Edward Snowden's in-depth interview with James Bamford of Wired offers details about his last job as a contractor for the NSA in Honolulu, which raise disconcerting questions about the motives of the former systems administrator.

While working at two consecutive jobs in Hawaii from March 2012 to May 2013, the 31-year-old allegedly stole about 200,000 "tier 1 and 2" documents, which mostly detailed the NSA's global surveillance apparatus and were given to American journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras in June 2013. The government believes Snowden also took up to 1.5 million "tier 3" documents potentially detailing U.S. capabilities and NSA offensive cyber operations, the whereabouts of which are unknown.

We now know more about the larger and more sensitive cache of classified documents. Furthermore, a close reading of relevant reporting and of statements made by Snowden suggests that much of what the rogue NSA employee intentionally took involved operational information unrelated to civil liberties.

While the tier 3 material appears to have not been shared with American journalists, some of it was shown to a Chinese newspaper. And 14 months later, given the uncertain fate of the documents, it is not unreasonable to ask whether they could have fallen into the hands of an adversarial foreign intelligence service.

Snowden had worked as an NSA contractor for Dell since 2009, and in March 2012 he began working as a systems administrator for the NSA's information-sharing office at the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center (known as "the Tunnel") on the main island of Oahu. Over time, he became increasingly alarmed by what he viewed as serious U.S. governmental violations of Americans' constitutional liberties, as well as general disregard for privacy rights of foreign citizens.

American officals told Reuters that Snowden began making illegal downloads about U.S. and U.K. eavesdropping programs in April 2012. (The NSA later told Vanity Fair that the downloading began in the summer of 2012.)

Wired

Snowden says that moment came on March 13, 2013, when he read about Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's appearance before a Senate committee, during which he testified that intelligence officials did not "wittingly" collect data on Americans.

Clapper's statement and the subsequent lack of concern among his NSA colleagues at the Tunnel "convinced him that the time had come to act," Bamford writes.

Snowden quit Dell on March 15, according to reporting by Edward Jay Epstein of The Wall Street Journal, and landed a job with Booz Allen as an infrastructure analyst at the National Threat Operations Center in Honolulu.

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We Now Know A Lot More About Edward Snowden's Epic Heist ...

US andChinese tech companies are not the only ones profiting from the Snowden effect.

Since news broke that former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed alleged U.S. government surveillance methods worldwide, secure messaging and so-called NSA-proof products and companies have sprouted across Germany and Switzerland, two countries who take their privacy laws very seriously.

While not in mainstream use yet, the trend is growing.

Some German and Swiss companies have also used the media attention as selling points.

When Edward Snowden unveiled the extent of surveillance by the U.S. government, many scientists in Cern were shocked, said Khoi Nguyen of Geneva-based Protonmail, a start-up marketing an easy-to-use, encrypted email service.

Lavaboom, a German email provider, was a direct reaction to the Snowden revelations. The companys name plays on the U.S. encrypted service provider Lavabit, which Mr. Snowden used. Lavabit was forced to close down in August 2013, after being forced to disclose classified documents. At the time, Lavabit founder Ladar Levison said he was prohibited by law from discussing the reasons for its closure.

Lavabit offers users a three-tiered service. A free subscription gets you secure storage, two-factor authentication, and complete encryption. Premium subscriptions offer whats called a zero-knowledge serviceany data generated by an application will never be readable on the server it is storedas well as three-factor authentication.

Our existence was a direct response to the closure of Snowdens email service Lavabit, Lavaboom co-founder Bill Franklin said.

Mr. Franklin, a U.K. citizen, along with German co-founder Felix Mueller-Irion, consciously chose Germany to base their mail service.

Data protection laws in Germany are supportive in offering customers a private sphere, Mr. Franklin said. German data protection laws are considered to rank among the strictest in the world and there are laws protecting journalists, doctors, lawyers and other professional groups from revealing their sources.

