How time flies; how situations change. A few years ago, America's most wanted was a certain bearded man - a daredevil terrorist. Today, the most wanted is one without a blood stain - a nerdy, smart looking geek who until a few months ago was a faithful servant of the NSA. He was not an aggrieved old man; he was a young man, one that the Guardian columnist, Glen Greenwald at first sight described as "barely old enough to shave". Edward Snowden. The revelations made by him shook the foundations of the intelligence community. From Fort Meade, headquarters of the NSA (National Security Agency) to the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in the English country side, there was pandemonium. The once impregnable NSA has been stripped bare by Snowden. Embarrassment was an understatement.
How time flies; how situations change. A few years ago, America's most wanted was a certain bearded man - a daredevil terrorist. Today, the most wanted is one without a blood stain - a nerdy, smart looking geek who until a few months ago was a faithful servant of the NSA. He was not an aggrieved old man; he was a young man, one that the Guardian columnist, Glen Greenwald at first sight described as "barely old enough to shave". Edward Snowden. The revelations made by him shook the foundations of the intelligence community. From Fort Meade, headquarters of the NSA (National Security Agency) to the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) in the English country side, there was pandemonium. The once impregnable NSA has been stripped bare by Snowden. Embarrassment was an understatement.
In this compelling account published few weeks back (in February 2014), the author, Luke Harding, traces Snowden's early days from his dropout from college to his unsuccessful stint with the US Army. Snowden metamorphosed from the IT newbie codenamed “TheTrueHOOHA” who later worked diligently with the CIA and the NSA to the computer geek and disgruntled “Verax” (later codename) eager to spill classified information to any listening ear. The reader would never have imagined a Snowden who a few years back showed great disdain for officials who leaked classified information. Only in 2009, Snowden described the leakage of classified information to the New York Times as the “worst crime conceivable”. He even prescribed a punishment for the culpable: “they should be shot in the balls”. Today, his own balls are securely kept by the Kremlin in Russia, yet he committed the “worst crime conceivable”. He has become what the late Nigerian Afro musician Fela called “Basketmouth” and he’s been leaking all over.
What could have been responsible for this sharp metamorphosis? According to the author, there was no decisive moment; there was no special incident on the road to Damascus. Snowden has over the years been exposed to several secret operations which he felt threatened the core of America’s founding ideals. He believed the NSA was violating the rights of Americans. To Snowden, the NSA was clearly breaching the 4th amendment (which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures against American citizens without a warrant). He saw it a patriotic duty to reveal so it can stop. As he said, “I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded…”. There are only very few who will fault things from this stand point.
Snowden had come to the point where he was convinced of what he wanted to do. The book recounts how he had grown in skill and rose to the level he wanted. He was “one of around 1,000 NSA ‘sysadmins’ allowed to look at the many parts of this system. He could open a file without leaving a trace.” Because of the high level collaboration between NSA and GCHQ, Snowden could also access British files. He had a world of classified files at his disposal.
“I have some stuff you might be interested in” and “I am a senior member of the intelligence community. This won’t be a waste of your time…” These were the first lines sent by Snowden to Greenwald and Laura Poitras respectively. Amidst the expected initial doubts, these two would turn out to be the first outlet for Snowden’s story. The revelations were chilling: They were tapping fibre optic cables and telephony landing points around the world; There was the alleged top secret Presidential Policy Directive 20, alleging that Obama had “secretly ordered his senior national and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber attacks. If the revelation of Snowden that US spied on adversaries like China, Russia, etc can be understood, how then do you explain the spy operations on allies and friendly countries? How do you explain the allegations that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had her phone bugged for about a decade by the NSA?
Privacy was under attack; they had invaded everything left of the world. The author mentions several programs both pre and post 9/11 that threatened the privacy of Americans – From President Nixon’s MANARET in the 70s where phones of those he didn’t like were tapped to George Bush’s STELLAR WIND that ensured warrantless surveillance. They compelled telecommunications companies to provide metadata of all calls. The author also looked at legislative issues such as the Fiscal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978; the “business records provision” in the Patriot act, giving the government “power to compel businesses to turn over items ‘relevant’ to an ‘ongoing’ terrorism investigation; the FISA Amendment Act (FAA 2008) that “legalized and blessed any communication interception between an American and a foreigner (who does not necessarily have to be a terror suspect); the US espionage act drafted during the 1st world war that made it a crime to "furnish, transmit or communicate" US intelligence information to a foreign government.
