How America Lost Its Secrets
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whistle-blower Bradley Birkenfeld: David Kocieniewski, “Whistle-Blower Awarded $104 Million by I.R.S.,” New York Times, Sept. 11, 2012.
whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg: Martin Arnold, “Pentagon Papers Charges Are Dismissed,” New York Times, May 11, 1973.
FBI office in Media: Mark Mazzetti, “Burglars Who Took On F.B.I. Abandon Shadows,” New York Times, Jan. 7, 2014.
“treasure trove”: Andrew, The Sword and the Shield, 206.
“It is inconceivable to me”: Former Booz Allen executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
we know that Snowden: Sandvik, “That One Time I Threw a CryptoParty with Edward Snowden.”
The FBI, which was: Senate Intelligence Committee staff member who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“Snowden may have carried out”: Drumheller, interview with author.
As Snowden acknowledges: Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
“absence of evidence”: Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), 49.
“The greatest trick”: Cherkashin, interview with author. The quotation from The Usual Suspects was adopted by the movie from Charles Baudelaire’s observation “La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas.”
CHAPTER 16 The Question of When
“The NSA was actually”: Bamford and De Chant, “Edward Snowden on Cyber Warfare.”
The career of the KGB mole: Bagley, Spy Wars, 46.
A counterespionage review: Member of the PFIAB who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“in that they both used”: Kevin Gosztola, “NSA Inspector General Speaks on Snowden for First Time,” Shadow Proof, Feb. 25, 2014.
KGB major Anatoliy Golitsyn: Bagley, Spy Wars, 6–11.
Wang Lijun: Steven Lee Myers and Mark Landler, “Frenzied Hours for U.S. on Fate of a China Insider,” New York Times, April 17, 2012.
“I think Snowden is”: Vincent Kessler, “Snowden Being Manipulated by Russian Intelligence: Ex-NSA Chief,” Reuters, May 7, 2014.
A former CIA officer: Tyler Drumheller, interview with author.
“It is not statistically improbable”: Former NSA officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“when and how he”: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 296.
“looking to capitalize on”: Transcript of interview with Alexander, Australian Financial Review, May 8, 2014.
“He can compromise thousands”: Carol J. Williams, “NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Seeks Return to U.S. on His Terms,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2015.
“I am still working”: Gellman, “Edward Snowden, After Months of NSA Revelations, Says His Mission’s Accomplished.”
“every facet of Snowden’s communications”: Reitman, “Snowden and Greenwald.”
“his hosts”: Richard Byrne Reilly, “Former KGB General: Snowden Is Cooperating with Russian Intelligence,” VentureBeat, May 22, 2014.
“I would lose all respect”: Richard Byrne Reilly, “Former NSA Director: ‘I Would Lose All Respect for Russia if They Haven’t Fully Exploited Snowden,” VentureBeat, May 23, 2014.
He was put in contact: Kucherena, interview with Der Spiegel, “Snowden’s Lawyer: ‘Russia Will Not Hand Him Over,’ ” Spiegel Online International, June 24, 2013.
“Officially, he is my client”: “Snowden in the Kitchen,” Interpreter, Nov. 18, 2013.
an interview as “great”: Bamford and De Chant, “Edward Snowden on Cyber Warfare.”
Putin’s telethon: Elias Groll, “Snowden Called in to Putin’s Telethon. Does That Really Make Him a Kremlin Pawn?,” Foreign Policy, April 17, 2014.
CHAPTER 17 The Keys to the Kingdom Are Missing
“There’s a zero percent chance”: Risen, “Snowden Says He Took No Secret Files to Russia.”
“the instruction manual”: Glenn Greenwald, “ ‘Guardian’ Journalist: Snowden Docs Contain NSA ‘Blueprint,’ ” USA Today, June 15, 2013.
“a heart attack”: Citizenfour.
“keys to the kingdom”: Walter Pincus, “Snowden Still Holding ‘Keys to the Kingdom,’ ” Washington Post, Dec. 18, 2013. Also, Ledgett interview, 60 Minutes, CBS, Dec. 15, 2013.
“touched” documents: Former NSA official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
more than half the documents: Staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who requested anonymity, interview with author.
