Is Edward Snowden lying?
by Jon Rappoport
March 10, 2014
I’ve written several articles questioning Edward Snowden’s past history. (Full blog archive here.)
Now, another serious point comes to light.
Snowden claims he raised concerns about NSA spying more than 10 times before he went rogue with stolen files.
Here is the quote from the Washington Post (March 7):
“Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears. In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing.
“‘Yes [said Snowden]. I had reported these clearly problematic [NSA] programs to more than ten distinct officials, none of whom took any action to address them…’”
As I’ve written before, we are supposed to believe that the NSA, the biggest, richest, and smartest spying agency in the world just happened to forget to secure its own data against theft from its own employees and hired hands.
NSA just forgot to do that. No compartmentalization of secret data. Just a clear open shot all the way to the top for an internal analyst who wanted to take tens of thousands of files. Or a million files. Snowden waltzed into work, and was given free access to everything and grabbed it.
But if Snowden is telling the truth now, in his latest statement, the likelihood of his data grab shrinks even further.
Because according to Snowden, he raised concerns about illegal NSA spying to his own supervisors and executives more than 10 times, before he walked away from his job with all those files.
Snowden painted a target on his chest with his complaints about illegal spying. But no red flags were raised at the NSA. Nobody put Snowden under close inspection.
Nobody said, “Hey, this kid is trouble. Big trouble. He’s working for us and he’s objecting to our programs, policies and secret operations. We have to track every move this kid makes. We have to spy on every inch of his life, at work and at home.”
Nobody did that.
Checking news stories about Snowden’s work history at NSA, the longest period he was alleged to be there was four years. Which means Snowden was filing roughly three claims of illegal spying per year with his bosses. Could he be more obvious? And yet no one at NSA thought he was a risk. No one put a heavy watch on his activities and caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.
And finally, when Snowden told his superiors he was leaving his job to seek medical treatment, no one interceded. No one reacted with suspicion.
Snowden, working at NSA, became familiar enough with the Agency’s complex architecture to steal anywhere from 20,000 to 1.2 million files, also lodged over 10 complaints about illegal NSA spying, and walked away into the night without so much as a peep from the biggest spying apparatus in the world.
If you believe that, I’ve got beachfront condos for sale on Jupiter.
For background, here is an excerpt from a piece I wrote last July about Snowden, the NSA, and the inconsistencies in the official story:
Let’s begin here: If you absolutely must have a hero, watch Superman movies.
If your need for a hero is so great, so cloying, so heavy, so juicy that it swamps your curiosity, don’t read this.
If you can’t separate the value of Snowden’s revelations from the question of who he is, if you can’t entertain the notion that covert ops and intelligence-agency games are reeking with cover stories, false trails, and limited hangouts, you need more fun in your life.
Okay. Let’s look at Snowden’s brief history as reported by The Guardian. Are there any holes?
Is the Pope Catholic?
In 2003, at age 19, without a high school diploma, Snowden enlists in the Army. He begins a training program to join the Special Forces. At what point after enlistment can a new soldier start this elite training program?
Snowden breaks both legs in an exercise. He’s discharged from the Army. Is that automatic? How about healing and then resuming service?
If he was accepted in the Special Forces training program because he had special computer skills, then why discharge him simply because he broke both legs?
“Sorry, Ed, but with two broken legs we just don’t think you can hack into terrorist data anymore. You were good, but not now. Try Walmart. They always have openings.”
Snowden shifts jobs. Boom. He’s now in the CIA, in IT. He has no high school diploma.
In 2007, Snowden is sent to Geneva. He’s only 23 years old. The CIA gives him diplomatic cover there. He’s put in charge of maintaining computer-network security. Major job. Obviously, he has access to a wide range of classified documents. Sound a little odd? He’s just a kid. Maybe he has his GED. Otherwise, he still doesn’t have a high school diploma.
Was Snowden being groomed for an operation that was to come? Was he, knowingly or unknowingly, being set up to do something big?
Snowden says that during this period, in Geneva, one of the incidents that really sours him on the CIA is the “turning of a Swiss banker.” One night, CIA guys get a banker drunk, encourage him to drive home, the banker gets busted, the CIA guys help him out, and then with that bond formed, they eventually get the banker to reveal deep secrets to the Agency.
This sours Snowden? He’s that naïve? He doesn’t know by now that the CIA does this sort of thing all the time? He’s shocked? He “didn’t sign up for this?” Come on.
In 2009, Snowden leaves the CIA. Why? Presumably because he’s disillusioned. Or did he actually stay on with the CIA as a covert operative?
It should noted here that Snowden claimed he could do very heavy damage to the entire US intelligence community in 2008, but decided to wait because he thought Obama, just coming into the presidency, might keep his “transparency” promise.
After two years with the CIA in Geneva, Snowden really had the capability to take down the whole US inter-agency intelligence network, or a major chunk of it? Or did he have an inflated sense of self-importance—in which case, he would have made a good target for a later mission “to shake up the whole world.”
In 2009, Snowden leaves the CIA and goes to work in the private sector. Dell, Booze Allen Hamilton. In this latter job, Snowden is assigned to work at the NSA.
He’s an outsider, but, again, he claims to have so much access to so much sensitive NSA data that he can take down the whole US intelligence network in a single day. The. Whole. US. Intelligence. Network.
This is Ed Snowden’s sketchy legend. It’s all red flags, alarm bells, sirens, flashing lights.
“Let’s see. We have a new guy coming to work for us here at NSA today? Oh, a whiz kid. Ed Snowden. Outside contractor. Booz Allen. He’s not really a full-time employee of the NSA. Twenty-nine years old. No high school diploma. Has a GED. He worked for the CIA and quit. Hmm. Why did he quit? Oh, never mind, who cares? No problem.
“Tell you what. Let’s give this kid access to our most sensitive data. Sure. Why not? Everything. That stuff we keep behind 986 walls? Where you have to pledge the life of your first-born against the possibility you’ll go rogue? Let Snowden see it all. Sure. What the hell. I’m feeling charitable. He seems like a nice kid.”
Here is a more likely scenario.
Snowden never took any of those thousands of documents on an NSA computer. Never happened. He didn’t hack in. He didn’t steal anything.
He was working an op, either as a dupe or knowingly. He was working for…well, let’s see, who would that be?
Who was he working for before he entered the private sector and wound up at NSA?
The CIA.
Would that be the same CIA who hates the NSA with a venomous fervor?
Would that be the same CIA who’s been engaged in a turf war with NSA for decades?
The same CIA who’s watched their own prestige and funding diminish, as human intelligence has given way to electronic snooping?
Yes, it would be. CIA just can’t match the NSA when it comes to gathering signals-intell.
Wired Magazine, June 2013 issue. James Bamford, author of three books on the NSA, states:
“In April, as part of its 2014 budget request, the Pentagon [which rules the NSA] asked Congress for $4.7 billion for increased ‘cyberspace operations,’ nearly $1 billion more than the 2013 allocation. At the same time, budgets for the CIA and other intelligence agencies were cut by almost the same amount, $4.4 billion. A portion of the money going to…[NSA] will be used to create 13 cyberattack teams.”
That means spying money. Far more for NSA, far less for CIA.
Turf war.
People at the CIA, who were planning this operation for quite some time, were able to access those NSA documents, and they gave the documents to Snowden and he ran with them.
The CIA, of course, couldn’t be seen as the NSA leaker. They needed a guy. They needed a guy who could appear to be from the NSA, to make things look worse for the NSA and shield the CIA.
They had Ed Snowden. He had worked for the CIA in Geneva, in a high-level position, overseeing computer-systems security.
Somewhere in his CIA past, Ed meets a fellow CIA guy who sits down with him and says, “You know, Ed, things have gone too damn far. The NSA is spying on everybody all the time. I can show you proof. They’ve gone beyond the point of trying to catch terrorists. They’re doing something else. They’re expanding a Surveillance State, which can only lead to one thing: the destruction of America, what America stands for, what you and I know America is supposed to be. The NSA isn’t like us, Ed. We go after terrorists for real. That’s it. Whereas NSA goes after everybody. We have to stop it. We need a guy…and there are those of us who think you might be that guy…”
During the course of this one disingenuous conversation, the CIA is killing 37 innocent civilians all over the world with drones, but that’s beside the point. Ahem.
