The Edward Snowden Affair

The Edward
Snowden Affair

EXPOSING THE POLITICS AND
MEDIA BEHIND THE NSA SCANDAL

Michael Gurnow

Blue River Press
Indianapolis

www.brpressbooks.com

The Edward Snowden Affair
© 2014 Michael Gurnow

ISBN: 9781935628361

eISBN: 9781935628736

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014930448

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

Cover designed by Phil Velikan
Editorial assistance provided by Dorothy Chambers
Packaged by Wish Publishing

Printed in the United States of America
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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a database or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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For my wife, may your watchful eye remain ever-present

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Though there were many hands that crafted my ability and willingness to undertake this endeavor, I am obligated to pay my respects to a handful in particular.

Before I met Tom Doherty, I didn’t believe laughter within the publication industry could be bilateral. This project might have stagnated if it wasn’t for his humorous reprieves, pragmatic sensibility and level-headed judgment.

To my editors, Dorothy Chambers and Holly Kondras, who are living proof literary alchemists walk among us.

Kelly McDaniel not only taught me how government functioned in theory and actuality, he continues to do so with equal amounts of patience and courage.

My IT knowledge and understanding of technopolitics would be nonexistent if it weren’t for Floyd Lockhart. Our understated, muffled conversations prove endlessly rewarding.

Without the devoted efforts of my IT team—Daniel Ellinghouse, Latham Hunter and the Bushido Chemist—this project would have come to a premature end.

I owe a debt to Timothy Chism for being a very timely second set of eyes.

I would also like to tip my hat to Philip Dorling, author of one of the Snowden disclosure reports, whose willingness to provide a vital puzzle piece helped maintain the consistency of the narrative.

And my wife, who manipulated me into believing I could do this.

Table of Contents

W
ASHINGTON HAD ITS HANDS FULL
. The day before, June 5, a British daily newspaper
The Guardian
revealed that the FBI, with the power of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court behind it, was actively utilizing a provision within the PATRIOT Act. A highly secretive order had been issued requiring one of the world’s largest telecommunication providers, Verizon, to hand over all domestic call records between the dates of April 25 to July 19, 2013. The government was quick to respond as it reassured everyone the content of Verizon users’ calls were not included, merely when and where a call was made, to what number, and on what phones. What the White House conveniently failed to include in its briefing was that the three-month window was not an exception but an ongoing rule: Consecutive extensions had been occurring for the past seven years and, though only hinted at in The
Guardian’s
report, included culled customer information of Verizon’s competitors, AT&T and Sprint. The government was also in the process of accommodating the massive amount of incoming data. It was putting the finishing touches on a $1.5 billion top secret building located in the middle of the Utah desert.

A day later as the American capital attempted to quell the flames which were being fanned by the ACLU, Fourth Amendment advocates and enraged Verizon users, not one but two bombs were dropped. Pulitzer-winning journalist Barton Gellman and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras presented another, albeit much grander, revelation about the U.S. government’s surveillance methods. In a Washington Post article titled, “U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program,” the duo disclosed classified information obtained from an anonymous source which had been extracted from the most enigmatic and secretive organization in America and perhaps the world: the National Security Agency. A few minutes later, an American attorney living in Brazil and the man partially responsible for the Verizon story, Glenn Greenwald, seconded the claim in The
Guardian’s
“NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others.” As the same groups who were up in arms about the previous day’s shocking headlines lunged forward in protest while gaining international support and sympathy from countries around the world, many anticipated this was the tip of the proverbial iceberg and much, much more was taking place behind the security curtain in Fort Meade, Maryland. Yet, as the White House steadfastly backpedaled amid the incessant barrage of questions, one remained unanswered: Where had Greenwald, Gellman and Poitras gotten their information? If history was any guide, the public might never know unless the person responsible was caught, killed or opted to make a deathbed confession.

Three days later, the world would meet Edward Snowden, a former CIA and NSA contractor who had orchestrated the information dump not months but years prior, who had already fled the country and was now holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong. This was the person responsible for, in The
New York Times’
approximation, “The most significant security breach in American history.”

In the months ahead, a worldwide manhunt would ensue as the press continued to dispense piecemeal information about other covert surveillance programs. Democrats and Republicans would find themselves in uneasy agreement. Global demonstrations would take place. World leaders would learn America had been spying on them. A foreign president’s plane would be forbidden safe passage for fear it contained the fugitive. Congress would consider demolishing the foundation upon which democracy was built. In less than two months, after three nations had offered Snowden asylum before the whistleblower accepted temporary sanctuary in Russia, President Barack Obama would appear on national television and unrepentantly announce the former Soviet Union had “slip[ped] back into Cold War thinking and a Cold War mentality.” Amid public discussion on whether Snowden’s actions might become analogous to Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria’s assassination leading to the First World War, desperate to dilute the positive public opinion of the American exile and with the aid of the world’s leading news source, the Capitol would stage a faux global terror threat. It would order bombings half a world away in hopes of wagging the dog.