Snowden also disputed: Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
via a Vice magazine: Leopold, “Inside Washington’s Quest to Bring Down Edward Snowden.”
previously cited road map: Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga.”
The compartment logs showed: Former NSA official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“No intelligence service”: Glenn Greenwald, “Email Exchange Between Edward Snowden and Former GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey,” Guardian, July 16, 2013.
An answer soon came: Sophie Shevardnadze, “ ‘Snowden Believes He Did Everything Right’: Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena,” SophieCo, RT television, Sept. 23, 2013, //www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/snowden-russia-lawyer-kucherena-214/.
“all the reports”: Kucherena, interview with author.
Russian cyber service: Former member of the staff of the national security adviser who requested anonymity, interview with author.
State Department explicitly told: Ibid.
“I had spent ten years”: Hill, “How ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner Became Snowden’s Lawyer.”
In the case of Stone’s movie: Irina Alexsander, “Edward Snowden’s Long, Strange Journey to Hollywood,” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 4, 2016.
“I went the first six months”: Bell, “Edward Snowden Interview.”
“There’s nothing on it”: Gellman, “Edward Snowden, After Months of NSA Revelations, Says His Mission’s Accomplished.”
former CIA officer Ray McGovern: Mark Hosenball, “Laptops Snowden Took to Hong Kong, Russia Were a ‘Diversion,’ ” Reuters, Oct. 11, 2013.
“break my fingers”: Snowden, interview with Williams. See also Burrough, Ellison, and Andrews, “Snowden Saga,” and Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
“said they believed that”: Perlez and Bradsher, “China Said to Have Made Call to Let Leaker Depart.”
“Both the Chinese and the Russians”: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 284.
“What I can say”: Snowden interview, ARD-TV, Jan. 26, 2014, https://edwardsnowden.com/2014/01/27/video-ard-interview-with-edward-snowden/.
She urgently texted Snowden: Citizenfour.
Poitras’s co-interrogator: Appelbaum, “Edward Snowden Interview.”
there was no document: Former NSA official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
He reported that no: Bamford, “Edward Snowden.”
another person in the NSA: Ibid.
Greenwald suggested to the New York Times: Jo Becker, Steven Erlanger and Eric Schmitt, “How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets, “ New York Times, Sept. 1, 2016.
Greenwald and Poitras: “Snowden Leak: Israeli Commandos Killed Syrian General at Dinner Party,” Jerusalem Post, July 16, 2015.
Specifically, it disclosed: Cora Currier and Henrik Moltke, “Spies in the Sky,” Intercept, Jan. 28, 2016.
Putin had publicly enjoined him: Interview, Channel One, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19143. Also, former Russian intelligence officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“If Snowden didn’t give”: Former NSA official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
German federal prosecutor: Theodore Schleifer, “Germany Drops Probe into U.S. Spying on Merkel,” CNN Politics, June 13, 2015.
“Russian planners might have”: Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes, and Siobhan Gorman, “U.S. Scurries to Shore Up Spying on Russia,” Wall Street Journal, March 24, 2014.
Britain also discovered: Tom Harper, Richard Kerba
j, and Tim Shipman, “British Spies Betrayed to Russians and Chinese,” Sunday Times (London), June 14, 2015.
“losing some of its capabilities”: Chris Strohm and Gopal Ratnam, “NSA Leader Seeks Openness on Secret Surveillance Orders,” Bloomberg News, June 13, 2013. Also, staff member of National Security Council who requested anonymity, interview with author.
CHAPTER 18 The Unheeded Warning
“The NSA—the world’s”: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 287.
Alexander Poteyev: Sergei L. Loiko, “Former Russian Spymaster Convicted of Treason,” Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2011.
“live under cover in the West”: Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994), xxii.
The CIA learned of this: Former NSA official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“the business of intelligence”: Angleton, interview with author.
preparing these “Americans”: FBI, “Operation Ghost Stories: Inside the Russian Spy Case,” Oct. 31, 2011, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/operation-ghost-stories-inside-the-russian-spy-case.
NSA at Fort Meade: Gertz, “Counterspies Hunt Russian Mole Inside National Security Agency.” Also, Bill Gertz, interview with author.
“They [were] looking for one”: John R. Schindler, “The Painful Truth About Snowden,” XX Committee, http://20committee.com/2015/07/19/the-painful-truth-about-snowden/.
