Snowden’s story: how much veracity is there in “Verax”?
Let me get one thing completely cleared up at the outset of this post: the NSA data-collection story is important. Vitally important. The program exists, and we need to know more about how it works, and whether it is (or should or should not be) legal and constitutional. Those discussions are ongoing in the MSM, the blogs, the airwaves, the posts and comment sections here, and perhaps at your dinner table or local bar.
But I’ve turned the focus on Snowden himself the last few days because the messenger is part of the news, and part of the attempt to understand the program and what was actually done (and what could have been done) under its auspices. Something about his story and his general veracity (not the authenticity of the documents; I have not questioned those) seems fishy. And his veracity matters, because part of the question is why he did this, whose interests he might be serving, and whether his description of other elements of the NSA program (those that have not been independently verified) are likely to be true or false.
What were Snowden’s actual tasks at Booz? He makes some pretty dramatic claims that, if true, are shocking. He says he had access to all the sensitive information and that he “certainly had the authorities [sic] to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email.” But were those things part of his official duties and responsibilities in his work for the NSA data program? Is that what he meant by “authority” (or “authorities”)? Or is he speaking of hacking? Was he actually ordered to do this by his superiors, and if so did he do it? Or is he merely claiming he could have done it had he wanted to, because he’s a skillful computer guy who had access to information that would have let him do it?
Snowden also claimed he made a salary of $200,000, but Booz has just released a statement that his base salary was in fact $122,000. There might be ways to resolve the discrepancy (bonuses?), but it appears that Snowden misrepresented this fairly minor point. But why? And what does it mean about other things he said, including some of his more incendiary claims such as the one in the above paragraph? That’s more important than the amount of his salary, but we don’t know it was true, either.
I’m no IT person, no computer expert; au contraire. But I find it hard to believe that someone of Snowden’s youth and with Snowden’s lack of training (either military or academic) and relative inexperience was officially given that kind of authority—to wiretap the president with only a personal email address? Really? Of course, if he was, all the more reason to be extremely alarmed by the way the NSA is run, because it would be unconscionable.
Snowden also claimed that he “had full access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world,” and that “he could shut down the entire system in an afternoon if he wanted to.”
I’m very very curious to know—does this sound like the type of power a sort of mid-level IT guy (“infrastructure analyst“) would have had official access to? Or is he saying he could have hacked his way into it? Furthermore, did Snowden offer Greenwald any proof of those things he was claiming (or anything but the documents, for that matter)?
Because the only thing we have to go on for much of this (so far, anyway) is Snowden’s word—and of course the documents he provided (and we don’t know what most of those were, since the majority have not been published, although more are promised by Greenwald). As for Snowden’s job, while it is true that Booz has made a statement that he did indeed work for them for “less than three months” in Hawaii, no other details of his work have been confirmed by them (and the salary amount Snowden gave was contradicted).
So we know that Snowden worked for Booz, almost certainly on computers (although Booz doesn’t even say that, by the way). I haven’t read anything yet that indicates that Glenn Greenwald independently confirmed anything Snowden told him about his life and work history, although Greenwald certainly may have done so. And the time frame indicates that Snowden most likely got that job already intending to get access to the documents and spill them, because reports are that he had already contacted Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras.
But here’s what I consider the strangest thing of all: Snowden also told the Guardian:
…I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building…
On the face of it this is very straightforward and makes sense. But stop to think about it: if the US has the capacity to do this, why would Snowden think the US is alone in having that capacity? Wouldn’t Russia and China and all the other advanced nations of the world with a will to do it (and surely they don’t lack the will) already be doing it also, or about to do it? Why would Snowden think that stopping the US from doing so—even if he were to somehow succeed in that mission—would actually preserve these “basic liberties for people around the world?” The only way to do that would be to smash all the computers on the globe, and even then they would just be built again.
The problem is inherent in the technology. The capacity is there, and people around the world definitely have the will. It’s not just Obama, and it’s not just the US; it’s humanity and society and government itself, both here and abroad. Snowden is a smart man, so I find it difficult to believe he’s so naive as to not understand all of this.
[NOTE: The word “Verax” in the title of this post was the code name Snowden used when he first contacted Greenwald. It means “truth-teller” in Latin.]
[ADDENDUM: William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection is on the same page as I am here, with some interesting further observations as well. Excellent read.]
[ADDENDUM II: With the WaPo haste makes waste. In reporter Gellman’s rush to compete with Greenwald, huge errors are made in the story of the PRISM data. Investigate journalism is worse than dead, it’s a travesty of its former self.]
The amount of damage an IT person can do is largely dependent on the policies of an organization. As a low ranking IT guy I earn considerably less that Snowden. And in the long term there is little I could do that couldn’t be repaired, replaced, restored from backup, or recreated.
