Another Piece of the Snowden-NSA Leaks Puzzle Falls into Place
Posted: June 13, 2013 Filed under: Crime, NSA, National Security Agency, open thread, U.S. Politics | Tags: campaign donations, classified documents, domestic spying, Edward Snowden, Ken Dilanian, Ron Paul, The Guardian 49 Comments
64 Gigabyte thumb drive
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place this morning when Ken Dilanian of the LA Times broke the news that Edward Snowden somehow managed to save stolen data on a thumb drive and walk out of the NSA facility in Hawaii with it.
Former National Security Agency contract employee Edward Snowden used a computer thumb drive to smuggle highly classified documents out of an NSA facility in Hawaii, using a portable digital device supposedly barred inside the cyber spying agency, U.S. officials said.
Investigators “know how many documents he downloaded and what server he took them from,” said one official who would not be named while speaking about the ongoing investigation.
Snowden worked as a system administrator, a technical job that gave him wide access to NSA computer networks and presumably a keen understanding of how those networks are monitored for unauthorized downloads.
On Tuesday the Guardian reported that Snowden arrived at Hong Kong airport carrying four laptops. From the article:
As he pulled a small black suitcase and carried a selection of laptop bags over his shoulders, no one would have paid much attention to Ed Snowden as he arrived at Hong Kong International Airport. But Snowden was not your average tourist or businessman. In all, he was carrying four computers that enabled him to gain access to some of the US government’s most highly-classified secrets.
This led a number of security experts to wonder if Snowden had absconded with four NSA computers, which would have been an incredible security failure for the agency. It’s not clear why the Guardian focused on these computers as carrying the stolen classified secrets, but the Guardian’s reporting on this story has so far been flawed by misinformation–perhaps because of a lack of understanding of the relevant technology.
Back to the LA Times article:
Officials said they still don’t know how Snowden got access to an order marked “Top Secret” from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or a highly-classified directive from President Obama authorizing a military target list for cyber attacks. Neither document would be widely shared, or normally available to a low-level NSA employee.
A larger number of NSA employees and contractors might have access to a PowerPoint slide show on PRISM, which uses online data from nine U.S. Internet and technology companies. Snowden said he provided the slides to the Washington Post and The Guardian.
There is another disturbing aspect to Snowden’s actions that is still mysterious. When did he decide to steal the data and when did he begin copying the classified documents? We know that Snowden first contacted journalist and film-maker Laura Poitras in January 2013, and he contacted Glenn Greenwald in February.
But Snowden did not begin working for Booz Allen Hamilton as an NSA contractor until either late March; because when Booz Allen fired him on June 10, they stated that Snowden had worked for them for less than 3 months. This strongly suggests that Snowden deliberately too the job with Booz Allen in order to steal government secrets.
In March of 2012, Snowden was apparently working for Dell, because there is a record of his donating $250 to Ron Paul’s campaign as a Dell employee living at an address in Maryland. When he gave an additional $250 to Paul in May 2012, he gave an address in Waipahu, Hawaii and listed his occupation as “Senior Advisor,” with no employer noted. So what was Snowden doing between May 2012 and March 2012 when he went to work as an NSA contractor for Booz Allen?
I guess we’ll find out eventually. Stay tuned.
This is an open thread.
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
If you’re an IT whiz and you’re looking for a job, Booz Allen has an opening in Hawaii, and you don’t even need a college degree to qualify.
Between May 2012 and March 2013, I wonder if he worked for Dell in Hawaii? Apparenyly they can’t or won’t say.
I never thought of that. But he didn’t name his employer in May, we know that much.
He could have been unemployed?
Yes. That means he preplanned what he would do when he got the job–screw his employer. Except how many unemployed people move to Hawaii with no income?
Nobody I know but maybe he followed his girlfriend to Hawaii?
Maybe. That would mean he did it knowing he was going to dump her too. Nice guy.
Oh well that’s just priceless….
His job was posted before he left. Mayne he was flunking a probationary period for new employees?
One of those links says the job was posted on June 10. The other says May 22. He flew out of Hawaii on June 20. It’s not clear when he left the job. But it could be they knew he wasn’t coming back. He’s lied about other things.
The most interesting thing to me is his time at Dell. Why did he leave there?