“insider threats by trusted insiders”: Gellman and Miller, “ ‘Black Budget’ Summary Details U.S. Spy Network’s Successes, Failures, and Objectives.”
The preemptive arrests: Gregory L. White, “Russia Convicts Former Spy Official for Exposing Agents in U.S. Ring,” Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2011.
turned up no evidence: Former NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“broke the record”: Tennent H. Bagley, Spymaster (New York: Skyhorse, 2015), 3.
Russia had dispatched: Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 450–51. Also, Walter Pincus, “CIA Passed Bogus News to Presidents,” Washington Post, Oct. 31, 1995.
“There are no rivers”: Baker, “Michael Hayden Says U.S. Is Easy Prey for Hackers.”
“The best defense”: Former NSA official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
CHAPTER 19 The Rise of the NSA
“There are many things”: Gellman, “Edward Snowden, After Months of NSA Revelations, Says His Mission’s Accomplished.”
By 1914, the U.S. Army: National Security Agency, Pearl Harbor Review: The Black Chamber, NSA, 2009, https://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic-heritage/center-cryptologic-history/pearl-harbor-review/black-chamber.shtml.
“Its far-seeking eyes”: Kahn, Codebreakers, 358.
The NSA also organized: Woodward, Veil, 471–75.
In 1980, President Ronald Reagan: David R. Shedd, “How Obama Unilaterally Chilled Surveillance,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 30, 2015.
“We are approaching”: Turner, Secrecy and Democracy, 92.
“vastness”: Woodward, Veil, 202.
James Bond provision: Ian Cobain, “How Secret Renditions Shed Light on MI6’s Licence to Kill and Torture,” Guardian, Feb. 13, 2012.
The NSA had assiduously: Kevin Poulsen, “New Snowden Leak Reports ‘Groundbreaking’ NSA Crypto-cracking,” Wired, Aug. 29, 2013.
“Yes, my continental European friends”: Woolsey, “Why We Spy on Our Allies.”
“very foundation of U.S. intelligence”: John McLaughlin, “We Need NSA to Do What It Does—It Makes Us Safer,” Press of Atlantic City, Jan. 8, 2014.
It made leading hacktivists: Charlie Savage et al., “Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border,” New York Times, June 4, 2015.
“one of the most regulated”: De, “Former NSA Lawyer on ‘Harm’ of Edward Snowden’s Revelations.”
the attack on Sony: Rob Lever, “Some Experts Still Aren’t Convinced That North Korea Hacked Sony,” Business Insider, Dec. 30, 2014.
“The Chinese are viewed”: Alexander quoted in Kelley Vlahos, “America’s Already-Failed Cyber War,” American Conservative, July 23, 2015.
“We are bolstering our support”: “Black Budget: Congressional Budget Justification Excerpt,” Washington Post, Aug. 30, 2013.
These compartments were: Former NSA officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“The queen on our chessboard”: Former NSA officer who requested anonymity, interview with author.
to confront flagging morale: Hayden, interview with author.
“the nation has lost”: Mulvaney, “NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers Discusses Freedom, Privacy, and Security Issues at Princeton University.”
Although repairing the damage: King, “Ex-NSA Chief Details Snowden’s Hiring at Agency, Booz Allen.”
CHAPTER 20 The NSA’s Back Door
“You have private for-profit”: Bamford and De Chant, “Edward Snowden on Cyber Warfare.”
According to a report: “Out of Control,” NSA, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB424/docs/Cyber-009.pdf.
“All of us just fell”: Baker, “Michael Hayden Says U.S. Is Easy Prey for Hackers.”
“it stays secret”: De, “Former NSA Lawyer on ‘Harm’ of Edward Snowden’s Revelations.”
North Korea in 1968: John Prados and Jack Cheevers, “USS Pueblo: LBJ Considered Nuclear Weapons,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 453, Jan. 23, 2014.
Booz Allen Hamilton: Booz Allen Hamilton issued a history of its evolution in 2004. “Helping Clients Envision the Future,” PDF file, 2004, https://www.boozallen.com/content/dam/boozallen/documents/90th-History-Book-Complete.pdf.
