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April 4, 2019

Edward Snowden: The Inside Scoop On The World’s Most Infamous Whistleblower

In the world today, privacy is highly valued. People use passwords to unlock mobile phones and laptops, and many people live in neighborhoods that are gated communities. Many Americans take their privacy for granted, and they do not think about how the United States government handles their sensitive information. Edward Snowden was the hero that U.S. citizens never knew they needed.

In his early twenties, Snowden began working for the Central Intelligence Agency as a telecommunications support officer. He enjoyed relative success as he spent his time at the CIA station in Geneva, protecting the security of the CIA’s computer systems. However, as Snowden continued to savor his prosperity, the unexpected happened. He lost $20,000 in one month in his options speculations, an amount that “represented almost a third of his annual salary.”1 As he often did, Snowden vented on the website Ars Technica, “a publication devoted to technology.”2 He criticized those who questioned his financial judgment and blamed his losses on government officials. As his anger continued to increase, suspicion concurrently grew that Snowden had attempted to break into classified computer files for which he did not have clearance. As a result, Snowden underwent a two-year evaluation and took a polygraph test. The results were concerning, and Snowden’s superior at the CIA placed a derogatory comment in his file.3

To expand, Snowden legally had the right to use the CIA’s computer system in his employment as a communications officer. However, he threatened the security of the system by adding code to it in an attempt to break into classified computer files. As a result, Snowden was threatened with a punitive investigation. Snowden accredited the derogatory comment in his file to the incompetence, blindness, and errors of his superiors. If Snowden was investigated, he would lose his security clearance with the CIA temporarily. With little to no choice left to make, Snowden avoided the investigation by resigning from the CIA and applying to a private subsidiary of the Dell Computer Company.4

Unknowingly, Snowden wanted to work for a company that was just beginning to toy with managing governmental computer systems. The National Security Agency had given the task of rearranging the backup systems at its regional bases to Dell. The NSA’s request created a lot of demand for independent contractors. An independent contractor is “a person or entity contracted to perform work or provide service to another entity as a non-employee.”5 Snowden applied to work at the NSA regional base in Japan. A qualification that set Snowden apart from other candidates and allowed him to start working immediately was his top secret clearance from the CIA. Snowden joined Dell swiftly and quietly; the CIA could not inform Dell or the NSA about their security concerns without violating government privacy regulations.6

After having several jobs at Dell, Snowden became a system administrator. This position gave him direct access to the NSA’s computers. Snowden’s very monotonous job involved sitting in front of a computer all day to make sure that there were no complications in the transfer of NSA files from Maryland to Japan. Eventually, Snowden claimed to have found a major flaw. This defect, according to Snowden, allowed a “rogue system administrator in Japan (to) steal secret data without anyone else’s realizing that it had been stolen.”7

Seal of the National Security Agency. Edward Snowden worked for the Agency from 2009-2013 | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

While still on Dell’s payroll, Snowden made a ten day trip to India. Claiming to be “working at the US embassy,” Snowden was actually attending Koenig Solutions, which was a school that provided classes on programming and computer hacking. Snowden claimed to have only taken classes in programming. However, school records indicated that he had paid for a course called “Ethical Hacking.” This course taught Snowden the fundamentals of illicit hacking, from breaking into files to capturing the passwords of others. This course also taught Snowden about tools such as SpyEye and Zeus, which hackers use to bypass security systems. As Snowden flew back to Japan, he was well prepared to hack into the NSA’s computer systems, if he ever felt the need to do so.8

As Snowden’s contract in Japan neared its end, Dell offered him a job in the United States. He worked in Annapolis, solving problems for corporate clients at Dell headquarters. As time went on, Snowden tried unsuccessfully to inform NSA officials of the “illicit surveillance” of citizens by the United States government. According to Snowden, none of the NSA officials he spoke to took any action to stop these surveillance practices. In an interview with The Guardian, Snowden said: “They [the NSA] are intent on making every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known to them.” In addition, Snowden criticized his own employer on Ars Technica. Railing against the apparent alliance between corporate America and the intelligence community, Snowden did not hold back in his criticism of Dell. He wrote: “It really concerns me how little this sort of corporate behavior bothers those outside of technology circles. (Corporate assistance to U.S. intelligence) was entirely within our control to stop.”9

Soon after Snowden vented on the internet about his increasing frustrations, he dodged a bullet that could have ended his career. Snowden’s security clearance with the CIA ran out, so he had to apply for a new one. In the late 1990’s the Clinton administration cut the size of the government by handing the execution of tasks that could be done more efficiently by for-profit companies to said companies. In effect, the Clinton administration privatized these tasks. U.S. Investigations Services, owned by the private equity fund Carlyle Group, won the contract to administer NSA background checks. Eventually, the Carlyle Group sold its rights to a different financial group, Providence Equity Partners. Providence Equity Partners measured their success by how much profit they made. In order to get as much profit as they could from administering these background checks, U.S. Investigations Services had to cut the amount of time they used for each background check. This was because they would not make more money if they held prolonged investigations. As a result, many background checks were rushed and incomplete. The CIA did not share its files with private companies such as Providence Equity Partners. Therefore, the U.S. Investigations Services did not have access to Snowden’s CIA files. All of Snowden’s previous grievances and the threatened investigation from his time at the CIA went undetected. Snowden was quickly given a new security clearance and was able to continue working for Dell without raising any alarms.10