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For German, Swiss Privacy Start-Ups, a Post-Snowden Boom

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Aug. 13, 2014 at 7:38 AM ET

Edward Snowden may have recently received a three-year extension of his stay in Russia, but the former National Security Agency contractor says in a new interview with WIRED magazine that he still clings to hope of returning home to the United States, even if it means living behind bars.

WIRED

I told the government Id volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose, Snowden said in the article released Wednesday. I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we cant allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. Im not going to be part of that.

Described by WIRED as the most wanted man in the world, Snowden is being sought for leaking top-secret documents that unveiled widespread surveillance programs overseen by the federal government. He currently is hiding out in an undisclosed community in Russia, where he says he goes mostly unrecognized.

WATCH: Edward Snowden reveals new details in interview

The magazine includes numerous photographs of Snowden, including a previously unseen one of him with his former boss Michael Hayden, a past director of both the NSA and CIA. Other photos show Snowden in silhouette in a hotel room, or on a couch looking fatigued. In another photo, Snowden wears a T-shirt with the word SECURITY on the back. The one expected to draw criticism, however, is the magazine cover showing Snowden, whom many Americans consider a traitor, wrapped in an American flag.

WIRED

Excerpt from:
Edward Snowden tells WIRED magazine: I would 'volunteer ...

Cover of September 2014 "Wired" magazine, featuring Edward Snowden, photographed by Platon.(Photo: Platon/Wired)

Development of a U.S. counterattack for cyberterrorism that could do more harm than good was one of the final events that drove Edward Snowden to leak government secrets, the former National Security Agency contractor tells Wired magazine.

Snowden, photographed for the story clutching an American flag, said the MonsterMind program was designed to detect a foreign cyberattack and keep it from entering the country. But it also would automatically fire back. The problem, he said, is malware can be routed through an innocent third-party country.

"These attacks can be spoofed," he told Wired. "You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital. What happens next?"

Snowden, 31, also told the magazine he hopes to return to the U.S. someday.

"I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose," he said. "I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we can't allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. I'm not going to be part of that."

Snowden was a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton when he leaked details of U.S. surveillance programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post. The first reports were published in June 2013, setting off an immediate global firestorm. Snowden, who was in hiding in Hong Kong at the time, fled to Moscow where he still lives.

His impact had staying power.

President Obama promised to scale back surveillance of American citizens. Germany ordered the CIA station chief out of the country. The Guardian and Post won the Pulitzer prize for public service for their coverage.

Snowden previously expressed interest in returning to the United States, but said he feared an unjust trial on charges of espionage and theft of government property could result in a lengthy prison sentence. He remains adamant that what he did was for the good of the country.

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Embracing flag, Snowden says he hopes to return to U.S.

The sun sets late here in June, and outside the hotel window long shadows are beginning to envelop the city. But Snowden doesnt seem to mind that the interview is stretching into the evening hours. He is living on New York time, the better to communicate with his stateside supporters and stay on top of the American news cycle. Often, that means hearing in almost real time the harsh assessments of his critics. Indeed, its not only government apparatchiks that take issue with what Snowden did nextmoving from disaffected operative to whistle-blowing dissident. Even in the technology industry, where he has many supporters, some accuse him of playing too fast and loose with dangerous information. Netscape founder and prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has told CNBC, If you looked up in the encyclopedia traitor, theres a picture of Edward Snowden. Bill Gates delivered a similarly cutting assessment in a Rolling Stone interview. I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldnt characterize him as a hero, he said. You wont find much admiration from me.

Snowden with General Michael Hayden at a gala in 2011. Hayden, former director of the NSA and CIA, defended US surveillance policies in the wake of Snowdens revelations.

Snowden adjusts his glasses; one of the nose pads is missing, making them slip occasionally. He seems lost in thought, looking back to the moment of decision, the point of no return. The time when, thumb drive in hand, aware of the enormous potential consequences, he secretly went to work. If the government will not represent our interests, he says, his face serious, his words slow, then the public will champion its own interests. And whistle-blowing provides a traditional means to do so.