Ed says, “Tell me more. I’m intrigued.”
He eventually buys in.
Put two scenarios on the truth scale and assess them. Which is more likely? The tale Snowden told to Glenn Greenwald, with all its holes, with its super-naive implications about the fumbling, bumbling NSA, or a scenario in which Snowden is the CIA’s boy?
And if Snowden is still working for the CIA, he and his buds aren’t the only people who want to take the NSA down a notch. No. Because, for example, NSA has been spying on everybody inside the Beltway.
Spying on politicians with secrets.
So imagine this conversation taking place, in a car, on a lonely road outside Washington, late at night. The speakers are Congressman X and a private operative representing the NSA:
“Well, Congressman, do you remember January 6th? A Monday afternoon, a men’s room in the park off—”
“What the hell are you talking about!”
“A stall in the men’s room. The kid. He was wearing white high-tops. A Skins cap. T-shirt. Dark hair. Scar across his left cheek. Blue tattoo on his right thigh.”
“Jesus.”
“We have very good audio and video. Anytime you want to watch it, let me know.”
Dead silence.
“What do you want?”
“Right now, Congressman? We want you to come down hard on Snowden. Press it. He’s a traitor. He should tried and convicted.”
The Congressmen pulls himself together:
“Yeah, well, of course I’ll pound on Snowden publicly and call him a traitor. Sure. But I have to tell you, I know a dozen Washington players who’d like the NSA to take a hit. They’re pissed off. They don’t like to be spied on.”
If you’re a Congressman or a Senator, and you have nasty little secrets, and you know NSA is spying on you, because it’s spying on everyone in the Congress, who’s your potential best friend?
Somebody who can go up against the NSA, somebody who wants to go up against the NSA.
And who might that be?
The CIA.
It’s not perfect, but it’s the best you can do.
You get down on your knees and pray that Ed Snowden is still working for the CIA.
Who else, besides the CIA and numerous politicians inside the Beltway, would be aching to take the NSA down a notch? Who else would be rooting hard for this former (?) CIA employee, Snowden, to succeed?
How about certain players on Wall Street?
Still waiting to be uncovered? NSA spying to collect elite financial data, spying on the people who have that data: the major investment banks. NSA scooping up that data to predict, manipulate, and profit from trading markets all over the world.
A trillion-dollar operation.
Snowden worked for Booz Allen, which is owned by the Carlyle Group ($170 billion in assets). Carlyle, the infamous. Their money is making money in 160 investment funds.
A few of Carlyle’s famous front men in its history: George HW Bush, James Baker (US Secretary of State), Frank Carlucci (US Secretary of Defense and CIA Deputy Director), John Major (British Prime Minister), Arthur Levitt (Chairman of the SEC).
Suppose you’re one of the princes in the NSA castle, and Ed Snowden has just gone public with your documents. You’re saying, “Let’s see, this kid worked for Booz Allen, which is owned by the Carlyle Group. We (NSA) have been spying over Carlyle’s shoulder, stealing their proprietary financial data. What are the chances they’re getting a little revenge on us now?”
So there is the CIA, Congress, and Wall Street players, all of whom would like, privately, to get the NSA off their backs.
Snowden’s true CIA bosses know how to access NSA files. They do it, and they give those files to their secret front man, Snowden.
Perhaps we could be talking about a small number of genuine patriots within the CIA who want to take down the NSA a few notches, for laudable reasons.
But if you don’t like this CIA-Snowden scenario, feel free to assume the NSA is such a competent and brilliant organization when it comes to spying on the global population…but they just can’t get it together to stop one man from logging in and stealing their own farm and strolling away.
They can’t stop one man, who now says he filed over 10 official complaints about illegal spying while he was working at their Agency.
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
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As far as the back story, yes you can and could enlist in a SF career track right off so that is true, also true is Snowden breaking both legs and yes the QMP style or Quality management program for personnel would medically discharged him asap hurt so early in training with breaking both femurs. The ARMY would give him the out option or force out for liability and even i he rovers they will have to take care of him. The oust people all the time for such injuries. So all that is true. I joined the DIA Defense Intelligence Agency after working a temp position for NOAA as a research scuba diver. I found i was working for the Intelligence wing of NOAA and once my clearance came through i was officially switched to the DIA Special Activities Division- Joined a Section that worked with the DIA, Dept Of Energy, NSF, & NOAA. I worked just 3 years and no way had access as snowden but my limited access and what I knew, saw and did was at times mundane boring, stupid, recreation, vacations to unbelievable to incredibly dangerous, reckless almost suicide and mind blowing. My Secrecy agreements were 15 years only where we could only say we worked for the NOAA as a cover, now it doesnt matter. I dont know much but some of what i do know i dont see on the web. Snowden’s revelations I already knew about completely and have been on going for 20 years i just didnt know the names or know how the capabilities have grown and the tech. I am skeptical of Snowden if he is real, but his info is true and i wish he would release all his info not farm it out. I see him as a hero and whistle blower, not trader or criminal.
These agencies go to war against each other and they play these games back and forth. How many laws have been broken if Snowden is a liar and this whole thing is to discredit the NSA?
Watch the 60 Minutes NSA piece to see truly mystifying explanations for how sysadmin level control over every billion dollar worldwide data center intranet system their thousands of employees maintain 24/7, was handed to this former security guard who ‘learned on the job’. Or who was instantly proven to be a natural wunderkind cybersecurity master miles beyond even their top experts. Depending on which report you read. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/12/16/an-nsa-coworker-remembers-the-real-edward-snowden-a-genius-among-geniuses/
But here’s where it gets surreal. In the video the NSA claims Snowden ‘cheated’ on his technical exam for ‘potential employment’, by…this hurts my brain…using system administrator access to grab the correct answers…because he was given root access before his job interview…while taking a test to see if he knew anything about IT…lol
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/snowden-cheated-his-way-into-the-nsa/
By the way, he also got the job in 2009 specifically to plan a major future whistleblowing sting operation, but also earlier that year he was a vehemently anti-Wikileaks/whistleblowing right wing forum troll: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/exclusive-in-2009-ed-snowden-said-leakers-should-be-shot-then-he-became-one/1/
Personally I think Anonymous may have played some part, maybe unwittingly: http://www.eweek.com/news/Anonymous-Breaches-Booz-Allen-Hamilton-to-Reveal-90000-Military-Passwords
Of course they’re actual hackers who could probably tell you in a 3 minute conversation whether Snowden was lying, delusional, or actually knows more than how to install commercial scraping apps like the NSA guy claims he did. Problem is they’re huge fans (like most Americans under 50 it seems), and would never put him to the test.
And who exactly is Anonymous, what’s their real nature?
“Propaganda Psy-Op? “Worldwide Wave of Action”. The “Global Spring” Begins”,
by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, March 8, 2014
http://www.globalresearch.ca/propaganda-psy-op-worldwide-wave-of-action-the-global-springbegins/5372295
Anonymous is clearly not a true activist organization or movement, and it also clearly could be a “propaganda psy-op”, so I wouldn’t put much faith, say, in what the EWeek article reported in 2011. The EWeek article doesn’t say that the email addresses and passwords Anonymous posted were proven to be authentic. The piece doesn’t say that these email addresses and passwords were tested, in order to see if they were “the real thing”. They may’ve been fictional, since they weren’t tested.
I’ll quote a little from Professor Chossudovsky’s article.
Quote: “While the logic of this self-proclaimed Worldwide Wave of Transformation is different, it is geared towards manipulating people while also weakening meaningful forms of grassroots activism and organized dissent.”
I’ve never paid attention to Anonymous. I saw pictures of them and read a little about them, but extremely little. They never interested me, for they’re not like real activists behave.