Washington had its hands very, very full.

I
T IS NO SIMPLE MATTER
to write a book about a trained spy. It is more difficult when that spy goes to great lengths to cover his tracks. It is a whole different monster to attempt to pin down a spy that was so good at keeping in the shadows, he collectively duped the greatest intelligence agencies the world has ever known. To make matters worse, a lot of what could be known about Edward Snowden will remain locked in olive drab filing cabinets. The U.S. government will make sure of that. It will use the excuse his information must remain classified because he worked for the CIA and NSA. However true, his records will also stay tightly sealed because Washington wants the public to know as little as possible about the embarrassing particulars. Needless to say, when I first approached the project, there were a lot of holes and a monumental amount of questions that needed to be answered. Hopefully I have filled some of those gaps, but many remain.

But this is not just a book about Edward Snowden. It is also about the debates his actions created. Though I devote a portion of time explaining the legal, political and technological aspects of the Snowden affair, my primary agenda is to provide the reader with a transcription of the argumentative evolution between the media, U.S. intelligence, the Capitol, corporations and various world leaders and nations. As can be expected, the discussions are often inadvertently—as well as deliberately—vague. This manifested in many conflicting reports and statements made about the whistleblower and the events surrounding him.

I approached divergent evidence with mental due diligence and benefit of the doubt. When deductive reasoning followed by cross-referenced sources and reverse-engineered data failed to produce a satisfactory answer, I reluctantly kowtowed to majority opinion, meaning I relied on the editorial integrity of disassociated fact-checkers in newsrooms across the globe. An example of reverse engineering can be seen in the attempt to determine when Snowden had broken both of his legs during military training. No press report tried to pinpoint when this had taken place, but all the information was there, all a person had to do was count backward. The results of this technique were often rewarding but consistently revealed other unasked questions. Some cases of reconciling opposing data were met with simple solutions. A
South China Morning Post
report fell outside the periodical’s publication pattern. Upon closer examination I realized it housed an erroneous timestamp because a multitude of responses to the report were dated three weeks prior. The same occurred with The
Guardian’s
Boundless Informant exposé. These situations are probably the product of an edit updating an article’s origination date. Automatic updates are the bane of a documentarian and a perpetual problem in the digital age.
SCMP
rectified its error shortly before this work went to press. To the best of my knowledge, at the time of publication all listed and cited dates are consistent with those posted by their representative sources.

Many riddles were solved by placing two books side-byside. When a foreign president’s flight crew reported it didn’t have enough fuel to reach their destination, I called their bluff after conducting a little research on particular airplanes’ fuel capacities while staring at a map. Other instances of irreconcilable information were more demanding because the only available sources were the conflicting reports. This is a frequent dilemma when dealing with newly revealed classified materials whose authors and representatives deny even exist. All one can do is hope additional information will one day be released, but there is no guarantee. Until that time, inductive reasoning is the only compass. For example, an article about a clandestine file stated 2.3 million bits of spy data had been corralled over the course of a decade. Another exposé claimed the same surveillance records had been gathered in a single month. There was no third party to consult, and the primary document was nondescript. I resolved the issue by looking at technological capabilities a decade prior and considering similar numbers in a German report dealing with a comparable espionage method. As always, I discuss how I came to certain conclusions and the methodology used.

However, if an incongruity doggedly persisted and the press’s divide was 70/30 or less, I made the conscientious decision to include and discuss the divergent viewpoints. Also, if a reliable source was the only dissenter, especially if an argument was crafted by those who worked directly with Snowden or his stolen files, I include and annotate the fact. In a few instances, a dependable source contradicted itself. Snowden’s father reported three different timelines for when his son started working in intelligence. Despite two dates being implausible because I could account for Snowden being elsewhere at that time, I nonetheless include the information so others can consider the possibility and, in the event I overlooked or misinterpreted something along the way, rectify my error.

Another challenge in writing this book was, unlike most historical studies, the Snowden Affair has no natural stopping point. It is one of the rare instances in which the conversation may exhaust itself before the events which initiated the debate come to a close. There are two reasons for continuing the discussion after the titular character steps offstage. One, as mentioned, the work is a study of Snowden, the media and the NSA. It would deprive the reader if the book ended with Snowden’s biographical epilogue. Two, Snowden rightfully stated he wants the debate to focus upon modern surveillance policies and practices and not the person who brought them to light. From the present look of things, unless the U.S. government collapses or society suddenly abandons technology, the book—like most—will be a single chapter in a dialogue that spans many volumes. With that said, I chose to end on a thematic high note. For any reader skeptical about whether the surveillance debate should be taken seriously, I ask you read page 254 relating to smartphones.