I was about to quote that. The posting was May 22nd! Very interesting
Maybe he was fired from both Dell and Booz Allen. But he had already planned to leak the documents before he went to work for Booz Allen…
Eventually I expect it to come out, like his “administrative discharge” from the Army.
From 2010 — Seymour Hersh on the thumb drive issue and why the Pentagon and NSA banned them.
It’s just a plug and play USB drive, 4 laptops is 3 more than needed. unless he was dividing up the data to parcel it out some way.
I don’t know what kind of thumb drive he used. It would have to be a big one if he copied thousands of documents, as Greenwald claims. But could he have needed computers to steal the software?
I have a 65 gig thumb drive that’s smaller than one of those mini throw away lighters It’s 2 inches long and.5 in wide and very thin, with the cap in place..
64 not 65, typo.
One dead, sixty-four injured in that LA chemical plant explosion.
US fears Snowden will defect to China.
That might not be so good for Glenn Greenwald’s career.
That is one pithy story. It’s just full of things that contradict what he told the Guardian about his life.
This is weird:
I read that and don’t know what to make of it but Dell was taken private recently and the new owners may be going bonkers./
This says a hell of a lot about the state of the Congress. All the Senators were invited to that big classified briefing today and only 47 attended. I guess the rest would rather keep speaking from ignorance. Lazy asshats!
OMG! Someone I know works for a large bank. A bank. And he told me that he could not insert a thumb drive into his computer if he wanted to. They modified all hardware so that it is impossible. But somebody can stroll off with NSA data with one?!?! WTF?
WTF is an appropriate question 😉 Wonder if those satellite offices like Hawaii are run like McHale’s Navy?
Did they get rid of Bluetooth syncing as well?
I would assume so. You can’t have thousands of employees with the ability to access people’s bank and credit card accounts.
Rick Perlstein: Glenn Greenwald’s ‘Epic Botch’?
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174783/glenn-greenwalds-epic-botch#axzz2W8iG1qFe
Yep. And how do we know the rest of the story is accurate? Someone else at the Guardian should this all over.
My fingers are metaphorically in my ears at this point. We don’t know if that or the ABC story is are coercive tactics. I did like the last paragraph though.
Here is the refresher course from Salon:
http://www.salon.com/2007/09/27/dan_rather_suit/
LIke Rather wanted, I don’t believe we will have real good answers until this thing is taken to court, and maybe not then.
Our former IT guy went to work in the IT dept of Universal Studios. As soon as he was hired he had access to every password in the company – financials, the prez of the company, etc. Their IT guys have to fix any piece of hardware that breaks down, from desktops to inventory scanners, to turnstiles etc. Seems to me that Booz Allen must have the same lax policy. I wonder if this situation may modify the whole outside contractor “anti-terrorism” setup/contracts. I’m convinced Snowden planned to defect all along. From your post last night about Snowden’s online comments/presence he came across, to me at least, as a self promoting, self aggrandizing, self serving narcissist. I personally don’t think he’s grown a conscience or of doing something for noble and/or ethical reasons. Maybe this whole fiasco will out libertarians for the schmucks they truly are. How I would love to wave bye-bye to the creepy libertarians populating DC & the airwaves & media.
If Booz Allen had that kind of policy they should never get another contract! May be a good idea anyway.
Snowden was working in the NSA facility though, so he would be working under NSA rules.
Lawmakers planning bill to limit contractor access to NSA secrets
Thats good.
Yes, let’s close that barn door now that the horses have left the building! I wonder just how many elected officials would pass a common sense test.
CNN: White House pushes back at Bill Clinton over Syria
[…Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reportedly pushed for a greater U.S. role in Syria during her tenure as top diplomat, but opposing viewpoints eventually outweighed that stance….]
Words that make the NSA think you’re a terrorist.
http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-prism-keywords-for-domestic-spying-2013-6
That’s a really old list 🙂
“Defense Information Warfare” or Defense AND Information AND Warfare, or, Defense, Information, Warfare, or Defense Information Warfare, or defense information warfare? I wanna know what to put on my tag lines.
Bill Scher: The liberal case for high-tech NSA surveillance
How Did He Get Clearance?
Even though he washed out, wonder if that’s true?
5 ways NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s story isn’t holding up
This iws just his personal story.
The girlfriend wrote in her diary that they were moving into a house a couple of blocks from the old one.