Shortly after receiving his new security clearance, Snowden was offered a new position at the NSA’s Kunia regional base in Hawaii. There, Snowden was a system administrator on the NSA’s backup system. At the time, the NSA was still in the process of upgrading its security protocols to ones that would inspect suspicious activity as anomalies occurred. Similar to Snowden’s job in Japan, he was able to work alone in Hawaii. This lack of supervision provided ample chances for system administrators like Snowden to steal documents if they so desired.11

Part of Snowden’s job was transferring files held at Fort Meade to backup computers in Hawaii. Snowden was well aware of the opportunities he had to steal files as a system administrator, as Hawaii did not audit the movement of documents from one location to another. This lack of an auditing system allowed Snowden to copy classified data to a thumb drive anonymously. Many of the documents Snowden copied were on the NSANet, a database that held NSA, CIA, and Pentagon secrets. Snowden acted illicitly in order to gain leverage over the NSA, in an attempt to avoid an approaching “dark future.” This “dark future,” according to Snowden, was a future in which the elites know everything about United States citizens. In order to avoid the “dark future,” a U.S. citizen would have to gather information about the elites. Snowden was in a position to do just that as a system administrator with a sensitive compartmented information clearance and a pass into an NSA regional base.12

Eventually, Snowden quit his job in Hawaii and became an analyst for the NSA’s highly sensitive National Threat Operations Center. With his scorn for the way the U.S. government handled national security at a peak, Snowden prepared to carry out espionage. Never intending to work at the National Threat Operations Center for long, Snowden fabricated an excuse to take a medical leave of absence. Claiming to suffer from epilepsy, Snowden was granted time off a month in advance. Over the course of four weeks, Snowden pulled off an elaborate heist that gave him access to the NSA’s most closely guarded secrets.13

First, Snowden had to get the passwords to up to twenty-four compartments at the National Threat Operations Center. Doing so was a huge risk, as intelligence professionals who worked for the NSA were forbidden to share their passwords to unauthorized parties and were required to report anyone who asked for their passwords. Somehow, Snowden was able to get these twenty-four passwords, giving him access to the United States’ most closely protected intelligence secrets. Next, Snowden used pre-programmed robotic spiders to comb through over one million documents. These spiders sifted through every single document, highlighting files that Snowden deemed important to his mission. After the spiders concluded their search, Snowden had to find a way to transfer the stolen files to a computer with an opened USB port. Though difficult, Snowden eventually succeeded in downloading hundreds of thousands of potentially harmful documents to an unsealed computer. At the conclusion of his operation, Snowden mobilized his documents by transferring everything on the computer to thumb drives. By this time, Snowden was ready to take his “medical leave,” which he did the following day.14

Snowden departed Honolulu for Hong Kong, taking numerous NSA secrets with him. As Snowden planned a way to release the information he had to the public, he attempted to set up meetings with several journalists. Ultimately, Laura Poitras and The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald agreed to meet Snowden in his hotel room. There, Snowden was interviewed about his shocking discoveries. With the data Snowden gave them both on and off camera, Greenwald was able to pen the article that would forever change the American public’s understanding of the way the U.S. government handles their private information. The article Greenwald published was headlined “NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily.” The sub-title read “Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama.” Hours later, a second story was published by The Washington Post. This story detailed the PRISM program, a joint FBI-NSA-CIA operation that gathered data on not only foreign terrorists but also on American citizens.15

Edward Snowden supporters in Hong Kong. Locals praised Snowden for his actions since they were trying to maintain Hong Kong’s autonomy from China, circa June 15, 2013 | Courtesy of Wikipedia

In the aftermath of the publication of these stories, Snowden desired to reveal himself as the informant before the U.S. government started searching for the culprit. To accomplish this, Snowden was interviewed by Glenn Greenwald in a twelve minute video titled “Whistleblower.” In the video, Snowden described how the NSA was watching U.S. citizens. After filming concluded, Snowden insisted on the immediate airing of the self-incriminating video, saying “I want to identify myself as the person behind these disclosures.” The video was released with a Guardian story titled “Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations.”16

The United States Department of Justice charged Snowden with espionage, forcing him to ask for haven in China, North Korea, and Russia. Snowden eventually found asylum in Russia, a country that was not “intimidated by the threats of reprisals by the United States.” To this day, Snowden resides in Moscow.17

Protestors rally against NSA surveillance. The information Edward Snowden leaked forever changed the way global citizens feel and think about their privacy, by Fibonacci Blue, circa June 18, 2013 | Courtesy of Flickr