The private company named: Julie Creswell, “The Private Equity Firm That Grew Too Fast,” New York Times, April 24, 2015.
USIS had prematurely closed: Tom Hamburger and Debbi Wilgoren, “Justice Department Says USIS Submitted 665,000 Incomplete Background Checks,” Washington Post, Jan. 23, 2014.
USIS was also open to: Ellen Nakashima, “DHS Contractor Suffers Major Computer Breach, Officials Say,” Washington Post, Aug. 6, 2014.
successful 2011 attack: Andy Greenberg, “Anonymous Hackers Breach Booz Allen Hamilton,” Forbes, July 11, 2011.
a computer system called e-QIP: Joe Davidson, “Federal Background Check System Shut Down Because of ‘Vulnerability,’ ” Washington Post, June 29, 2015.
this memorandum noted: Former NSA executive who requested anonymity, interview with author.
CHAPTER 21 The Russians Are Coming
“The collapse of the Soviet Union”: Nick Allen, “Soviet Break-Up Was Geopolitical Disaster, Says Putin,” Telegraph, April 26, 2005.
Russian units had managed: Entous, Barnes, and Gorman, “U.S. Scurries to Shore Up Spying on Russia.”
Russian acronym SORM: Steven Aftergood, “The Red Web: Russia and the Internet,” FAS, Oct. 5, 2015.
William Martin and Bernon Mitchell: David P. Mowry, “Betrayers of the Trust,” Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series (NSA), Feb. 28, 2003.
Victor Norris Hamilton: “American Defector Is Found in Russian Prison,” New York Times, June 4, 1992.
He was found dead: Edward Jay Epstein, “The Spy Wars,” New York Times, Sept. 28, 1980.
Harold Nicholson: Elizabeth Farnsworth, “Update on the Case of CIA Agent Harold Nicholson,” PBS (transcript), Nov. 19, 1996. See also “Affidavit in Support of Complaint, Arrest Warrant, and Search Warrants: United States v. Harold J. Nicholson,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/ciaspy/affidavt.htm.
When it comes to recruiting moles: Angleton, interviews with author.
well experienced with false flags: Epstein, Deception, 22–28.
the “Trust” deception: Ibid. Also, Raymond Rocca (the CIA’s former research chief for the counterintelligence staff), interview with author.
“a learning experience”: “Out of Control.”
127-page Standard Form 86: D
avid Larter and Andrew Tilghman, “Military Clearance OPM Data Breach ‘Absolute Calamity,’ ” Navy Times, June 18, 2015.
Under Putin: Nicole Perlroth, “Online Security Experts Link More Breaches to Russian Government,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 2014.
“It is next to impossible”: Schneier quoted in Jenkins, “Anti-hero of Silk Road.”
The Silk Road founder: Jenkins, “Anti-hero of Silk Road.” Also, former Justice Department official who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“better cyber security”: Morell, Great War of Our Time, 291.
CHAPTER 22 The Chinese Puzzle
“The first [false assumption]”: Snowden video in Hong Kong.
“China its first credible”: 2014 Annual Report to Congress by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, quoted in David Tweed, “China Takes Nuclear Weapons Undersea Away from Prying Eyes,” Bloomberg Business, Dec. 8, 2014.
“results of decades”: Select Committee, U.S. Congress, Report, 1999, http://www.house.gov/coxreport/chapfs/over.html.
a vast enterprise in China: Nir Kshetri, The Rapidly Transforming Chinese High-Technology Industry and Market (London: Chandos, 2008), 92.
By 2007, Paul Strassmann: “China Has .75M ‘Zombie Computers’ in U.S.,” UPI, Sept. 17, 2007.
cyber attack had harvested: David E. Sanger and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Hackers May Have Obtained Names,” New York Times, June 11, 2015.
“Those records are”: Baker, “Michael Hayden Says U.S. Is Easy Prey for Hackers.”
any attempt to “monopolize”: Patrick Goodenough, “Chinese President in Veiled Warning to the US: Don’t Try to ‘Monopolize Regional Affairs,’ ” CNS News, May 22, 2014.
Chinese intelligence maintains: Former U.S. intelligence officer stationed in Hong Kong who requested anonymity, interview with author.
“hostile territory”: Drumheller, interview with author.