The NSA had apparently never predicted that someone like Snowden might go rogue. In any case, Snowden says he had no problem accessing, downloading, and extracting all the confidential information he liked. Except for the very highest level of classified documents, details about virtually all of the NSAs surveillance programs were accessible to anyone, employee or contractor, private or general, who had top-secret NSA clearance and access to an NSA computer.

But Snowdens access while in Hawaii went well beyond even this. I was the top technologist for the information-sharing office in Hawaii, he says. I had access to everything.

Well, almost everything. There was one key area that remained out of his reach: the NSAs aggressive cyberwarfare activity around the world. To get access to that last cache of secrets, Snowden landed a job as an infrastructure analyst with another giant NSA contractor, Booz Allen. The role gave him rare dual-hat authority covering both domestic and foreign intercept capabilitiesallowing him to trace domestic cyberattacks back to their country of origin. In his new job, Snowden became immersed in the highly secret world of planting malware into systems around the world and stealing gigabytes of foreign secrets. At the same time, he was also able to confirm, he says, that vast amounts of US communications were being intercepted and stored without a warrant, without any requirement for criminal suspicion, probable cause, or individual designation. He gathered that evidence and secreted it safely away.

By the time he went to work for Booz Allen in the spring of 2013, Snowden was thoroughly disillusioned, yet he had not lost his capacity for shock. One day an intelligence officer told him that TAOa division of NSA hackershad attempted in 2012 to remotely install an exploit in one of the core routers at a major Internet service provider in Syria, which was in the midst of a prolonged civil war. This would have given the NSA access to email and other Internet traffic from much of the country. But something went wrong, and the router was bricked insteadrendered totally inoperable. The failure of this router caused Syria to suddenly lose all connection to the Internetalthough the public didnt know that the US government was responsible. (This is the first time the claim has been revealed.)

Inside the TAO operations center, the panicked government hackers had what Snowden calls an oh shit moment. They raced to remotely repair the router, desperate to cover their tracks and prevent the Syrians from discovering the sophisticated infiltration software used to access the network. But because the router was bricked, they were powerless to fix the problem.

Fortunately for the NSA, the Syrians were apparently more focused on restoring the nations Internet than on tracking down the cause of the outage. Back at TAOs operations center, the tension was broken with a joke that contained more than a little truth: If we get caught, we can always point the finger at Israel.

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Edward Snowden: The Untold Story | Threat Level | WIRED

Fugitive secret-leaker Edward Snowden said hed gladly volunteer to go to prison, if it meant he could return home to the U.S., according to a bombshell interview with the runaway former NSA contractor published Wednesday.

I told the government Id volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose, Snowdentold WIRED magazine in an exclusive interviewfrom Moscow. I care more about the country than what happens to me.

But we cant allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal, he said. Im not going to be part of that.

The remarks, part of far-reaching article titledThe Most Wanted Man in the World,are some of the most extensive yet made by Snowden since he fled to Russia in 2013 seeking refuge from American prosecution.

The 31-year-old North Carolina native also warned WIRED which will feature a provocative cover photo of Snowden clutching an American flag on its upcoming issue that the NSA remains plagued with flaws and is still unprepared to securely handle the sensitive personal information it allegedly uncovers on millions of U.S. citizens.

They still havent fixed their problems, Snowden said of his former employer. They still have negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no idea where theyre coming from and they have no idea where theyre going.

If thats the case, how can we as the public trust the NSA with all of our information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our lives, he said, before revealing another eye-opening covert government surveillance program, called MonsterMind.

MonsterMind, Snowden explained, is a secret NSA scheme that has the capability to detect incoming cyberattacks and the ability to counterattack with no human intervention at all,WIRED writer James Bamford explained.

But Snowden warned that such a program could result in a huge unintended international incident, because many of such attacks are orchestrated by sinister hackers to come from computers in third-party countries that arent even aware of the attack.

