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Was Snowden's Heist a Foreign Espionage Operation?
WSJ ^ | May 9, 2014 | Edward Jay Epstein

Posted on 05/10/2014 7:09:22 AM PDT by nuconvert

Those who know the files he stole think he was working for a foreign power, perhaps Russia, where he now lives.

-excerpt-

The vast majority of those [stolen documents] were related to our military capabilities, operations, tactics, techniques and procedures.

...the media and Mr. Snowden's admirers have only his word as to what went on. His detractors are the people who know enough about what happened to conclude that far from being a whistleblower, Mr. Snowden was a participant in an espionage operation...

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: espionage; russia; snowden
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1 posted on 05/10/2014 7:09:22 AM PDT by nuconvert
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Russian
Chinese or
joint Sino-Russian operation


2 posted on 05/10/2014 7:10:53 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: nuconvert

I’d be interested in what Gary Aldrich might think.


3 posted on 05/10/2014 7:14:44 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations - The Acronym explains the science.)
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To: nuconvert

I hadn’t thought necessarily that he was working for a foreign power (not discounting it) but never believed he was a “whistleblower” since he had been in contact with the reporters before he was hired! It wasn’t like this guy was working for the NSA and became disillusioned by what he saw. He was on,y there about three months, if I am recalling correctly (need a primary source on that one). He sought employment for the sole purpose of exposing secrets. The security company that gave him clearance is guilty of gross negligence, or outright malfeasance.


4 posted on 05/10/2014 7:21:49 AM PDT by Explorer89 (And now, let the wild rumpus start!!)
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To: nuconvert

Links to WSJ but you have to be a subscriber to read further ...? pish


5 posted on 05/10/2014 7:26:21 AM PDT by bboop (does not suffer fools gladly)
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To: nuconvert

My only problem with that notion is this: Snowden was aided in getting to Russia by Assange. Assange hated the American military for being anti-gay (?!) America’s government and elite loves loves loves loves loves gays. Russia: not so much. So the motives don’t work. Not that Russia wouldn’t kill to pull off the operation, but I think they just lucked out.


6 posted on 05/10/2014 7:28:00 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Explorer89

What’s his background, anyway?

Must be squeaky clean, since it’s all crickets out there and we know “they” would have blown him up (rhetorically speaking) had they found a “smidgeon” of reason.

So, they are left to just smear him to death with speculation.

This is Monica in reverse. The machine at work against him.

I think most Amercans woke up because of Snowden.


7 posted on 05/10/2014 7:33:27 AM PDT by RitaOK ( VIVA CHRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming.)
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To: bboop

Usually, a few days later, it’s available to everyone.

The basic gist is that the vastly smaller amount of so called “whistleblower” type documents were a cover for the theft of the overwhelming amount of military type documents


8 posted on 05/10/2014 7:33:59 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: nuconvert

Too convenient IMO for it to be foreign involvement.

Snowden is a Obama/Hillary operative IMO.

Notice with the Boston bombing the first thing people asked was “how could we not know what the bombers were up to with all the surveillance?”.

The answer from the Obama adm., the bombing was planned only 2 days before and then the bombers “spontaneously” planned to attack NCY.

The fact what Snowden did served the purpose of supporting the Benghazi “spontaneous” lie is just too convenient for me to be a mere coincidence.


9 posted on 05/10/2014 7:35:15 AM PDT by IMR 4350
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

Is there any way you could find out? Wouldn’t that just be very interesting?


10 posted on 05/10/2014 7:36:54 AM PDT by RitaOK ( VIVA CHRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming.)
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To: nuconvert

Regardless of his motivation, or who he was working for, a lot of the NSA’s operations on all American citizens needed to be made known to the U.S. public.


11 posted on 05/10/2014 7:38:32 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("I'm a Contra" -- President Ronald Reagan)
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To: dangus

” Snowden was aided in getting to Russia by Assange.”

Or so it seemed ..... maybe the Russians wanted it to appear that way so it didn’t look like they were involved


12 posted on 05/10/2014 7:40:57 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: nuconvert
Two questions that were never answered:

1) Why did such a low level and relatively new employee have unfettered access to such a vast amount of highly classivied and sensitive information, and

2) Why wasn't the access of such a vast amount of data by a low level and relatively new employee ever detected and investigated?

I'll guarantee you that in almost every other business where a vast amount of sensitive information is available to employees, each database query and file transfer is logged, and excessive data transfer is flagged.

13 posted on 05/10/2014 7:42:18 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Dr. Sivana

“Regardless of his motivation, or who he was working for...”

Really? SO from now on, anyone who wants to steal military secrets, should just take a few documents that he thinks American citizens should be aware of, and it’s all just fine.


14 posted on 05/10/2014 7:44:58 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: RitaOK

I doubt I could find out. I don’t have any of those types of contacts/access to Mr. Aldrich.

My thoughts are that pointing to it as an “foreign espionage” case is CYA for just plain sloppy “spook” work and security.


15 posted on 05/10/2014 7:50:52 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations - The Acronym explains the science.)
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To: Yo-Yo

“Two questions that were never answered”

Or maybe they were, but the answers are carelessness, naivete, and lackadaisical attitude. Unfortunately, seems to be a lot of ‘closing the barn door after the horses are out’ going on.


16 posted on 05/10/2014 7:52:21 AM PDT by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: nuconvert

No. I didn’t say that.

I do say that if the U.S. is spying on the entire country, that that information has to get out. I am glad it got out.

If the NSA would keep focusing on foreign bad guys instead of using surveillance everywhere, they’d have fewer Snowdens to keep an eye on.


17 posted on 05/10/2014 7:52:58 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("I'm a Contra" -- President Ronald Reagan)
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To: nuconvert

Life imitating art?

Snowden gives military secrets to Ivan.

Russian spy planes discovered off California coast.

“U2 plane at 60,000” feet causes LAX computers to crash, shuts down airport and all traffic on the west coast.

New “24” has hacker take over military drones and attack American soldiers in Afghanistan.

question:

Who crashed the LAX computer system, Gary Powers or Ivan?


18 posted on 05/10/2014 7:52:58 AM PDT by reagandemocrat (I'm leaning towards Ivan)
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To: nuconvert
I thought so almost from the beginning-- there's no way a contractor sysadmin had access to all the stuff Snowden got-- he (like Manning) had the help of outside hackers who used him to plant keystroke loggers, etc., onto NSA machines which were then used to hack other computers.

This also means that there is no way to tell whether the info Snowden claims he got from the NSA really came from the NSA or came from the FSB or was just made up.

One of the major points of the operation was to help split Germany from the US-- if Russia can boot the US out of Europe then they can dominate everything from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

19 posted on 05/10/2014 7:53:58 AM PDT by pierrem15 (Claudius: "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.")
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To: nuconvert

I’m not convinced he began as a foreign agent. All that nation-hopping at the beginning wouldn’t make sense. More likely he took the military information as insurance or leverage. It’s also possible that he just was grabbing whatever he could get his hands — en masse — before fleeing, and that’s what wound up in his data-stash.


20 posted on 05/10/2014 7:59:09 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan (My tagline is in the shop.)
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