The book is filled with lots of allegations by Snowden that must have caused the NSA great embarrassment. The secret court order compelling Verizon to pass on all call records to the NSA is one example. This court order "gave the US administration unlimited authority to suck up telephone metadata for a 90-day period." This, not minding whether the citizen is being investigated or not. There was also the allegation that big corporations like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc all signed up to a secret program called PRISM that would allow NSA access to their servers. There was also the OCEO (Offensive Cyber Effects Operations) program; a top secret program ordered by President Obama that drew up a list of overseas targets for offensive US cyber attacks. This was the very thing the US accused China of doing. Was it a case of outright hypocrisy? The embarrassment was not exclusive to the US, the UK had their fair share. The leaks alleged that the PM David Brown and foreign secretary David Miliband authorised the spying of foreign leaders at two G20 summit held in London in 2009. There was also an x-ray of the extent of collaboration between the NSA and GCHQ.
The book highlights the diplomatic row that ensued, following Snowden’s revelations and his attempt to escape arrest. Snowden’s application for asylum, the forced landing of the aircraft conveying the Bolivian President, Russia’s defiance of American threat and the eventual granting of asylum to Snowden. Russia, as usual saw this as an opportunity to flex muscles with the US. Putin, himself a former spy chief, was said to have referred to Snowden as an “unwanted Christmas gift”. Today, Snowden continues to cool off under the watch of the Kremlin.
Written by a Guardian correspondent and published by Guardian Books, the author seems to echo views reflective of the ideals and position of the paper, especially their role in the whole Snowden imbroglio. This to some, might be seen as not dispassionate and exhaustive enough. The author also recounted the difficult position they (Guardian) found themselves in. Were they ready to publish the Snowden story and risk incurring the wrath of The White House, CIA, NSA, FBI and the State Department? It’s now history, they took the risk; the story was published! Now, this book!
The book also contains other details you won’t expect – Snowden’s love for women, his foreign posting, his fascination about how "Nigerians mastered Switzerland's many languages", his love for martial arts, his love for Japan, etc. Written with fluidity and in a clear and lucid language, the book reads like an intriguing spy thriller in the first half; something the author failed to sustain in the second half of the book, but understandably so considering the nature of what was being conveyed. The book is divided into 14 chapters, with a forward written by Alan Rusbridger, the Editor-in-Chief, Guardian London. As expected, the book is filled with lots of acronyms, codenames and intelligence jargons; however, the author did a pretty good job stitching it together unambiguously. For a computer engineer like me, this book was some kind of light refresher (at least on the literary side) on the modern trends in digital cryptography and information security, and how it is applied in the espionage world.
The Snowden case has left us with a difficult decision. The NSA and their counterparts will tell you they do what they do for national security, Snowden and other whistle blowers claim they are doing their patriotic duty by ensuring the sanctity of the constitution as it relates to citizens privacy. But, do you enforce this sanctity through another illegality? Would you continue to leak information that could jeopardize the very core of your national security and endanger lives of operatives, and insist it's patriotic? Should the NSA and the likes continue to rip citizen's privacy apart in the name of national security? Should citizens allow the NSA to become the Big Brother of the world? The fact remains that we must establish a midpoint between national security and privacy. We must find that balance and sustain it.
The Snowden case lingers, so do the questions. What could have made a young man become so disgruntled so as to put his country in such an embarrassing stead? Attention Seeking? Narcissm? Hypocrisy? Self righteousness? Or good old patriotism? Whatever it is, time will tell. The truth is, Snowden will continue to divide opinion. One thing you cannot take away is his courage and his genius. Through this act of his, he has altered the equation – rightly or wrongly (again, time will tell). Things will never be the same again; he has carried out the biggest leak in US intelligence history. I do not know what his motivation is, but “TheTrueHOOHA” may have had his moment of Hoo-ha! That said, I don't envy America. Like the Chinese would say, these are “interesting times”.
R. Tombari Sibe writes in from Port Harcourt. He tweets as @rsibe
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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