Professor Chossudovsky’s piece reveals that Anonymous is very corrupt today and I doubt that it is was any less corrupt or bs in 2011.
I also wouldn’t count on the 60 Minutes piece. What you say about it definitely seems to surely be a lot of bs. It’s probably bs propaganda for the purpose to deceive viewers.
According to an AP article around 50,000 of the email addresses were found to have .mil domains, the rest mostly belonged to other defense contractors. http://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20110711/NEWS/107110304/Hackers-target-top-contractor-nab-passwords Unless the Air Force was using Anonymous as a propaganda vehicle to discredit the contractor they’d been using for years, I’d say it seems likely the theft of at least some military login/passwords by the group did actually happen. As for their dubious declarations, generic slogans and ill defined mission goals, I certainly agree, and would assert only that the same seems to apply to Snowden at this point, given his activist call-to-some-kind-of-action speech delivered to his throngs over a ‘We the People’ background. The difference is Anonymous certainly didn’t make up their denial of service attacks on Amazon servers among many such incidents, yet the lack of evidence continues for Snowden’s crypto/network security abilities, beyond downloading ‘millions’ of top secret power point slides from some intranet server to a USB drive, accomplished by the use of a login he was given by a manager who ‘left town’ apparently.
As for the 60 Minutes piece, I’m unclear from your wording what you mean by not ‘counting on it’. I described the piece as mystifying and surreal, and both parties in the interview clearly seem disingenuous at best and blatant propagandists at worst. The reporter’s ‘full disclosure’ at the beginning of the segment of having a former career in federal intelligence hints at that possibility, as does the present position of the interviewee, allegedly speaking on behalf of an agency who has always systematically ‘neither confirmed nor denied’ any press queries until this unprecedented interview. So yes, I wouldn’t count on it being stark truth.
My point is that, given the numerous, clear factual issues Jon Rappoport (and few others) has thoroughly documented concerning Snowden, he’s called a conspiracist ‘truther’ apparently on par with believing the president faked his birth certificate and countless state and federal authorities conspired to hide it. Meanwhile, whether they disagree or agree with his whistleblowing/treasonous story of how he got those documents, no major media or government officials have publicly voiced any question of its complete veracity. It seems to most of America right now, the one source you can ‘count on’ is Snowden himself. Look at how Esquire unequivically characterizes the former CIA specialist who felt whistleblowers should be shot some months before he heroically decided to put his life on the line to become one: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/edward-snowden-leader
1) Internet domains
Quote: “According to an AP article around 50,000 of the email addresses were found to have .mil domains, the rest mostly belonged to other defense contractors”.
Having a .mil, .com, .net, .info, .biz, .edu, … domain, and these are all current domains for the Internet, doesn’t necessarily mean that a specified email address is valid or authentic. It could still be a phony address.
Say someone tells you that their email address is johndoe@usairforce.mil, do you think it’d be valid just because the person is pretending to be giving you a valid .mil address?
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2) The airforcetimes.com piece
Quote: “Although the passwords had all been encrypted and didn’t appear to be geared toward email access, many examined by The Associated Press seemed easily breakable and might conceivably be used to hack into military inboxes.”
Whoever wrote the article, I have the impression the person doesn’t know much about IT. To hack into someone’s inbox surely requires hacking into the person’s computer systems account, first. If that’s correct, then the AirforceTimes piece should say, f.e., “hack into military user accounts, which’d give access to the inboxes in each of those accounts”.
If a user account isn’t hacked into, then the inbox in the account should remain protected. If or, rather when, this isn’t true, then the operating system has a flaw, or there’s a flaw in the permissions settings for a user’s account, for if neither of these flaws are present, then a hacker should definitely need to first find a way to get into a person’s account. Everything beneath, say, a user’s home directory (aka folder) should remain protected for as long as the home directory does.
Otoh, perhaps the inboxes aren’t located on the disk drives of user workstations and are, instead, located on a server. Still, user inboxes shouldn’t be top level directories or folders and they should remain protected for as long as higher level directories are. So, hackers need to first get access to the contents of those directories.
Also in the latter case, getting access to user email inboxes located on a server should leave hackers finding nothing in those inboxes, for when users access these copies of incoming emails, then they will be accessed from individual workstations and when this happens, the emails are retrieved, with the copies in the inboxes on the server or servers being automatically and cleanly deleted, aka wiped. This retrieval and server-located inbox wiping or cleaning should happen in an automatic manner ever x minutes, regardless of when a user is going to read his/her incoming email that’ll be stored on the disk drive of his/her own workstation.
That wouldn’t prevent hackers from getting the email addresses and passwords, but it definitely should help to increase security in terms of keeping the inboxes located on the server or servers cleared of emails. This would greatly increase the chances of such hackers not being able to get copies of the emails, unless they hacked their way to and through, or into, users’ workstations.
I’m not a systems administrator and a well experienced one may be able to exlain how what I just said is incorrect, for reason or reasons A, B, C, ….
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3) USAF and discrediting of Booz Allen Hamilton
Quote: “Unless the Air Force was using Anonymous as a propaganda vehicle to discredit the contractor they’d been using for years, I’d say it seems likely the theft of at least some military login/passwords by the group did actually happen”.
Why the AF? The AirforceTimes.com article doesn’t mention the AF. It says, quote: “In a statement posted to the Web, the Anonymous hackers boasted of stealing passwords linked to some 90,000 military users, although The Associated Press counted only about 67,000 unique email addresses, of which about 53,000 carried .mil domains”.
The AF isn’t the only US military branch that uses the .mil domain; not as far as I’m aware anyway.
The hack was purportedly successful, though evidently without the email addresses Anonymous posted having been tested to see if they’re really valid, for I haven’t seen or heard any mention so far that these were tested, and also haven’t seen or heard mention that the US military confirmed that these email addresses are real/authentic. And Booz Allen Hamilton has said that it won’t comment on this story of a breach of its computer systems. Okay, so we’ll say the hack was indeed successful.
Let’s also assume that either the US military wanted to use Anonymous as a propaganda vehicle as you say, or that the CIA was the culprit, well, Booz Allen Hamilton being discredited would be nothing new. The company has long been known to be rather corrupt, a roguish war profiteer, etc.
This little computer systems mishap, with hackers getting email addresses and passwords, is not particularly special news. The EFF, as well as EWeek and other IT experts who know plenty about computer security, have made it clear many times over many years that security of computer systems constantly needs to be maintained by very pro-active and competent administrators, for security isn’t guaranteed; because hackers who’re very experienced or savvy, say, are constantly finding ways to be able to hack into systems that are, in theory, and ideally, protected. Iow, protection against externally located hackers is never guaranteed; except, for computers that aren’t network-connected to any others that could be accessed by external hackers. Leaving the latter case aside, for those wholly isolated computers aren’t relevant in the story of this hack by Anonymous, security should be complete at all times; but, this level of perfection hasn’t been reached yet.
This is far from the first time that computer systems have been successfully hacked into though. It’s been happening for many years and security experts continue to warn that security isn’t guaranteed to hold for very long against very expert hackers. Once there’s a server connected to the outside Internet and a hacker can access this server, then there’re direct and indirect routes to other computers that directly or indirectly use this server to access the outside world, i.e, Internet. For them to be able to access the contents of the Internet, there’s going to be traffic flowing back. Otherwise, users won’t see what’s on the Internet. It’s a two-way avenue; a request goes out and results are returned. So there’s a way in.
Anyway, given that network security always remains a very hot topic, because the security is not guaranteed to be unbreakable, and this has been a hot topic for many years, this story really doesn’t discredit Booz … at all. It’d be difficult to discredit it more than by continuing to expose that it’s a corrupt, war racket company.
Maybe Anonymous did this jointly with CIA and/or the US military; or maybe not. If not, then this still doesn’t mean that Anonymous isn’t some kind of psy-op, as Professor Chossudovsky says might be very well the case.
