cv-02119-RMC Document 63-8 Filed 04/26/13, https://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/shaffer/042613-leather.pdf.
By late July: Former intelligence executive familiar with the initial investigation who requested anonymity, interview with author.
According to Ledgett: Tabassum Zakaria and Warren Strobel, “After ‘Cataclysmic’ Snowden Affair, NSA Faces Winds of Change,” Reuters, Dec. 13, 2013.
“Something is not right”: Transcript of interview with Alexander, Australian Financial Review, May 8, 2014.
This discovery came: “Glenn Greenwald’s Partner Detained
at Heathrow Airport for Nine Hours,” Guardian, Aug. 18, 2013.
downloading documents: Ledgett was interviewed in this timeline by Bryan Burrough. See Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.”
the chronology: NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“millions of records”: Snowden interview, German NDR TV, Jan. 26, 2014, http://www.tagesschau.de/snowden-interview-englisch100.pdf.
The FBI could assume: Former Justice Department official with knowledge of the Snowden case who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“I’m in exile”: Former member of the national security staff who cited State Department records, interview with author. Also, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, told AP, “As is routine and consistent with US regulations, persons with felony arrest warrants are subject to having their passport revoked.” That arrest warrant was issued on June 14, 2013. The State Department Operations Center alert said “Snowden’s U.S. passport was revoked on June 22, 2013,” after the Justice Department unsealed the charges that had been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on June 14, 2013. “The Consul General in Hong Kong confirmed Hong Kong authorities were notified that Mr. Snowden’s passport was revoked on June 22,” according to the State Department’s senior watch officer.
had met nearly every day: Miller, “U.S. Officials Scrambled to Nab Snowden.”
Putin admitted: Interview, Channel One, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19143.
“Vladimir Putin had personally approved”: Jennifer Martinez, “Report: Snowden’s US Passport Revoked,” Hill, June 23, 2013.
CHAPTER 15 Did Snowden Act Alone?
“When you look at the totality”: Hayden, interview with author. Also, “Hayden Interview,” Meet the Press, NBC-TV, Dec. 15, 2013.
How America Lost Its Secrets Page 34