These attacks can be spoofed, he said. You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital. What happens next?

Read more here:
Edward Snowden says he would ‘volunteer’ for prison ...

Fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden said in a magazine interview published Wednesday that he is sure his former employers at the National Security Agency are tracking his communications while in exile in Russia.

In a lengthy interview with Wired magazine, the 31-year-old former NSA contractor wanted on U.S. charges of theft and espionage also said he would gladly return home and face prison for his disclosures on massive private data collection if that would serve to end what he sees as the U.S. intelligence agencies' surveillance abuses.

"I told the government Id volunteer for prison, as long as it served the right purpose, Snowden told the Wired article's writer, James Bamford, during a series of interviews at an undisclosed hotel in Moscow. "I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we cant allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. Im not going to be part of that.

During the interviews conducted in late spring, Snowden said he deliberately left a trail of "digital bread crumbs" so the NSA would know which secret documents and data files he had taken with him when he fled his contractor job in Hawaii 14 months ago.

He told Wired that the agency's report that he took 1.7 million files with him suggested they had missed the clues he left so NSA officials could take whatever steps were necessary to protect sources and revise operational practices.

"I figured they would have a hard time, Snowden said of his evidence trail. "I didnt figure they would be completely incapable.

Snowden told Bamford that the final straw for him was the NSA's MonsterMind operation, a malware-detecting program that can retaliate against the source of infection without any human involvement in the decision. The source of cyber attacks can be disguised, he noted, opening the possibility of striking back at an innocent target and provoking confrontation.

Fellow intelligence agency employees had become inured to the wide-scale intrusions on private communication by the agency, Snowden said, a jaded indifference he didn't want to acquire.

"Its like the boiling frog," Snowden told the magazine. "You get exposed to a little bit of evil, a little bit of rule-breaking, a little bit of dishonesty, a little bit of deceptiveness, a little bit of disservice to the public interest, and you can brush it off, you can come to justify it. But if you do that, it creates a slippery slope that just increases over time, and by the time youve been in 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, youve seen it all and it doesnt shock you."

Snowden said he left when he did and disclosed the surveillance excesses "before he too was boiled alive," Bamford wrote.

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Snowden says he left clues about data he stole but NSA missed them

Edward Snowden's latest media move is perhaps one of his most provocative.

The whistleblower gave a lengthy interview to Wired magazine, which also brought famed photographer Platon to Moscow to take pictures of him. The picture that wound up on the cover shows Snowden holding the American flag:

Wired editor Scott Dadich wrote that Snowden had to think a bit before deciding to use the flag:

He said he was nervous that posing with the flag might anger people but that it meant a lot to him. He said that he loved his country. He cradled the flag and held it close to his heart. Nobody said a word, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. We all sat there for a long moment, studying him. Then Platon yelled, Don't move! He clicked off frame after frame, making tiny adjustments to both the lighting and Snowden's posture, sometimes asking for him to look into the lens, sometimes just above it. We had our cover.

A word about the flag: Dadich said it was the same one that Platon had used in a photoshoot with Pamela Anderson, thus lending it a bit less reverence.

The photo immediately set Snowden haters on edge. Others had similar thoughts:

Others praised the cover, though:

Link:
Wired's Edward Snowden Cover Shows Him Holding The ...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

My instinct was to say yes. From the moment in June 2013 that he was identified as the source for news stories about NSA mass surveillance programs, Snowden and his advisers have nearly always said the right things at the right times. He has cogently explained why he leaked NSA documents and effectively pushed back when American officials have attacked him as a "traitor." He has tried to make the debate about the government's behavior, not his own.

Which is why the cover photo puzzled me. Wired published the cover on Wednesday along with an excellent profile by James Bamford. It shows Snowden covered by the red, white and blue flag, holding it in both of his hands, as if protecting it from the government. The cover is provocative and beautiful -- and yet there's something unsettling about it.