In any case, it’s no big news. It isn’t a scandal. People can just say “ho-hum, la dee dah dee day; there’s no big story in this”, when hearing or reading about this story.
So, Anonymous did nothing of real or special merit as a group that’s purportedly a real activist one. And as Michel Chossudovsky explains in his article, Anonymous has definitely made it clear that it’s not a real and respectable activist group; and, also, that they may actually be “just another psy-op”.
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4) Regarding the 60 Minutes piece
Quote: “As for the 60 Minutes piece, I’m unclear from your wording what you mean by not ‘counting on it’. I described the piece as mystifying and surreal, and both parties in the interview clearly seem disingenuous at best and blatant propagandists at worst.”
Sorry. I should’ve clear, for your explanation is the same as I meant.
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5) Regarding Snowden
What you say is fine. I don’t find his story credible. If it’s going to ever become credible for me, then he has plenty of explaining to do and he apparently never will.
Quote: “It seems to most of America right now, the one source you can ‘count on’ is Snowden himself. Look at how Esquire unequivically characterizes the former CIA specialist who felt whistleblowers should be shot some months before he heroically decided to put his life on the line to become one: … (link)”.
It’s possible that Snowden can have some truly good views, but his story of having “lone ranger-style” lifted the NSA documents remains non-credible. The Esquire piece says nothing to answer the critical questioning that should continue about his NSA shop-lifting story. Esquire “conveniently” omits any critical questioning about Snowden’s story and any news media, commentators, … who do this should automatically be critically questioned, for their sense of judgment is very poor.
Another thing to note about the Esquire piece is how it praises Sarah Palin, who most definitely and clearly proved to be a complete quack during her VP running-mate campaigning with John McCain in 2008. She had a bad reputation at the time, for many Americans anyway, and this was most definitely deserved. I said at the time, enough times too, that pairing her up with McCain, who also is an incredibly sick character, had to be a sign that the Republican Party definitely wanted its nominees to LOSE the race for the presidency; that is, that the RP wanted to help boost support for Obama. This sick clown act of a race that McCain and Palin provided has a very likely chance of being the greatest, all-time-winner for clown presidential races in all of US history.
She surely hasn’t become more trustworthy since 2008; she surely is as quack as ever. It takes awfully idiotic people to think that she merits any praise, or trust.
It’s interesting that the Esquire piece included praise for what she’s doing when the article is entitled such that it should be only about Snowden. Anyone who knows that Palin is an extreme quack, or worse, might then be caused to wonder if Snowden possibly also is a quack and untrustworthy. Somehow, for some reason, Esquire thinks or wants to pretend that readers should think that Palin isn’t an extreme quack. Anyway, Esquire’s sense of judgment is or should seriously be put into question. If Esquire has very or extremely poor judgment about Palin, and Esquire clearly does, then why should Esquire’s words of ridiculous praise for Snowden merit readers’ trust?
I never read anything from Esquire, but I suppose plenty of people do; probably ignorant people. The closest I’ve ever been to Esquire is just seeing the cover page.
Hopefully few people will be “taken in” by the Esquire sort of piece, but it definitely seems to be aimed at fooling people and the American public doesn’t have a good track record so far. I’ve read that it’s been improving, but Obama was elected for a second term after having strongly proven during the first one that he’s a very serious war criminal and also merits being critically referred to as “even worse than Bush”. That election was less than a year and a half ago, so it doesn’t seem like Americans have been waking up much.
What confuses me greatly is exactly that fact of access to information. Historically there are highly controversial CIA operations were nobody knows the full story, eg, missions to Cuba during the cold war, I have a hunch that the information leaked was not information exclusively owned by the NSA as Snowden, an outsider, would not have access and would be subject to vigorous security checks and logging.
As a side thought my university has a monitoring system that, when something inappropriate or illicit is downloaded, records on your account and is refered to security, I fail to see how the NSA would lack this.
Regarding “vigorous security checks and logging”, I’m not sure to correctly who of real NSA whistleblowers said this, and I think it was two of them, but they said that security at the NSA was very lax, far from what should be in place or practiced. Based on the way the person or persons stated this, security was surprisingly lax and this wasn’t with or in just one small group at the NSA.
I think it may be William Binney and/or Russell Tice or said this.
It may’ve also been John Young of Cryptome, but I think it was stated by one or two former NSA people who’re among the well known whistleblowers.
Why the NSA would allow security to be less than very high or strong …? Huh. Who would’ve guessed this, who of ordinary citizens anyway? I would’ve expected very tight security, but it’s certainly possible for it to be very lax. It depends on management people.
Given that one of these people said that security was very lax at the NSA and the person is someone who’s word about this definitely matters very much, I accept that it was lax and that leaves me more concerned about little things like the following, f.e.
*) Snowden has been inconsistent in certainly some respects. F.e., he reportedly told The Guardian that he obtained a GED after college, albeit without necessarily saying it was subsequent to attending college. And he told the Washington Post that he didn’t or doesn’t have a GED, according to the Post anyway.
*) He evidently hasn’t stated when he obtained the GED, only saying, in one case, that he got it and, in other case, saying he doesn’t have one. If he obtained it, then he would surely remember when it was acquired and there’d be absolutely no good reason to withhold the date of obtention/obtainment.
*) His claim to have joined the military in 2003 isn’t confirmed by the US Army, which says he enlisted in May 2004 and was discharged on September 28, 2004. Apparently, he said he joined in 2003 without saying that bootcamp was in 2004. That would be possible, that is, to join in 2003 while doing bootcamp in 2004. F.e., when I enlisted in the USN in 1975, it was November and bootcamp began the following January. But he apparently said 2003 and nothing about having actually done the bootcamp training the following year, thereby leaving the impression that he did both in the same year.
This is odd for a guy who’s supposedly some sort of IT wizard, not needing any computer courses or experience to be able to get very professional IT jobs that he claims, doesn’t prove, but, instead, only claims to have had. After all, if he’s such a genius, then he should be able to know little details like when he got the GED and when he joined the Army as well as when he did the bootcamp training. Such a genius would be someone who thinks with great precision or accuracy.
*) His claim to have been a computer systems engineer, systems administrator, senior advisor to a CIA solutions consultant and, finally, some telecommunications expert sort of job, well, just isn’t credible. That is, it’s certainly credible that he made this claim, for he clearly states it at the beginning of the interview he provided to Glen Greenwald at The Guardian. What isn’t credible is that he really worked in these jobs.
If he really did work in those jobs, then CIA has more than questionable management about their hiring practices, for he had no related education and prior experience whatsoever.
Snowden hasn’t explained how he could get such professional IT jobs. He’s given no explanation for this whatsoever for any of these jobs. What The Guardian claimed as if it was sufficient is most definitely FAR from being sufficient.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/a-guide-to-the-career-of-edward-snowden
Quote:
A Guide To The Career Of Edward Snowden
Eric Lach – June 10, 2013, 7:44 PM EDT
At the start of the video that served as his coming out to the world, the man behind the recent National Security Agency leaks looked, for a moment, directly into the camera.
“My name is Ed Snowden, I’m 29 years old, I work for Booz Allen Hamilton as an infrastructure analyst for [the] NSA, in Hawaii,” Snowden told The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, in an on-camera interview the newspaper put online on Sunday. “I have been a systems engineer, a systems administrator, [a] senior advisor for the Central Intelligence Agency’s solutions consultant, and a telecommunications information systems officer.”
…
End quote
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/how-did-a-guy-with-a-ged-end-up-with-top-secret-clearance-at-the-nsa
Quote:
How Did A Guy With A GED End Up With Top Secret Clearance At The NSA?
Eric Lach – June 11, 2013, 3:12 PM EDT
…
There have been a few factors offered up to explain how Snowden ended up where he did. Snowden apparently cited his technical skills. According to The Guardian, “[Snowden’s] understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.” (It is not clear, however, just how much technical skill Snowden’s various career stops demanded.)
