Monday, August 18, 2014

We Now Know A Lot More About Edward Snowden's Epic NSA Heist

Snowden with Former CIA and NSA chief General Michael Hayden at a gala in 2011. Courtesy of Edward Snowden via Wired

We Now Know A Lot More About Edward Snowden's Epic Heist — And It's Troubling -- Michael B Kelley, Business Insider

Edward Snowden's in-depth interview with James Bamford of Wired offers details about his last job as a contractor for the NSA in Honolulu, which raise disconcerting questions about the motives of the former systems administrator.

While working at two consecutive jobs in Hawaii from March 2012 to May 2013, the 31-year-old allegedly stole about 200,000 "tier 1 and 2" documents, which mostly detailed the NSA's global surveillance apparatus and were given to American journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras in June 2013. The government believes Snowden also took up to 1.5 million "tier 3" documents potentially detailing U.S. capabilities and NSA offensive cyber operations, the whereabouts of which are unknown.

Read more ....

My Comment: When this news story made the headlines last year .... I commented that the U.S. intelligence community had to accept the uncomfortable possibility that everything had been compromised. Considering what has happened since then .... there is now no doubt in my mind that this is now a fact ..... that everything the U.S. intelligence community holds dear and precious is now probbaly known by all of our adversaries.

1 comment:

James said...

I still believe the Russians are not letting him stay out kindness. He still may have some of that 3 stuff hid out and is using it to bargain for sanctuary or the Russians won't let him go because the Americans would love to get their hands on him to find out what he really did turn over. Until they know that, it's a guessing game, with the Russians holding the ace.