WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.599 so today we're opening a file that honestly It 00:00:05.599 --> 00:00:07.759 kind of defines the modern era of the Internet. 00:00:07.940 --> 00:00:10.259 It really does. It's a foundational story. It's 00:00:10.259 --> 00:00:11.820 a story that has everything. I mean, you've got 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:15.119 a Rubik's Cube, a pole dancing girlfriend, a 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:17.420 frantic flight to Hong Kong. And look, the single 00:00:17.420 --> 00:00:19.960 largest. I mean, it's the largest theft of classified 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:21.980 secrets in the history of the United States. 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:24.460 We are looking at the Edward Snowden archives. 00:00:24.820 --> 00:00:27.539 And when you say archives, we really do need 00:00:27.539 --> 00:00:29.820 to emphasize the sheer weight of what we're diving 00:00:29.820 --> 00:00:32.039 into. Yeah. This isn't just about the man. It's 00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:35.609 about. The mountain of documents he walked out 00:00:35.609 --> 00:00:38.409 of a facility in Hawaii with. So for our sources 00:00:38.409 --> 00:00:40.729 today, what are we looking at? We're looking 00:00:40.729 --> 00:00:44.390 at the comprehensive Wikipedia records, which 00:00:44.390 --> 00:00:47.030 are incredibly detailed. We're also pulling from 00:00:47.030 --> 00:00:49.170 the original investigative reports from The Guardian 00:00:49.170 --> 00:00:51.789 and the declassified assessments from the House 00:00:51.789 --> 00:00:54.350 Intelligence Committee, plus the court rulings 00:00:54.350 --> 00:00:57.070 that came years later. It's a huge pile of material. 00:00:57.130 --> 00:01:00.750 It is a massive data set. And our mission today 00:01:00.750 --> 00:01:03.670 really is to cut through all the noise. You know, 00:01:03.670 --> 00:01:06.810 the endless hero versus traitor shouting match 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:09.569 that's been going on for a decade. Yeah. And 00:01:09.569 --> 00:01:11.670 to actually look at the mechanics of it. Yes. 00:01:11.950 --> 00:01:15.269 How did a community college dropout get what 00:01:15.269 --> 00:01:18.930 they call God mode access to the NSA? What specific 00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:22.230 technologies did he actually reveal? And how 00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:24.489 did he end up trapped in a Russian airport for 00:01:24.489 --> 00:01:27.549 over a month? That's the key. We want to understand 00:01:27.549 --> 00:01:30.650 the system he revealed and just. as importantly, 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:34.150 the system that hunted him down. Because, look, 00:01:34.290 --> 00:01:36.930 regardless of how you feel about him personally, 00:01:37.090 --> 00:01:39.590 the internet you're using right now, the encryption 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:42.030 on your phone, the little lock icon in your browser, 00:01:42.170 --> 00:01:45.750 that is a direct result of what happened in 2013. 00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:47.790 So let's start with the scale of it. Because 00:01:47.790 --> 00:01:49.629 I think people remember Snowden -Leet stuff, 00:01:49.810 --> 00:01:50.950 but when you look at the source material, the 00:01:50.950 --> 00:01:53.480 actual numbers are... They're all over the place. 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:55.680 They are. And that discrepancy tells a story 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:57.900 in itself. The NSA director at the time, Keith 00:01:57.900 --> 00:02:00.920 Alexander, he initially panicked. Understandably. 00:02:00.980 --> 00:02:04.959 He estimated Snowden took anywhere from 50 ,000 00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:07.219 to maybe 200 ,000 documents. Which is already 00:02:07.219 --> 00:02:10.360 a disaster for them. It's a catastrophe. But 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:12.900 then you look at the report that came out later 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:15.099 from the House Permanent Select Committee on 00:02:15.099 --> 00:02:20.080 Intelligence. They put the number at 1 .5 million 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:24.349 documents. Wow. 1 .5 million. And it gets worse. 00:02:24.530 --> 00:02:26.990 The Department of Defense did their own audit 00:02:26.990 --> 00:02:30.210 and added another 900 ,000 of their specific 00:02:30.210 --> 00:02:33.129 files to that estimate. That is just a staggering 00:02:33.129 --> 00:02:35.389 variance. Yeah. It goes from, like you said, 00:02:35.509 --> 00:02:38.150 a briefcase full of secrets to an entire library. 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:40.370 It is. And it suggests something that must have 00:02:40.370 --> 00:02:42.389 been absolutely terrifying for the intelligence 00:02:42.389 --> 00:02:44.409 community. What's that? They didn't actually 00:02:44.409 --> 00:02:46.449 know what he took. They couldn't track it. They 00:02:46.449 --> 00:02:48.469 couldn't audit their own systems well enough 00:02:48.469 --> 00:02:50.689 to see what had been copied. They were just guessing. 00:02:50.729 --> 00:02:52.669 They were guessing based on what he could have 00:02:52.669 --> 00:02:54.469 accessed. Which brings us right to the central 00:02:54.469 --> 00:02:56.389 tension of this whole story, doesn't it? It does. 00:02:56.860 --> 00:02:58.699 On one hand, you have the government arguing 00:02:58.699 --> 00:03:01.120 this was just a smash and grab that endangered 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:04.340 lives. And on the other, you have Snowden arguing 00:03:04.340 --> 00:03:06.620 that he didn't just dump all this data online. 00:03:06.879 --> 00:03:09.080 Right. He was very clear on that. He gave it 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:11.759 to journalists to curate, to decide what was 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:13.699 in the public interest. So before we get into 00:03:13.699 --> 00:03:15.659 the leak itself, we have to understand the leaker. 