…
End quote
Computer systems engineering requires graduating in both electrical engineering and computer science, that is, having a degree with sufficient courses in both disciplines. At Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, there was a master’s degree in CSE certainly back in the 1990s, but this comprises EE, CS, which, in turn, require good abilities in advanced mathematics. Someone who graduates with a bachelor’s degree in EE and who’s taken sufficient CS courses could surely find employment as a CSE as well. But, Snowden has NONE of this.
Computer systems administration for systems that probably are used for NSA facilities, besides office systems used only for working with office suites software, such as Microsoft Office, f.e., are another matter altogether. Still, if the latter systems are part of a network for supporting many users, then the systems administration for this less critical sort of system is going to require very good SA skills and knowledge; something Snowden evidently doesn’t have.
To be a senior advisor to a solutions consultant that does work on critical systems for an agency like the NSA, or NASA, … normally would require a bachelor’s degree in engineering, CS, or mathematics, but while also have quite a lot of knowledge in CS. It normally would also require years of related experience. Again, Snowden didn’t and probably still doesn’t have this.
We know for a fact that some people who don’t have degrees or formal scholarship in engineering have nevertheless invented, engineer technologies, but we have no evidence of Snowden having ever done anything of this kind. We don’t even have proof that he can competently take apart a radio and put it back together again without screwing up. We have no proof that he ever took apart a radio piece by piece and tried to put it back together, successfully or not.
Most people have been ignoring these parts of Snowden’s story, but I worked for an engineering consulting firm as a programmer and senior programmer on military systems, and the people at this firm were degreed in CS, engineering (mostly mechanical eng.) and mathematics; except for the receptionist, secretaries, and human resources people, of course. There was one exception. One of the computer systems employees dropped out of university after his first year, stuck around and did some of the homework assignments for some friends who continued with their degrees, became good a programming and was able to be hired by this engineering consulting firm. But, after 3 or 4 years at this firm, he didn’t make it above programmer. He began to learn systems administration for an HP 9000 server running UNIX, but he couldn’t do this alone. He received a lot of help from a Colonel who was very knowledgeable and skilled in IT. Still, the guy struggled. He got through it, but it was plenty of work.
And that HP 9000 server wasn’t used to provide services to many people. As far as I’m aware, only two or three of us were connected to this server. In an environment where such a server has many users, and various peripherals connected, there can be more frequent problems. The work can be easy when there aren’t problems, everything is running smoothly, but when there’re problems, they can vary from minor to serious. Snowden surely wouldn’t be able to deal with the serious problems. We don’t have any proof that he could deal with or resolve the most minor of problems.
I also did contract work for a few engineering firms later on. Everyone was either graduated in engineering or CS, or both. There were also mathematicians.
If Snowden really got the job titles that he claims to have had, then his employers are a JOKE.
It does make sense if Snowden was complaining and they let him get access to their data. This is how it is done. A politician with skeletons and it is why they elect people like Clinton who had ton of skeletons in his closet. […]. They deal with blackmail and it’s legal and of course they have politicians who are crooked. So it is easy to control them. It would be easy to set someone up. I mean get them drunk and call the police. Get a call girl to take him to a room and they have nice photos to show his wife. If he is nailed he loses his job and family and what could any of these guys do for money? I would imagine not much. These agencies serve no purpose and should be eliminated and we can elect decent people.
This should answer a LOT of questions:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/this-world-bank-insider-will-blow-you-away-there-is-a-huge-global-conspiracy_03082014
I’d like to hear Jon’s take on Karen Hudes. Frankly, the same kinds of red flags come up when I hear her talk that come up with Snowden. I’ve listened/watched many of her interviews – – – she often comes off as a crank. Was she really employed in critical positions for the global bankers? Is she co-ordinating efforts to bring all the criminals down now ? Hmmmm. I heard Catherine Austin Fitts reply to one of her subscribers questions about Hudes and basically Fitts said that Hudes isn’t to be believed. – – – If you’ve ever seen/heard interviews with bankster Blythe Masters from JP Morgan, you may not like what she has done – but I doubt that many would think her a crank. I also find Hudes call for a constitutional convention to be extremely dangerous.
Hmmm – o.k. about 26 minutes into the interview Hudes talks about a species of big headed blued eyed individuals from another species which controls the world. I’ve heard some pretty wild stuff from Hudes . . . but this is at a new level.
Great another econo-doomsayer trying to boost her gold commodities holdings by babbling incoherently about the coming American third world apocalypse. She’s like Glenn Beck minus the sobbing and Mormon code phrases, and somehow even crazier. ‘Backwardation’ indeed.
you weave a good speculation. but. if you had the kinds of info that he seems to have had,and felt that it was your patriotic duty to reveal it, how much would you be willing to sacrifice? you dont explain whats in it for snowden? how much money would you be willing to accept to change your life so drastically? why is wiki-leaks playing ball with him?
are they cia also? i think perhaps there are too many un-answered questions regarding your accusations. but its all good thinkfood.
I don’t think that kid would have made it through Special Forces training! I KNOW some of what those folks go through, and it is no easy “walk in the woods” either! Many folks don’t make it through the “selection” which is only about three weeks in length; This even BEFORE you go to the full training course.
Plus, Special Forces would have very little need for his comprehensive computer skills, except maybe for the ability to operate their portable communications “base-station” (which is somewhat computerized). – So that story of his doesn’t really wash either.
As for breaking both legs; One CAN get a medical discharge for this from the services, OR get re-assignment to a different occupational-specialty that said injured soldier can perform. If one is seriously disabled to the point of being completely non-deployable, and “unusable”, he may get a full medical discharge from the military. Of course, one can also get a discharge for psychological reasons: under “Unable to adapt to military life.”
The rest of the analysis of this man’s story sounds about right: There ARE a lot of “holes” in his version of events.
Suffice it to say, I have been suspicious of the whole issue from the first few days. If he was actually “blowing the whistle” on something truly nefarious, and something that the “agency” seriously feared public-exposure; He would have never made it out the door alive!
All kinds of red flags with him wanting to join special forces. You have to graduate with a high school diploma. You have to be at least 20 years old. There are some other requirements as well that he may or may not have met. I doubt because he was some “hacker” that they wanted him to join special forces. Whatever Snowden is or isn’t or who he worked for, it comes down to him being a plant and a disinformation agent. Is it any coincidence that he wound up in Russia and now all of this is going on over there? It’s just in the design to “reveal” intelligence gathering by our government to piss off the citizens for fuel to the fire of a future scenario. It’s coming to a neighborhood near you. They can’t keep using “false flags” to further their agenda, they have to mix it up a little bit every now and then. Good article though.
I don’t suppose you were once an SF’er yourself? You sound more knowledgeable about it than me.
Anyway, I couldn’t agree more with the rest.
” De oppresso liber! ”
– Rev. Dragon’s Eye
No, I was a 97E in the 90’s. I worked with special ops, psyops, DIA, and countless other organizations that people have no clue about. I left and went off the grid for a long time. Now, I just don’t care because honestly it doesn’t matter.
Reblogged this on Jericho777.
Snowden is a fake. His whole story reeks. The idea that this slip of a lad had universal clearance and unfettered access to all the NSA’s secrets, and escaped with everything on a thumb-drive, is laughable!
Regarding who Snowden is:
He evidently didn’t tell a consistent story. The following article provides some information that evidently differs from what Snowden said to The Guardian.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/a-guide-to-the-career-of-edward-snowden
Quote:
A Guide To The Career Of Edward Snowden
Eric Lach – June 10, 2013, 7:44 PM EDT
…
High School
Snowden told The Guardian that he was not a very good student in high school. He attended a community college in Maryland, and took computer classes, to try to get the credits he needed to graduate, but did not finish his coursework. He later got his GED. (According to The Post, meanwhile, “Snowden said he did not have a high school diploma.”)
End quote
I’ll cite again from that TPM article further below, but will cite a little from the Post article, first.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-leaders-push-back-on-leakers-media/2013/06/09/fff80160-d122-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_print.html
Quote:
Edward Snowden comes forward as source of NSA leaks
By Barton Gellman, Aaron Blake and Greg Miller
…
A stunning revelation
…
Some former CIA officials said they were troubled by aspects of Snowden’s background, at least as he described it to The Post and the Guardian.
