Edward Snowden explains why he is not a Russian spy

Former American Intelligence Officer Answers Redditorial Questions

The interview in the style of the AMA (Ask Me Anything - ask me about anything) with the participation of Edward Snowden replenished the piggy bank of his biography with several revelations. Many questions related to any topic of concern to skepticism: for the intelligence of which country an informant works on the activities of the US National Security Agency. Several people answered at once in the thread: the authors of the Oscar-winning documentary film Citizen Four by Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald and the main character of the film. The AMA went great, except for a tiny hitch with Snowden’s erroneous ban account and subsequent unlocking .

If Snowden had the opportunity to change something in his leaks about illegal NSA wiretapping and the extent of the agency’s cyber weapons, he would have acted earlier . Snowden is sure that in this case the programs of the special services would be less rooted in the legal field, and those who abuse their powers would not be accustomed to their current state. After the emergence of a new lever of influence from the state, it becomes many times more difficult to take it away. An example is section 215 of the PATRIOT act, which should help fight terrorism, but in reality did not help prevent a single terrorist attack. Snowden encourages readers to prevent this from happening in their countries of residence.

max_fisher : For Edward Snowden - Russian journalist Andrei Soldatov described your daily life limited by the Russian state security services, which, he said, control the circumstances of your life in the country. Is it so?

Snowden: Good question, thank you.
The answer is of course not. Notice that in all these articles the charges, in general, come to speculation and suspicion. There is no real evidence in any of them, the authors are simply strongly convinced that I am a Russian spy, and therefore this must be true.
And I understand them. I really understand. No, seriously - I once taught "cyber counterintelligence" (this is their term) in the Intelligence Agency of the US Department of Defense.
But if you look at the whole, how logical is that? If I were a Russian spy, then why fly to Hong Kong? It was an unacceptable risk. And further: why bother to give out information to journalists at all and what needs to be noted are so much and so important? Any value for Russian intelligence would be immediately undermined.
And if I was a Russian spy, then why did I stick out for a month at the airport? Instead, a parade and a medal would be waiting for me.
In reality, I spent so much time at the airport, because I didn’t want to accept other conditions, and no one knew what to do with me. I refused to cooperate with Russian intelligence in any way then (if it’s interesting, read my testimony to the EU Parliament), and nothing has changed so far.
I think my fame helped me. What can they do to me? If I show up in public with broken fingers, everything will become clear.

Snowden soberly assesses his future : he assumes that he can be used as a trump card in international politics. But he still prefers not to think about situations in which he can be exchanged, for example, for the lifting of sanctions.
')
The main participant of the set of leaks notes that it is necessary to raise the topic of espionage in the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Snowden is sure that there is no reason to trust Putin’s words when he claims that there are no surveillance programs in Russia. But this problem applies to all states. It is impossible to change the laws in only one country, you need to monitor the implementation of rights throughout the world, says Snowden.

Some authors of the questions thought that since the publication of data on the activities of the NSA in the minds of people, little has changed, although the leaks were a very large informational event. But the respondents do not agree with this point of view. Snowden believes that the changes are imperceptible, since most of it occurs at the system building level: Google now encrypts data transfer between data centers to prevent passive monitoring, Apple introduces full encryption of its smartphones, and researchers around the world are looking for a solution to the metadata problem. Finally, awareness has emerged about interception programs in wide circles. Until 2013, a statement of concern about these issues would only lead to perplexed views and reputation as a supporter of conspiracy theories. Today, almost everyone has heard about the activities of the special services.

Edward Snowden was a technical specialist of the consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton, which provides services to various US defense and intelligence agencies. In the process of working for the American special services, Snowden began to be disappointed in their activities. At the end of 2012, he contacted the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, under an anonymous pseudonym. In the summer of 2013, Snowden fled to Hong Kong, passed many secret documents to several publications and revealed his identity. Snowden is now in Russia in refugee status after an unsuccessful attempt to get to Brazil. The scale of the leaks is enormous: they continue to this day , revealing more and more new methods of work of American special services.

Full thread on “Reddite”