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.
Introduction
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
Washington had its hands very, very full.
Introduction
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
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