For instance, Snowden said he did not have a high school diploma. One former CIA official said that it was extremely unusual for the agency to have hired someone with such thin academic credentials, particularly for a technical job, and that the terms Snowden used to describe his agency positions did not match internal job descriptions.
Snowden’s claim to have been placed under diplomatic cover for a position in Switzerland after an apparently brief stint at the CIA as a systems administrator also raised suspicion. “I just have never heard of anyone being hired with so little academic credentials,” the former CIA official said. The agency does employ technical specialists in overseas stations, the former official said, “but their breadth of experience is huge, and they tend not to start out as systems administrators.”
A former senior U.S. intelligence official cited other puzzling aspects of Snowden’s account, questioning why a contractor for Booz Allen at an NSA facility in Hawaii would have access to something as sensitive as a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
…
End quote
More from the same TPM author about Snowden’s education was pubilshed the next day.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/how-did-a-guy-with-a-ged-end-up-with-top-secret-clearance-at-the-nsa
Quote:
How Did A Guy With A GED End Up With Top Secret Clearance At The NSA?
Eric Lach – June 11, 2013, 3:12 PM EDT
…
Booz Allen Hamilton has confirmed that Snowden worked at the firm for the last few months, with a base salary of $122,000. The company fired Snowden on Monday, citing violations of the firm’s code of ethics and “firm policy.” Mother Jones, meanwhile, got in touch on Monday with Anne Arundel Community College, in Arnold, Md., which said that a student with Snowden’s name and birth date attended classes there from 1999 to 2001 and also from 2004 to 2005. A spokesperson for the college said that Snowden did not receive a degree, and had not taken any “cyber-related courses” or courses in the school’s NSA-certified “Information Systems Security” program.
…
End quote
The Mother Jones article is the following one and it consists of only two paragraphs, so I’ll quote the whole tiny piece.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/06/nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-community-college-computers
Quote:
Community College Says NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Took No “Cyber-Related Classes”
— By Andy Kroll | Mon Jun. 10, 2013 2:29 PM GMT
In its story unveiling National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Guardian reported that the 29-year-old attended “a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework.” The Guardian did not name the community college. But a spokesman for Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), located in southeastern Maryland, tells Mother Jones a student with Snowden’s name and birthdate attended the college from 1999 to 2001 and then again from 2004 to 2005. He did not receive a certificate or degree, the spokesman, Daniel Baum, says.
But here’s an interesting wrinkle: Baum says Snowden took no “cyber-related courses” at this college. Nor did he take any classes in the college’s NSA-certified “Information Systems Security” program, which focuses on safeguarding computer data and networks, though he went on to work in a related field for the government and in the private sector. It’s unclear whether Snowden studied computing elsewhere.
End quote
So far, there evidently is no proof that Snowden every took a single computer course. And according to the first of the TPM articles, Snowden would’ve said he got his GED, high school general equivalency diploma, after having attended the community college. Since when do colleges accept to enroll people as students when they don’t have an HS diploma or good GED results? Also, why hasn’t he specified precisely when he got his GED?
The first of the two TPM article also says the following in referring to what Snowden said in the interview he gave to Greenwald at The Guardian and which we’re being asked to believe that it was a truly authentic interview that bears no lies.
Quote:
At the start of the video that served as his coming out to the world, the man behind the recent National Security Agency leaks looked, for a moment, directly into the camera.
“My name is Ed Snowden, I’m 29 years old, I work for Booz Allen Hamilton as an infrastructure analyst for [the] NSA, in Hawaii,” Snowden told The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, in an on-camera interview the newspaper put online on Sunday. “I have been a systems engineer, a systems administrator, [a] senior advisor for the Central Intelligence Agency’s solutions consultant, and a telecommunications information systems officer.”
End quote
We have no proof of him having ever taken a single computer course and that he at best had only a HS GED, but we’re asked to believe that someone like this could ever possibly and truly pass an interview for jobs like these IT ones he definitely claimed to have? Such a person normally should even be invited for a first interview; definitely not for these types of jobs.
The interview video is easy to find at TheGuardian.com and I sought it to check if Snowden really claims to have had these professional IT jobs. He definitely does and it’s at the start of the video.
The TPM piece doesn’t include a link for the interview, only citing a little from it. Correction: I just double-checked and the TPM piece indirectly does provide a link. That link isn’t provided until a little further in the article, which doesn’t say that the link is for a Gardian article that provides or doesn’t provide a link for the interview video, but I just double-checked that Guardian piece and while it doesn’t provide the video, it does provide the link.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why
Mother Jones piece:
The TPM piece says, again, the following.
Quote: “Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), located in southeastern Maryland, tells Mother Jones a student with Snowden’s name and birthdate attended the college from 1999 to 2001 and then again from 2004 to 2005”.
The first TPM piece says the following further on.
Quote:
The Army
In 2003, Snowden enlisted in the U.S. Army, he told The Guardian, and began a training program to join the Special Forces.
“I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression,” Snowden told The Guardian.
But his time in the military did not last. According to Snowden, he was discharged after he broke both legs in a training accident. The Army confirmed Snowden’s enlistment to The Guardian on Monday, but did not provide details about his service record. According to the Army’s records, Snowden enlisted in 2004, not 2003.
“His records indicate he enlisted in the army reserve as a special forces recruit (18X) on 7 May 2004 but was discharged 28 September 2004,” an army spokesperson told The Guardian in an email. “He did not complete any training or receive any awards.”
End quote
The college indicates that he would’ve attended from 2004 to 2005. This normally would mean Fall 2004 and Winter 2005, possibly also Fall 2005, semesters. Some college semesters may begin later for some students than for others, but Fall semesters usually begin no later than immediately following Labor Day. That, in the US, is “the first Monday in September”, according to the Wikipedia page for this holiday. September 28th is at the end of the month. So either semesters begin considerably later at the college the student who seems to match with the Ed Snowden we’re talking about tha colleges and universities I’m familiar with, or this college accepted the enrollment of a guy who didn’t have a HS diploma or GED with a very late starting date. In the latter case, an IT faculty or department surely would tell him to wait to begin only with the winter 2005 semester, for he surely would fail the fall semester’s computer courses.
To get accepted for such courses always or very nearly always require good math grades from HS, the last year of it, too. And he says he didn’t poorly in HS and dropped out. So he definitely wouldn’t have the required math grades. He wouldn’t have taken or completed the courses.
And he tells The Guardian that he got his GED, tells the Post that he didn’t, plus doesn’t specify when this GED would’ve been obtained, if he ever really did get it. But it shows that he’s “lost his marbles”, for he’s clearly inconsistent and pretends to have worked very professional IT jobs all while having no proof of ever having taken a single computer science course. it’d also be rather non-credible that he could get accepted for CS courses, for these definitely require maths, including more than those from HS.
The first of the two TPM articles also says the following.
Quote:
The NSA
Following his stint in the Army, Snowden got a job working as a security guard for one of the NSA’s secret facilities at the University of Maryland, Snowden told The Guardian.
The CIA
From that NSA job, Snowden moved on to the Central Intelligence Agency. He worked on IT security and, according to The Guardian, “His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.”
End quote
That statement from The Guardian for explaining that Snowden was supposedly qualified for the IT jobs he claims to have had at the CIA and NSA is a JOKE. It’s laughable.
Was he even qualified to get a security guard job at the NSA? How? Based on what training and experience? Parking lot attendant, maybe, but security guard, at the NSA? If he had successfully completed his Special Forces bootcamp training, then maybe, but he clearly didn’t complete this. Even this security guard job seems questionable to me.
Anyway, he’s proven to be inconsistent with his story and withholds information that should be super easy to provide.
A correction:
Maybe more than one correction is needed in my comment, above, but I’ll refer to one.