However in the short term, (a period of several days to a few weeks), I could do considerable damage to my employer in a relatively short time. And I have access to tons of privileged data should I desire to view it.
My employer is much too lax in my opinion. But having worked in crypto related fields I would be very surprised if the NSA weren’t much more restrictive in what they’d permit individual employees to do.
All very good questions about Snowden and the veracity of his story, neo. Will we learn the answers? Unless the Obama government faces this straight on, I doubt that we will. Since the Obamaites don’t face anything straight on, I guess “Verax” will remain almost as mysterious as Obama himself. “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Where are the code-breakers for our side? They certainly will not be found in the MSM.
why would Snowden think the US is alone in having that capacity?
Because the US has the opportunity to do it, while most of the other countries don’t. Most of the major internet players are US companies. The NSA can legally compel them in ways the other countries cannot.
In fact, in 2010, Google pulled out of China. It’s entirely possible they were being pressured by the Chinese gov to do something similar. But they chose to pull out instead. In contrast, Google cannot pull out of the US.
This entire scandal isn’t the NSA working on it’s own. It’s the NSA forcing companies to provide them with data. No other government has the same leverage.
Egomaniacs like Snowden are really easy to play. Snowden said he had tried to tell co-workers about the problems with massive data collection but was ignored. Just imagine how he would respond if a foreign operative started paying attention to him and fed his ego. Now we know that Russia says he should apply for asylum. China has a weapon to use if we push back on their hacking empire. America suffers from this leak because it is likely to make policy changes based on panic reactions or base political motives, not on a thoughtful assessment of any abuses and effective means to combat them. It also diverts attention away from another big problem, namely how political correctness and overconfidence in massive data collection turn our attention from possibly more effective means of fighting terrorism.
I don’t trust the Obama administration because everything is weighed through political lenses. I suspect we will have more damage control than problem solving, much to the detriment of both our liberty and our security.
One of my on-line hangouts is Rantburg, where a fair number of commenters and contributers have a background in all kinds of arcane arts – like IT, the military, intelligence analysis, and the people with big brains there are kind of wary about Snowdon. There are things that in their experience, just don’t add up. He’s fairly young, and a contract employee, who he went to in order to break his ‘big scoop’ is … curious. (Glenn Greenwald, and the Guardian – the Guardian, whose detestation of all things establishment American is notorious…) The timing is also convenient. I hate to sound so paranoid – but things are getting wierd. I would have put a lot more credit in Snowdon as a whistle-blower if he had been a career intelligence-IT guy with a long career in the intelligence agencies, a fifty-ish bureaucrat finally and absolutely outraged by the perversion that a perfectly viable intelligence-gathering technique has been put to by the current administration.
My daughter (thirty-something two-hitch Marine) is wondering exactly who in higher echelons of power benefits from the news of these revelations, long-term. I wonder – if he wasn’t a plant to begin with,
If you paid Snowden 200k and his associates 122k, that’s the number you’d say you paid him, just to keep peace in the labor force.
Snowden might have claimed 200k just to stir it up, also.
Hawaii is expensive, I would not be surprised if he got a COLA stipend on top of his 122K base salary, quite plausible. Civil servants get one based on location, I would think the contractors do it also.
Great comment, expat. Your input on this issue has, IMO, been very much on point.
“a fifty-ish bureaucrat finally and absolutely outraged by the perversion that a perfectly viable intelligence-gathering technique has been put to by the current administration.”
Older people are more likely to toe the status quo line. If they did not, the NSA would destroy them. Like they did that other guy who talked (but never presented evidence) about NSA surveillance methods.
There are a lot of evidence about Leftist operations which people don’t know about it.
I find it amusing that people are speculating more about Leftist hit jobs now a days, when there is thin to non existent evidence suggesting it, than they were in the past when such things were already history and de-classified.
I wonder if people’s paranoia results from their unsure uncertainty with Leftist methods. They didn’t see it with the Left 1 year or 10 years ago, so they wonder if they are getting set up now by whatever.
That’s not a particularly good strategic position to be in. Always reacting to Leftist antics, real or imagined, while ignoring what else is going on.
If everything is a Leftist or Communist or Chinese or Russian plot, then what was going on in the US 10-30 years ago? 30-60 years ago?
Do people think such things were non existent and did little to no damage to the US?
just to be clear: The “right to privacy” protects the taking of human life through abortion, but not the phone call of the mother who sets the appointment.
thanks Blackmun
“Investigate journalism is worse than dead, it’s a travesty of its former self.”
It’s always been this bad. It was just not that easy to tell because the sources were open and the internet wasn’t around to use data mining or open crowd source analysis.
Weren’t open: correction.