Could Snowden Have Been Stopped In 2009?

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The NYT reports that when Edward Snowden was working as a CIA technician in Geneva in 2009, his supervisor wrote a derogatory report in his personnel file, noting a distinct change in the young man's behavior and work habits, as well as a troubling suspicion that Snowden was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access. But the red flags went unheeded and Snowden left the CIA to become a contractor for the NSA so that four years later he could leak thousands of classified documents. In hindsight, officials say, the report by Snowden's supervisor and the agency's suspicions might have been the first serious warnings of the disclosures to come, and the biggest missed opportunity to review Snowden's top-secret clearance or at least put his future work at the NSA under much greater scrutiny. Had Booz Allen or the NSA seen Snowden's CIA file before hiring him, it almost certainly would have affected his employment says Dashiell Bennett. 'The weakness of the system was if derogatory information came in, he could still keep his security clearance and move to another job, and the information wasn't passed on,' says a Republican lawmaker who has been briefed on Snowden's activities. It's difficult to tell what would have happened had NSA supervisors been made aware of the warning the CIA issued Snowden in what is called a 'derog' in federal personnel policy parlance."

Comments

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Latin)

[Proudrooster]

This is a classic case of "who watches the watchmen" or Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Apparently, no one. It seems that anyone with top secret at the NSA can do whatever they please with no oversight or discipline. It must be a fun place to work where you can spend you days creeping on your ex-girlfriends, elected officials, and corporate CEOs. Unchecked power is a very bad thing as we move farther and father from the principle of "habeas corpus" and into the land of "it's top secret and no you can't see the evidence, trust us, were a bunch of good, trustworthy folks."

And if you haven't seen "Flying Robots", go watch it now. The NSA will want these toys overhead next, if they aren't already there.

Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Latin)

[Proudrooster]

So let me get this straight, if you use government resources to break the law or fail to deliver on large government projects then you will be barred from further federal work? I think all you need to do is rename the company, e.g. "Blackwater" to "Xe" (or whatever they are called) and re-apply, No big deal.

What is really going on?

[tchdab1]

I don't know enough about personnel internals at CIA or NSA. With what I do know, I have to view with suspicion a personnel history report that appears months after Snowden began leaking information. He's publicly humiliated the NSA, called them liars and produced some proof that they've crossed the line(s) of acceptable behavior. I would expect these agencies to produce "evidence" that denigrates his position, and I would not at first glance accept it.

Re: What is really going on?

[Aboroth]

Sure, because instead of just quietly going to Russia and getting the big payday by handing over all of the secrets, he instead decides to make all of the information much less valuable to his "employer" by telling everyone at once, and at the same time letting everyone in the US government know what he took and how he did it, making further infiltration more difficult in the future. Sounds like the most idiotic spy plan ever, and since you say he did this with Russian backing, that must mean the Russians are idiots. What is more likely is that you are having problems accepting that one man can so deeply affect an all-powerful entity such as the U.S. government, so you invent crazy theories that involve another powerful entity since that is comforting to you.

Re:Snowden must be preemptively stopped

[Cyberdyne]

Is the date on the report questioning Snowden's loyalties the same as the date the material was actually entered into the electronic records? I can think of several strong reasons why the CIA might want to do some rewriting of its own history here. And certainly they have the expertise to do a good of that. In fact it would be routine for them to alter history: that is how you give a mole a credible back story.

The CIA is not just a spy agency. They are also the USA Bureau of Missinformation And Dysinformation.

I can imagine them rewriting history, but in this case I doubt it; surely it would suit them better for him to have been a normal, competent employee at that point, who then went rogue later, rather than saying "oops ... yes, we saw all these warning signs, but forgot to do anything about it for a few years. Told you so - er, I mean, we would have told you so, if we'd been more alert..."

Of course, if you're really paranoid, you'd wonder if the CIA computers had been compromised by, say, some other agency with lots of expertise at breaking into high-value targets, and this report had been planted by them, maybe to divert blame for their own failed internal security...

Re:Other red flags

[Will.Woodhull]

What you are describing has all the markings of the cover story the CIA might develop for a mole.

Snowden might be the creation of the CIA whose objective might have been to destroy the NSA's credibility before that agency gained too much power and became a direct threat to CIA activities.

Snowden found it so easy to evade and escape that I kind of wonder whether he has had some help from somebody in Washington.