Whererin I wrote, “Such a person normally should even be invited …”, in the following paragraph, the sentence should begin, “Such a person normally should never even be invited …”.
Full paragraph, quote:
“We have no proof of him having ever taken a single computer course and that he at best had only a HS GED, but we’re asked to believe that someone like this could ever possibly and truly pass an interview for jobs like these IT ones he definitely claimed to have? Such a person normally should even be invited for a first interview; definitely not for these types of jobs.”
“If you believe that, I’ve got beachfront condos for sale on Jupiter.”
Ok. How much do you want for the condo? I’ll pay you in FRNs.
Of COURSE it is possible to walk out of there with the files. It depends on what type of tech job he had. Certain tech jobs provide access to passwords, encryption code keys, archived data, infrastructure, active datasets — all in one job especially if one is called to troubleshoot problems.. Also there may have been true indifference from full-timers re any concerns raised by a mere lowly “contractor.” Management full-timers would have been unlikely to pay him any serious attention except if he were presenting them with an opportunity to climb even higher within the morass masquerading as “upper management.” He’d be perceived a bit like a lone flea jumping around the ears of a big dog – a nuisance that isn’t even worth the energy to swat.
You seem to forget that we have a fat, slothful, INCOMPETENT federal bureaucracy destroying America. It would be like taking candy from a 2 yr old to breach whatever protocols may be in place on the INSIDE, once you’re in and technically competent. As for talking to “superiors,” what probably happened there is what happens in more so-called major corporations than you might care to credit – namely “The Peter Principle.”: He probably knew far more about what was really going on organizationally in regards system files and data stores than any of the incompetents “supervising” him.
I don’t know who Snowden is or who put him up to what he did. What I do know is it takes courage to stand up in front of an entire world knowing full well that one will likely provoke the reaction he has from so many “whistleblowers” and “truth speakers” who no longer believe that anyone, anywhere could actually act from principle – without regard to cost.
One problem with that theory:
” Compartmentalization. ”
The ONLY folks who would have such a wide view of the amount of knowledge accumulated by the NSA and ANY of its contractors would be the folks at the very top. Very few of the “foot-soldiers” would ever be permitted to know more than the specifics from his particular job. – The military also practices much compartmentalization of information on virtually ALL operationally-sensitive info, as do most government agencies.
So I definitely have a very hard time believing that ONE lowly contractor employee (of only four years’ employment) could ever make off with so much data about the NSA and many of its current operations. – That is hard for me to swallow.
Pure speculation on your part. You’ve worked at the NSA I presume?
So you are saying compartmentalization never happens? – There you are sadly mistaken. Compartmentalization even has its own security clearance: S.C.I. (“Sensitive and Compartmentalized Information”)
Also,
Since WHEN do newly-hired folks to any defense/security-related activity get total access to information within the first few years of their job??? – NONE that I am aware of.
Also,
ANY well-established firm or organization is going to have multiple, over-laying checks and balances on access to any sensitive information AND hardware. This is to PREVENT unauthorized access and disclosure to unauthorized parties any sensitive information and hardware!
AND, NO – I have never had anything to do with the NSA. I have no degree and have not rened a clearance since I left the service (military). – So, the speculation is from YOU.
What I have stated is from commonsense and a bit of knowledge on history, to include that of these various agencies. If you have been alive long enough, and have a fair-to-decent memory of those events you lived through, then the rest is, shall we say, “academic”.
According to the opinion of Webster Tarpley they pulled off a striptease: (not a quote, my phrase) “Let them see what there is, but don’t let them get the real thing. And we leave our hats on.” (Joe Cocker) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDR2fXoHdQw ;o)
Indeed, IMHO it is reasonable to assume the NSA knows how propaganda works..
Thank you for this scenario. It is certainly more believable than the official Snowden myth. I’ll humbly offer that the reality may be even simpler. The NSA, the CIA, and the U.S. congress report to the same people, namely the elusive but demonstrably real malevolent oligarchy that has successfully turned the entire world into Plato’s cave. Snowden’s strings may simply go up to those global Platonic Masters.
After all, these global Platonic Masters need to worry people about problems other than their activities. Snowden, perhaps as a useful idiot, perhaps as a smart professional obfuscator acting from a script, has multiple advantages:
* people are distracted away from finding their existence
* discerning political activists are distracted into some other work than dismantling the global Platonic theater
* Snowden creates wedge issues all around the globe, as politicians and otherwise discerning political activists take sides against each other over an issue that is only one manifestation of the global organized information manipulation.
Love,
I always believe the effect explains the cause. Has the NSA had its wings clipped? Has the CIA been the big budget winner? It seems Snowden has been tied to Russia, and the National Security State has been rationalized and approved.
Everyone is Brain dead as usual. Brain washed by the MSM who keeps on showing Snowden(Snowed in? Catch 22??) what?
The guy is CIA he never left CIA. He dropped out of Highschool then joined the CIA then used lowest security software to steal NSA files? Yea I have Condos on all nine Planets!
Listen Snowden is like WikiLeads, BS! You have to be able to see the patterns the Protests of CIA and Mossad’s works, Arab Spring etc.
go here http://www.tomatobubble.com read up on Edward Snowden the great Hero of brainwashing people to except NSA. that’s called backwards psychology Folks!
Uh NO!
Was only an employee of a contractor to the NSA. If he was somehow being used by the CIA against the NSA (for some weird, unexplained reason), that may be the case.
If he was truly trying to be heroic, boy is he one very, very lucky guy! Most of the REAL heroes ended up dead, and most of their collected info usually disappeared.
Completely false. Thomas Drake, William Binney, Ed Loomis and J. Kirk Weibe all worked for the NSA and all went through the “proper channels” to report problems with Project Trailblazer and NSA overreach. They all came forward as whistleblowers and filed a DOD General Inspector report. When nothing happened, Drake started leaking info to the media. The FBI raided their homes at gunpoint, but no charges were laid. Only Drake was charged under the Espionage Act. They weren’t killed. They did however, all lose their jobs.
Brad,
Snowden was a CONTRACTOR under Booz-Allen, and paid by Booz-Allen. Plus, Snowden did not work this job for very long. Mr. Drake, Mr. Binney, Mr. Loomis, and Mr. Weibe all worked for YEARS on the job, and slowly progessed to those higher-levels of trust within the organization(s).
Edward Snowden’s stories have some room for serious doubts as to their accuracy and authenticity. Perhaps he may feel he is doing something humanitarian, but his story does not add up!
– Plus,
I said “MOST”, not all! So please stop reading into my remarks those things I did not say!
Plus,
Snowden “appears” to have “made of with” far more complete details of the intelligence operations (most of which were already out in the oublic domain, if one were to spend some time looking around, carefully).
Plus,
What about the “unsung heroes” who WERE killed (died under mysterious circumstances) who once worked for one or more of these agencies/organizations? – Any bother to try and find out what they knew or were trying to tell the public? When you see “a trail of bodies” surrounding an issue, agency, organization, or even a (so-called) “VIP”, does that not make you take notice? – Or do you just, like most, turn away from it and accept the establishment’s explanation of things?
Does THIS sound like something coming from someone who has worked as a government-paid “super-spook” or other intelligence contractor???
FAIL!
Try again!
[…]
Co-workers at Booze Allen described Snowden as something of a “genius” and they corroborate his wide security clearances. He was even offered a job directly with the NSA’s elite team known as Tailored Access Operations, but turned it down to join Booze Allen.http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/12/16/an-nsa-coworker-remembers-the-real-edward-snowden-a-genius-among-geniuses/ So, no, there is no reason to seriously doubt Snowden’s security clearances.
Yes, Drake, Binney, Loomis and Weibe all worked directly for the NSA. Snowden was a contractor. That has no bearing on how severe the punishment would be for divulging information. In fact, if anything, one could reasonably assume that if someone worked directly for an agency they might be punished more severely. At no time, however, did Drake, Binney, Loomis or Weibe fear for their lives. They did fear long imprisonment. Now, in order to know that “most” unsung heroes were killed, you’d need to know the total amount of unsung heroes. So please kindly provide a source for your original number of unsung heroes, then a source citing the number of heroes who were actually killed. Yeah, didn’t think so.