Snowden’s revelations about U.S. intelligence secrets caused many different reactions among both politicians and citizens. President Obama, leaders of both houses of Congress, and many citizens roundly denounced Snowden for betraying American secrets. In contrast, some U.S. citizens praised Snowden for his disclosures. In the end, Snowden’s actions caused many people to become angry about domestic surveillance. People began to question their government’s behavior instead of blindly being victims to its twisted policies. Facing pressure from the general public, the NSA and U.S. government were forced to re-evaluate the ways they ensured the security of the American people. Edward Snowden was able to bring the government to its knees from the inside, willingly executing an elaborate heist for the sake of the enlightenment of the American people.18

  1. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 24.
  2. Ars Technica, last modified 2019, https://arstechnica.com/.
  3. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 23-25.
  4. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 26-29.
  5. Will Kenton,  “Independent Contractor,” Investopedia (blog) March 12, 2019. Accessed March 25, 2019. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/independent-contractor.asp.
  6. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 29-30.
  7. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 32.
  8. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 33.
  9. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 33-35.
  10. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 35-36.
  11. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 36.
  12. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 44-47.
  13. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 78-79.
  14. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 79-80.
  15. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 81-94.
  16. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 94-95.
  17. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 107.
  18. Edward J. Epstein, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 125-126.

Recent Comments

52 comments

  • James Clark

    I had recently watched the Snowden documentary on Netflix which is why I chose to read this article. However, this brings to light the fact that government contracts handed out to for-profit corporations are what ultimately lead to NSA secrets being leaked. If the government was truly worried about protecting the safety of United States citizens like they claimed to be while using Domestic Survaliance a true background check would’ve stopped Snowden from ever renewing his CIA clearance in the first place. Without this clearance, he would’ve never had the opportunity to expose the NSA and how it spied on the American people without the general population ever knowing. Something his article doesn’t mention is that America was not only spying on its citizens but used databases all over the world to create connections between terrorists, figureheads, and people of great power and their families. Using this web of connections the government could exploit harm to family members in order to manipulate these people into doing what the government wanted.

  • Alison Morales-Aguilar

    Of course, like most people here, I had heard about Snowden and his accomplishments before. However, I never knew that he made so many mistakes in his early days. When I think of Snowden I think of an intelligent, suave hacker that risked his life for the citizens of the United States. Hearing about his early days and how he almost got his clearance taken away is interesting. Perhaps the most interesting part of your article is the clear timeline from Snowden’s beginning to his release of all the classified documents.

  • Aracely Beltran

    Very well written article! I love a good snitching story especially when it is about the government, they are so funny and entertaining. The dedication that Edward Snowden had is admirable. I could never but I guess if they are taking money from me that would probably shift the circumstances. Maybe then I would consider doing everything this guy did.

  • Savannah Alcazar

    The introduction captured my attention. We all relate to the tons of passwords that we use daily for school, banking, social media, and more. I always have my password security in the back of my head. Computer science is way over my head. It’s scary yet cool that he found a major flaw in a code. I thoroughly enjoyed this article!

  • Aaron Sandoval

    Before reading this article, I was very unaware of who Snowden was, the only real knowledge I had of him was that he was a whistleblower and that he was on the run for the government. I was never fully aware of what exactly he released, and after reading this article I am put in a scenario where I favor blissful ignorance, we all know the government is always truthful, but when you learn about the extent at which we are being monitored it makes even the most private of settings very uncomfortable.

  • Sofia Almanzan

    I knew snowden was in Russia but I didn’t know any part of his life before he became the whistleblower. I found it very interesting that the government could have found out who he was and what he was capable of doing well before he became a whistleblower but due to “red tape” it never happened.

  • Juliana Montoya

    I had never heard of Snowden and what he did but after reading this article I can see that this would be an interesting thing to talk about. The information about the government the he released was to keep the public safe from the government and for the people to be aware of what the government does.

  • Kennedy Arcos

    I have never heard of Edward Snowden, and I have never known of his story. This article was very informative and it helped me learn more about who he was and what he did. I have always believed that the government hides so much from us and I think what Snowden did was super risky. I think both Snowden and the government were wrong in the end, but this was still an interesting read!

  • Mia Hernandez

    The only thing I knew about Edward Snowden before reading this article was that he was a whistleblower for the CIA. This article was very informative in telling about what actions Snowden took he and what transpired after he leaked the information he gathered to the public. Neither what Snowden nor the government did was right, but in the end we now have an idea of what kind of information the government may be keeping from us.

  • Annissa Noblejas

    I believe there are a few slants to this article. As a CIA employee, Snowden only had legal access to information pertinent to his direct position, not the agency’s information as a whole. Deceitfully adding or altering any code to a system, whether government or civilian, is illegal as well. Mr. Snowden’s actions were not connected to his official role in any of his employment agencies. In 2019, Mr. Snowden attempted to publish a book recounting his actions as a means of income, however a civil lawsuit followed.

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