The Edward Snowden Affair (35 page)

When Feinstein informed her intelligence committee of the LOVEINT violations, she paradoxically assured everyone that “in most instances” the violations didn’t involve American data. Gellman had previously announced, “Some [classified NSA] reports make clear that an unauthorized search produced no records.”
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Placed alongside one another, the contradictory statements suggest XKeyscore and PRISM’s filters do not guard American information from spying eyes. If they did, Feinstein would have had nothing to say to her peers because proper programming would not have allowed American surveillance. Furthermore, there shouldn’t have been a report, because it is permissible to surveil any non-U.S. person, therefore the “instances” which didn’t involve domestic spying would not have been in an issue.

A month later,
⁷³
still under pressure by the media over the
WSJ
’s LOVEINT report, a September 11, 2013 letter from Inspector General George Ellard to the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, was released to the press.
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It is a response to Grassley’s request for answers four days after the WSJ broke the story.

Ellard opens by stating his office is currently conducting two instigations involving violations of misdirected domestic surveillance on past and present love interests and spouses. He was also in the process of reviewing another allegation. He goes on to outline several previous cases. For five years an NSA employee engaged in illicit contact chaining and collected American intelligence on two separate occasions. Another analyst spied on her husband, whom she suspected was having an affair. On the first day on the job, an individual queried the six email addresses of a former girlfriend. His violations went undetected for four days. One analyst, who was employed by the military, surveilled his wife, who was also a soldier. One privacy offender had made it a practice to research phone numbers of individuals whom she’d met at social settings.

Most resigned before investigations were completed. An agent who was found guilty was issued a letter of reprimand. Another received the same along with a 10-day suspension. Ellard admits in one case, “The Agency has been unable to locate records as to whether a referral was made to DoJ [the Department of Justice].” The Inspector General does not report a single instance where criminal charges were filed. The letter states some surveillance attempts found no results because the target was American. In others, domestic data was retrieved and removed. This would support the claim that once domestic information had been inadvertently collected, it is openly available whereas a general public search is protected by automated safeguards.

The day the original LOVEINT report filled headlines, another publication made its editorial debut with Snowden material. The British tabloid
The Independent
presented “UK’s secret Mid-East internet surveillance base is revealed in Edward Snowden leaks”
⁷⁵
on August 23. The article states that the news source had been informed “Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic.” It does so by tapping underwater fiber-optic cables within the region. The data goes to GCHQ, which is then shared with the NSA. The report explicitly declares the “information on its [the station’s] activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden.” It repeats this claim several times throughout the exposé.

There are several oddities within and about the editorial. It was the first of its kind to solely focus upon classified Middle Eastern surveillance activities. Also, after relaying an overview of the purloined data, the article devotes approximately half of its time to
The Guardian
having destroyed its files and “agree[ing] to the Government’s request not to publish any material contained in the Snowden documents that could damage national security.”
The Independent
argues
Süddeutsche
Zeitung having published “Snowden revealed names of spying telecom companies” on August 2, even though “[
The Guardian
] had details of the highly controversial and secret programme for over a month,” was further evidence Snowden’s chosen source had been silenced. The censored news outlet was therefore forced to find another venue for the remaining disclosures. The tabloid incorrectly reports that Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, had been
arrested
on August 18.

The day the story appeared on
The Independent
’s front page, Snowden issued a 150-word statement to
The Guardian
: “I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to
[T]he Independent
. The journalists I have worked with have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that the only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger.” He estimates, “[ … ] the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that
[T]he Guardian and Washington Post
’s disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to
The Independent
and attributing it to others.”

Snowden’s announcement is accompanied by a response from Greenwald. The journalist adds, “[
The Independent
’s report is] the type of disclosure which journalists working directly with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have thus far avoided” and “Speaking for myself, let me make one thing clear: I’m not aware of, nor subject to, any agreement that imposes any limitations of any kind on the reporting that I am doing on these documents.”
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Another pundit acutely observed, “
The Independent
is owned by Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny. Lebedev Senior, a Russian oligarch, is a noted critic of Vladimir Putin. Putin has granted Snowden temporary asylum.”
⁷⁷

Snowden was aware the British government had taken advantage of a new periodical,
The Wall Street Journal
, having recently released classified data. It would appear plausible to the public, especially after
The Guardian
made known that it had destroyed its files, for the muted newspaper to have passed the classified baton to another British news source. Snowden assumes and all indications suggest GCHQ leaked delicate military information to frame
The Guardian
and the NSA leaker. Also, if military personnel were harmed as a result of the disclosure, the British government could better justify its detention of Miranda. The article explicitly states, “One of the areas of concern in Whitehall is that details of the Middle East spying base which could identify its location could enter the public domain. The data-gathering operation is part of a £1bn internet project
still being assembled
[my emphasis] by GCHQ.” Like “the White House,” “Washington” and “the Kremlin,” “Whitehall” is a metonym for British government. The report makes sure to add that satellite dishes reside on the premises.

Britain’s version of the U.S. government’s faux terror threat was a less subtle but much more ingenious media whiteout.
The Guardian
had evoked sympathy by reporting it had been forced to destroy the Snowden files. This also implied the government had something to hide. GCHQ had
The Independent
lay the groundwork to point the finger if GCHQ’s station was attacked. To Britain’s credit, though an English surveillance base in the Middle East wasn’t targeted, it didn’t wag the dog further by evoking or feigning an attack. However, the damage had been done. The implication had been made that Snowden and Co. put Britain at risk.

