Against my better judgment, I decided to watch Oliver Stone’s
production of the story of the traitor Edward Snowden. I often wonder at
Stone’s predilection with anti-American themes, but that is an analysis for
another time.
The film contains a mix-mash of intelligence community
descriptions and definitions which, let’s say are only vaguely accurate. I
could go through the list of inaccuracies, but I’ll give the filmmakers the
benefit of the doubt since it is highly unlikely that any of them have ever been
inside the operations and training facilities depicted. I only wish the
operations spaces at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National
Security Agency (NSA) were as nice as these sets.
The workspaces in both agencies – I’ve worked in both – are
what I would call “GSA* chic” and usually small, cramped, and filled with
equipment and files. The smaller spaces are normal because much of the work
being done is not only highly classified, but also compartmented. People
working in one area are unlikely to be cleared for operations just ten feet
away.
The movie attempts to portray Snowden as an intelligence
officer at both agencies, but in reality, he was a communications technician,
not an operations officer, and later as a technical contractor. This is obvious
from the description of the training facility where Snowden received his
training, referred to colloquially as “the Hill.”**
The facility exists, and is where the CIA trains people to
become Telecommunications Information Systems Officers (TISO), technicians
responsible for maintaining the agency’s communications systems around the
world. Having worked with TISOs in many locations, they are competent
professionals, but they are not field operations personnel – that training
takes place at another CIA facility, commonly referred to as “the Farm.” ** The
factitious and amateurish asset recruitment scenarios in which Snowden claims
to have participated are comic at best, and obviously not part of the skill set
provided in his position. I suspect he was attesting to “pad his CV.”
The program that Snowden seems to have found so egregious
has to do with the intelligence community’s access to the meta data of phone
calls of American citizens. When I was in the signals intelligence business
(when dinosaurs roamed the earth), we referred to this information as
“externals” – date, time, numbers connected, duration, etc., as opposed to
“internal” information, the actual content of the communication.
What is the difference in how the data is used?
The internal information, the content, is used for
intelligence information – that’s easy. It is the use of the externals, the
meta data, that is extremely useful in uncovering networks – the term is
network analysis – who is talking to whom.
Let’s use a real-world scenario. Although I do not consider
the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) to be an ally,
they have been useful at times when their counterterrorism goals coincide with
ours. The ISID develops intelligence – or we apprise them – of the presence of
an al-Qa’idah operative in Quetta.
ISID officers obtain whatever warrant or authorization
necessary (I suspect it is none) to “kick in” the location. One of the most
valuable items in the venue will be electronics – cell phones, satellite phone,
tablets, computers, hard drives, thumb drives, etc. It is a treasure trove of
data.
Let’s focus on the cell phones, although all of the media involved
will yield similarly useful data. If this venue, say that al-Qa’idah believed
to be a safe house, was occupied and/or used by a known al-Qa’idah operative,
wouldn’t you want to know who with whom he has been communicating? That’s a
rhetorical question – of course you would. If these contacts were located in
the United States,
doesn’t that take on a greater sense of urgency? Of course.
The claimed issue (I don’t buy it) for Snowden was the
intelligence community’s access to American citizens’ meta data. Granted, the
warrants required to access this data, issued via the secret Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) courts, are easy to obtain – but shouldn’t they be? An
al-Qa’ida operative in Pakistan
is talking to someone in the United
States; we need to take a look at that.
Although Stone never developed it fully in the movie, the
thought that warrants should be limited to the future – in other words, once we
have the phone numbers from the Pakistani ISID – the intelligence community and
FBI obtain warrants for future communications. The problem: once these safe
houses are raided, al-Qa’idah (or whatever group) closes all the accounts and
stops using the devices the now assumed to be compromised. We need to know what
has happened in the past.
Recent legislation has limited the intelligence community’s
access to that historic information, thanks to the overreaction of Snowden’s
treason. Unfortunately, our Congress, both houses but primarily the House, have
aided in that limitation. If the intelligence community cannot ascertain who
these terrorists were connecting with in the United States, we have less of a
chance of preventing a future terrorist event.
My primary issue with the movie, which Stone admits is not a
documentary or a historical account but a fictionalized version of reality, is
the attempt to portray Snowden as a whistleblower rather than the traitor he
chose to become. There is no historical record of Snowden contacting the proper
whistleblower channels – supervisors, inspector generals, or members of
Congress – before he decided to contact the media.
Snowden is not a whistleblower – he went to the media, who
he arranged to meet not in the United States,
but Hong Kong. Yes, Hong Kong, now a part of
the Peoples Republic
of China.
After meeting with journalists there and releasing classified data, fled to Moscow – yes, Russia – to evade capture.
Call me skeptical. Edward Snowden, who publicly to
international media, released highly classified U.S. national security information,
and that – and more – did not end up in the hands of Chinese and Russian
intelligence? I did this for a living for almost three decades. Whatever sensitive,
classified information he had, they now have. From colleagues in the
intelligence community, we may never recover from the losses he caused.
So, my views of Ed’s future? If it was up to me, I would go
further than former CIA director and NSA director General Mike Hayden’s (a
personal acquaintance) comments that Snowden will die in Moscow. I would cause it – but that’s just
me, someone who has lost agents in the field because of traitors like Snowden.
If he is allowed to return to the United States, I’d like to have a
one-on-one conversation.
Bottom line: Edward Snowden is not a whistleblower, and as
Oliver Stone would have you believe, he is not a hero. He is a traitor, weak of
character, and easily manipulated. This cinematographic attempt to justify his
actions borders on abetting treason.
If you must watch, the film is available on Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/title/80064514
__________
* General Services Administration, the agency of the U.S. government
responsible for the outfitting and basic functioning of official facilities. Think
“lowest bidder.”
** These facilities exist, but officially not by these nicknames
– I have chosen not to identify them. I received my clandestine operations
training at the facility referred to as “the Farm.” I am sure anyone doing a
Google search will figure out where they are, but my secrecy agreements prevent
me from identifying them.