The shot was taken by a famous photographer, Platon Antoniou, whose iconic portraits of world leaders and celebrities have made the cover of Time more than 20 times. "You're here to make history," Platon -- he goes by just his first name -- told Snowden before the photo shoot began in Moscow on June 13. Indeed, Snowden had not sat for a formal portrait session since his flight from the United States.

The resulting photos are remarkable -- Snowden staring deep into the camera, glasses slightly crooked on his face; Snowden resting on what looks to be a hotel bed; Snowden facing away from the camera wearing a dark T-shirt with the word "SECURITY" emblazoned on it.

But it's the flag-draped Snowden that stands out. It's clear why Wired picked it. What's unclear is why Snowden put himself in a position for it to be picked.

Scott Dadich, the editor in chief of Wired, wrote in an editor's note that Platon brought a number of props with him to the photo shoot, including "American flag patches" and a big flag that was "actually the same flag brandished by Pamela Anderson in Platon's iconic 1998 George magazine cover."

When Snowden picked up the big flag at one point during the shoot, "Platon asked him what he'd do with it in a picture," Dadich wrote, and Snowden then "held the flag in his hands and delicately unfolded it."

"You could see the gears turning as he weighed his year in exile against the love of country that motivated him in the first place," Dadich continued. "He said he was nervous that posing with the flag might anger people but that it meant a lot to him. He said that he loved his country. He cradled the flag and held it close to his heart. Nobody said a word, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up."

Platon started taking a series of photos, and Dadich apparently knew right away that he had his cover.

Continued here:
Edward Snowden's first big PR blunder

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden gave an extensive interview to Wired magazine, speaking with author and journalist James Bamford over the course of three days in Moscow. The Russian capital is Snowden's home for the foreseeable future following the country's extension of asylum for the next three years.

Wired

The results of Bamford's time with Snowden, published Wednesday, are a fascinating look into the 31-year-old former National Security Agency contractor's deeply-held beliefs and his motivations in unearthing the secrets behind the United States' most controversial surveillance programs of our time. Snowden, who clutches an American flag on Wired's cover, wants us to know this: "I care more about the country than what happens to me." At the moment, the country he's referring to is still desperate to know his whereabouts, to bring him home and prosecute him.

As a former NSA employee himself, Bamford originally blew the whistle on the organization while in law school. He testified before the influential Church Committee, the oversight body that would become the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and led to significant reforms of the intelligence apparatus in the 1970s. Bamford later went on to publish the first book about the NSA, titled "The Puzzle Palace," inciting several threats from the US government of prosecution under the Espionage Act, the very same 1917 law under which Snowden has been charged.

Revelations about the US's sprawling surveillance efforts continue to make their way to publications around the globe, thanks to Snowden's leaked trove of documents currently in the hands of journalist Glenn Greenwald and a small circle of fellow security and privacy reporters. Now, new reports are suggesting that there may be a second NSA leaker, either concurrent with Snowden or inspired by him. Still, the US government continues to grapple with the prospect of reining in its spying as public sentiment has tilted against the NSA -- and as Snowden has emerged, over time, less a traitor and more a symbol for keeping power in check.

Check out the full piece, which is highly recommended reading, over at Wired now. In the meantime, here's some of the fascinating insights from Bamford's interview with Snowden:

"I figured they would have a hard time. I didn't figure they would be completely incapable," Snowden said.

"I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public. Technology is the greatest equalizer in human history. It allows us to try on new faces, join new communities, engage in new conversations, and discover who we are and what we want to become.

Our generation is facing a time where governments around the world are questioning wether or not individuals can be trusted with the power of technology, be left to our own devices and use it creatively and not destructively.

And while I don't know the answer to that question, what I do know is that governments shouldn't be the one's to decide. We should. And what I did was not to benefit myself. I didn't ask for money. I gave this information back to public hands. The reason I did that was not to gain a label, but to give you back a choice about the country you want to live in."

Continued here:
Edward Snowden a 'uniquely postmodern breed of whistle-blower'