Is Edward Snowden an NSA Mole?
Politics / Intelligence Agencies Oct 31, 2013 - 04:45 PM GMTAs revelations of massive NSA spying across the globe convulse US foreign policy like the superpower has never experienced, one has to marvel at the seamless way whistleblower Edward Snowden has dealt such a powerful series of blows to the fear-inspiring national security intelligence agencies.
Now squirreled away in the Russian countryside reading Tolstoy novels according to the meme, it seems simply astounding that Snowden, a man of such tender years and such low altitude on the NSA totem pole, was able to collect such a wide array of triple top-secret tyrannies and betrayals, most well beyond his field of work for NSA contractor Booz-Hamilton. Snowden only worked for Booz-Hamilton for three months before taking his one-way flight to Hong Kong.
Not only having the finest of political senses in organizing his raids on NSA files and the knowledge about exactly where to go in the system, Snowden also somehow evaded all secrecy controls, copied and left with whatever he wanted, openly traveled to Communist China with his stash and, before or after, created a network of journalists abroad and at home to publicize his treasure trove of NSA spying in the most spectacular of ways.
Just one young man orchestrated and executed all of this to near perfection? Edward Snowden seems more like Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne than like we mere mortals. He outperforms the superspy heroes at the CIA by far.
Or, is there much more to the Edward Snowden saga?
Frankly, there is little to no direct evidence in the public domain that Snowden has not acted alone in conceiving and executing his grand adventure. The question has to be raised though in a world where so many breaking news stories have an invisible guiding hand. Things that seem impossible typically are.
Consider a few possibilities.
1. Snowden worked with journalists for quite a long time, even while working at Dell also as an NSA analyst. Snowden would have had the benefit of useful research and advice from many in that way.
If true, such a story will likely be confirmed sometime in the near future.
2. Snowden had the help or the direction of foreign governments, possibly the Chinese he targeted for cyber-attacks or the Russians his world travels later led him to embracing.
Not needing funding to speak of, it is hard to see what great help foreign intelligence agencies would have been to Snowden: no more it seems than say connections with journalists. It certainly would be unlike the Chinese and the Russians to publish the work of a US double-agent in The Guardian and the New York Times.
Even Dick Cheney seemed to be bashful about making this case.
3. Edward Snowden, in effect, is one of several or many NSA leakers working in concert for some time. He may not even be the true “deep throat” in this counter-espionage drama. Snowden just takes all of the credit and the downside too, the front man.
This is the horror that keeps Barack Obama and James Clapper up at night, active leakers all around. So long as new document releases do not predate June, 2013, anything and everything is coming from mass leaker “Edward Snowden”.
That is until the next stage of the adventure anyway.
Mr. Merrill served in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps and as a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer.
Mr. Merrill is the editor of the Alaska Freedom News, formerly the Hampton Roads Freedom News.
© 2013 Copyright Stephen Merrill - All Rights Reserved
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