The Independent
and GCHQ would be caught red-handed in a week. Included in its report is “Information about the project [British intelligence’s station in the Middle East] was contained in 50,000 GCHQ documents that Mr. Snowden downloaded during 2012.” The fact Miranda had been in possession of 58,000 documents would not be released to the press for seven more days.
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The note could have been a complete fabrication which just happened to nearly hit the mark a week later. Until August 30, it was understood there was at most 20,000 files.
⁷⁹
Only the British government knew any different. Not surprisingly,
The Independent
issued its own rendition of the Post’s anti-disclosure editorial on October 13.
⁸⁰

On August 26, Poitras premiered, “Codename ‘Apalachee’: How America Spies on Europe and the UN.”
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It is equal parts follow-up to MacAskill’s June 30 report, “New NSA leaks show how US is bugging its European allies” and Greenwald’s July 8 article, “NSA and CIA have maintained staff in Brasilia to collect satellite data,” atop a general mishmash of miscellaneous data much like her July 1 review of NSA surveillance, “How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe.” The editorial’s exacting detail and description of particular surveillance practices is fascinating.

“Apalachee” is the code name for the U.N. offices in New York. “Magothy” is the American surveillance label for the EU Embassy in Washington. Two months before, MacAskill only mentioned that the NSA had blueprints for the U.N.’s 31
^st
floor offices. Poitras includes them in her report. Interestingly, the two consulates are not monitored domestically. They are surveilled by NSA analysts and technicians in Brussels. The spying is made easier by both embassies being linked through a VPN, which affords the NSA certain technological advantages. One NSA employee reported, “If we lose access to one site, we can immediately regain it by riding the VPN to the other side and punching a whole (sic) out. We have done this several times when we got locked out of Magothy.” NSA technicians have also decrypted the U.N.’s internal video teleconferencing system using Blarney. In a three-week period, the number of decrypted messages went from 12 to 458. The documents cited in the report correspond with signed orders for diplomatic espionage by then-U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Frighteningly, the 2009 directive included the surveillance of biometrics. Biometric spying uses highly advanced technology to catalog a person’s physiological characteristics. This includes facial, voice and retinal recognition.

Poitras goes on to mention that the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is surveilled by American intelligence, Blarney produces 11,000 pieces of data a year, before citing two previously unknown program names: “Dancingoasis” and “Rampart-T.” The latter has been in operation since 1991 and its objective is “penetration of hard targets at or near the leadership level” or, in laymen’s terms, it is being used to spy on 20 different world leaders. Like Lithium, little is known about Dancingoasis.

As with her August 5 exposé, “Mass Data: Transfers from Germany Aid US Surveillance,” Poitras provides enough new information for a reader to connect the dots. In “Apalachee” she notes that the NSA monitors U.S. offices from abroad. In “Mass Data,” she relays that the NSA abides by the surveillance laws of the nation in which it is stationed. She makes a point to reiterate it is legal for intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on foreign communications in “How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe” on July 1. Echoing the purported American practice of extraordinary rendition, wherein authorities transport a suspected criminal to a foreign country whose criminal justice laws are more lenient so harsher interrogation techniques can be used, Poitras’ note forces the question of whether the NSA is surveilling its own country from abroad so that it may legally spy on its citizens.

Two days later
Süddeutsche Zeitung
and NGB added to the international conspiracy with “British Officials Have Far-Reaching Access to Internet and Telephone Communications.”
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Like Poitras’ article, the German new sources continue where they had previously left off, “Britain Draws from German Internet.” Having revealed that the international fiber-optic line TAT-14 was tapped by GCHQ, the German media goes on to report that other primary distribution cables are under British surveillance: Atlantic Crossing 1, Circe North, Circe South, Flag Atlantic-1, Flag Europa-Asia, Sea-Me-We 3 and Sea-Me-We4, Solas, UK France 3, UK Netherlands-14, Ulysses, Yellow and the Pan European Crossing. For German readers, the new concern was Sea-Me-We 3 and AC-1, which rest on native soil. More alarmingly, the German portion of Sea-Me-We 3 is owned by Telekom which, predictably, denied any knowledge of its communications being watched. Interestingly, one of the communications providers previously implicated in the English spying conspiracy, British Telecommunications, is reported to have designed some of GCHQ’s surveillance hardware and software.

Though GCHQ had probably issued a report by this time to the NSA about what had been found in Miranda’s possession, there was no proof there was not more. The intelligence community continued to investigate. By August 29 it felt confident enough to announce it was getting closer to answers of how Snowden managed to acquire the monumental amount of data that even he didn’t have the authority to access. An anonymous former U.S. official who was familiar with the investigation relayed to NBS News, “Every day, they [intelligence officials] are learning how brilliant he [Snowden] was. This is why you don’t hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble.”
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Senator Feinstein had told reporters in late June she’d been informed Snowden had stolen approximately 200 documents.
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Two months later, after the number had risen to 20,000, then skyrocketed to 58,000, the NSA admitted it was still unable to determine exactly what the whistleblower had pilfered. But the agency had discovered one method he’d used. Snowden had learned his lesson from his first futile attempts to access highly classified files when he was with the CIA and Dell. Instead of trying to steal them himself, he stole them as someone else: Snowden had gained access by borrowing other NSA employees’ identities. As a system administrator, he had the ability to create and modify user accounts. The whistleblower cherry-picked who he wanted to be and with what level clearance. The ongoing forensic investigation revealed he had used other personnel’s accounts when they were on vacation or called in sick so as not to arouse suspicion. It also saved him the trouble of having to remove his electronic footprint afterward. The anonymous source stated, “The damage, on a scale of 1 to 10, is a 12.”
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By December, the NSA would admit to
60 Minutes
that the actual number of stolen items was closer to 1.7 million.
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