Rappaport tries to make Snowden’s story out to be some sort of conspiracy theory involving a turf war between the FBI, CIA and NSA. Of all possible explanations, this seems to be the least likely, especially given the absolute zero evidence provided. And the fact that no such turf war has ever been associated with previous whistleblowers like Drake, Binney, Loomis, Weibe or Mark Klein (AT&T).
And the answer still is Impeach Obama!
Is such practical action to deal with the entire crisis proscribed in this article?
Many people seem to have the need for a surrogate ‘Mommy’/’Daddy’ to care for them, protect them, and tell them what to do. They never get beyond the child stage when it comes to thinking for themselves. Perhaps this partially explains the need for ‘heroes’.
And when a possible ‘hero’ comes along, many jump on board uncritically. Those who question the situation are as unwelcome as the kid who first mentioned that Santa Claus was actually your parents.
As for Snowden, – – – as Jon has pointed out – – – something just doesn’t add up. I don’t know who/what he is. The “high school drop out working for the NSA” story sounds thin, yet that also means the “double agent (purposely or not) working for the CIA” would likely also be as thin a story.
Who is that guy ?
ref:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/
Do you think that the executives and board members of the top 20 transnational corporations want the NSA off their backs?
1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC (holding company for Wal-Mart heirs)
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
Do you think that the executives and board members of the top 20 transnational corporations use encrypted cell phones?
If yes, then could this be their “go to” (Israeli) encryption vender?
https://www.gold-lock.com/
http://www.goldlockgroup.com/
If it’s not Gold Lock ™
Someone may be listening.
Ah, forgot,…
While the “gold lock” cellular encryption system defintely encrypts the content of the trasmission, there is nothing that can reasonably be done about protecting the “meta data”, correct? The NSA can still easily scoop up the “meta data” on the top transnationals, correct?
So, if there is a rash of (encrypted) calls all of a sudden between two transnational corporations — at their highest levels (where NSA’s history log shows that these to corporations usually don’t communicate direclty that much), then there is a high probability that that means something significant. Like possibly a pending merger, for example.
These companies are most likely benefiting from all of the spying!
Even Echelon’s main focus was for industrial espionage.
The general surveyance threatens the rich too and leaves everybody vulnerable to blackmail. The rich dont want to be under the eyes of some (in their eyes) cheap average joe agent who might easily destroy his life.I think plenty of people among insiders are pissed off by these orwellian developments. Snowden — like Jon Rappoport and Webster Tarpley and many others have observed, may very likely have been setup and used as a conveyor of limited hangout, but dont assume that the insiders like whats going on. This has gone too far for everybody except the psychopaths but there arent just psychopaths among intelligence personnel.
Nothing — nothing — is more important than [politically] bringing down […] the NSA [a notch or two]. If it’s done by the CIA, Wall Street banksters or GOP, so what. The NSA is an evil beyond comprehension […].
[…] I wrote a piece titled, “Is Edward Snowden lying?” It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when […]
[…] I wrote a piece titled, “Is Edward Snowden lying?” It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when […]
[…] I wrote a piece titled, “Is Edward Snowden lying?” It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when […]
But, even if you’re right, “SO WHAT?”? The leaked documents, however obtained, are, in fact, genuine; nobody has disputed this, as much as the NSA would like to. They reveal massive constitutional violations against the American people by a corrupt and degenerate irrational security establishment. Whatever led Mr. Snowden to bring them to light, “HALLELEUJAH!” He has done more to tackle the Matrix than all the rantings of all the paranoid Wing Nuts like you over the last 40 years I’ve been watching this stuff. Yes, we knew it all along, but it took Snowden to PROVE it to the public. Support, not derision would be the patriotic way to deal with him. Your [blog posts] just feeds the corruption and legitimizes their lies in defense of the police state.
i agree with you
[…] I wrote a piece titled, “Is Edward Snowden lying?” It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when […]
[…] I wrote a piece titled, “Is Edward Snowden lying?” It laid out a case that Snowden was actually still working for his former employer, the CIA, when […]
[…] Is Edward Snowden lying? by Jon Rappoport […]
[…] Is Edward Snowden lying? […]
[…] Jon Rappoport’s Blog […]
Correspondence with Snowden and senior dissident from US via Snowden’s Moscow lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, show Snowden is still working for CIA, a fake – Snowden himself is confronted with CIA nature of ‘Snowden journalists’ and evidence Snowden is still CIA.
Snowden shows CIA agent non-interest in improving his legal situation; he is not interested in how his NY Times, Guardian tell lies about other dissidents, supported banning and censoring them. Snowden praises his CIA-tied media and the CIA-approved multi-million-dollar-deal Glenn Greenwald, backed by CIA-tied billionaire Pierre Omidyar helping fund US crimes in Ukraine.
This correspondence with Edward Snowden indirectly but cleverly exposes the CIA nature of ‘Operation Snowden’ and ‘Operation Assange’, and the million-dollar CIA journalists that Snowden & Assange praise – ‘Correspondence with Edward Snowden’
http://homment.com/6JkR33pBeJ
Document shared with Snowden in Russia and Assange at Ecuador embassy, with material on bribery of US judges who would put Snowden and Assange on trial – Report to EU police agencies by Edward Snowden’s correspondent, as EU countries begin prosecution of the CIA’s Wikipedia for fundraising fraud – outlines ‘Twenty major techniques of CIA – Wikipedia deception’ –
CIA Wikipedia fraud Finland police report
http://homment.com/FB3PjBQ2DF
‘Operation Snowden’ revelations were just re-hash of what 5-plus previous NSA whistleblowers said, like Russell Tice, who did not have CIA media promotion. So what is ‘Operation Snowden’ purpose?
– (1) CIA goal to smear NSA, a threat to US oligarchs, with ability to inside trade & manipulate finance, as above article suggests;
– (2) give credibility to CIA-tied journalists (Greenwald, Rothschild family’s UK Guardian, New York Times) who can help identify, silence, even help kill other US whistleblowers who contact them, and help sell the CIA’s fake ‘news’ of Guardian-NYT on topics like Syria, Ukraine etc.
– (3) Marginalise all other real dissidents, like Snowden’s correspondent, an expert on US judicial bribery and legal corruption, in favour of CIA-approved ‘dissidents’ like Snowden and Assange
– (4) Terrorise the world with how USA surveillance cannot be avoided.
How do you know that the homment.com pages you provided links for aren’t fraudulent?
[…] you believe Ed Snowden is a hero for our times or a Trojan Horse wheeled into our midst, the deep op is the same: release his files via the slow-drip method, keeping them in the hands of […]
[…] you believe Ed Snowden is a hero for our times or a Trojan Horse wheeled into our midst, the deep op is the same: release his files via the slow-drip method, keeping them in the hands of […]
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[…] at the least, including Dr. Steve Pieczenik, Sibel Edmonds, Daniel Estulin, Kurt Nimmo and Jon Rappoport. I am not trying to take credit ahead of these minds – they have been at this a lot longer […]
[…] Veterans of intelligence work and black operations then made it clear that Snowden was a faux hero who was questionable at the least, including Dr. Steve Pieczenik, Sibel Edmonds, Daniel Estulin, Kurt Nimmo and Jon Rappoport. […]
[…] Veterans of intelligence work and black operations then made it clear that Snowden was a faux hero who was questionable at the least, including Dr. Steve Pieczenik, Sibel Edmonds, Daniel Estulin, Kurt Nimmo and Jon Rappoport. […]
False. Sibel Edmonds has never said questioned Snowden’s legitimacy or the authenticity of the documents.
The question of whether or not what you say is true is not one I can resolve this moment. I have significant reason to believe that you are inaccurate and Snowden is in fact a national hero. Nonetheless since I like facts better than allegations and value on her and character above other things my real question is do you really know the truth?