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:19.319 Because when you look at his early life, he just... 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:22.580 It doesn't fit the profile of some kind of radical 00:03:22.580 --> 00:03:25.800 anti -government activist. Not at all. Not even 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:27.840 close. If you look at the biographical data, 00:03:28.039 --> 00:03:32.080 Edward Snowden is he's practically a legacy hire 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:34.240 for the federal government. A legacy hire. Yeah. 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.599 He's born in 1983 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. 00:03:38.419 --> 00:03:41.300 His grandfather was a rear admiral in the Coast 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.319 Guard. A rear admiral. And later a senior FBI 00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:46.759 official. He was literally at the Pentagon on 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:49.580 9 -11. His father was in the Coast Guard. His 00:03:49.580 --> 00:03:51.759 mother worked for the U .S. District Court in 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:54.539 Maryland. So he was a child of the Beltway through 00:03:54.539 --> 00:03:56.939 and through. Deeply embedded in it. They moved 00:03:56.939 --> 00:04:00.039 to Fort Meade, Maryland in the 90s. And Fort 00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:03.099 Meade is basically the company town for the NSA. 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:05.259 Right. It's right there. It's the kind of place 00:04:05.259 --> 00:04:07.400 where your neighbor is probably a cryptographer 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:09.259 and the guy at the grocery store might have a 00:04:09.259 --> 00:04:13.090 top secret clearance. But Snowden himself. His 00:04:13.090 --> 00:04:15.770 path was different. He didn't go the, you know, 00:04:15.810 --> 00:04:19.329 Ivy League officer training route. He dropped 00:04:19.329 --> 00:04:21.189 out of high school. And this is one of those 00:04:21.189 --> 00:04:24.660 details that his critics. always, always latch 00:04:24.660 --> 00:04:27.300 on to. The high school dropout. Right. They use 00:04:27.300 --> 00:04:29.220 it to paint him as undisciplined or unqualified. 00:04:29.420 --> 00:04:31.540 But the context is really important here. It 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:34.180 wasn't about delinquency or bad grades. It was 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:38.160 a medical issue. A really severe case of mononucleosis. 00:04:38.300 --> 00:04:40.379 It knocked him out for nearly nine months of 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:43.139 school. Wow. But what's so interesting is how 00:04:43.139 --> 00:04:46.019 he recovered. He didn't just go back to high 00:04:46.019 --> 00:04:48.639 school to finish up. He sort of, he hacked the 00:04:48.639 --> 00:04:51.519 education system. He just took the GED and passed 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:53.699 it. Then he went. straight to Anne Arundel Community 00:04:53.699 --> 00:04:56.439 College. The sources all paint a picture of someone 00:04:56.439 --> 00:04:59.040 who was clearly very bright, but just impatient 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:01.259 with traditional structures. And culturally, 00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:04.420 he was very much a product of that early 2000s 00:05:04.420 --> 00:05:06.379 internet generation. Oh, absolutely. The sources 00:05:06.379 --> 00:05:09.459 list his interests as, you know, anime, Japanese 00:05:09.459 --> 00:05:12.040 popular culture, martial arts. He even put down 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:14.120 his religion as Buddhism on some of his personnel 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:17.449 forms later. He was a classic otaku. He learned 00:05:17.449 --> 00:05:20.290 some Japanese. He even worked for a small anime 00:05:20.290 --> 00:05:23.290 company for a bit called Ryu Hana Press. It's 00:05:23.290 --> 00:05:26.029 a very relatable profile for anyone who grew 00:05:26.029 --> 00:05:28.170 up on the Internet in that era. Living half your 00:05:28.170 --> 00:05:31.389 life on message boards. Exactly. But then 9 -11 00:05:31.389 --> 00:05:34.029 happens. And this is a pivot point that I think 00:05:34.029 --> 00:05:36.649 gets overlooked a lot. He didn't run away from 00:05:36.649 --> 00:05:38.810 the government after that. He ran directly toward 00:05:38.810 --> 00:05:42.079 it. He enlisted in 2004. Yep. And he didn't sign 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:45.220 up to, you know, fix computers or work in logistics. 00:05:45.399 --> 00:05:48.839 He signed up for the 18X program. Which is, that's 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:50.939 a direct pipeline to special forces. Right. He 00:05:50.939 --> 00:05:53.639 wanted to be a Green Beret. He explicitly said 00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:56.939 he wanted to free people from oppression. He 00:05:56.939 --> 00:05:59.699 was buying into the narrative of the Iraq War 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:01.959 completely. So he was a true believer at that 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:04.240 point. He wanted to go overseas and fight for 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:08.259 what he believed were American ideals. But, uh... 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:10.540 The physical reality of that kind of training 00:06:10.540 --> 00:06:12.300 caught up with him. The sources say he broke 00:06:12.300 --> 00:06:14.680 both his legs. Is that right? Bilateral tibial 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:17.560 stress fractures. It's a common injury when you 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:19.899 push your body too hard, too fast in that kind 00:06:19.899 --> 00:06:22.300 of intense training. So that was it for his military 00:06:22.300 --> 00:06:25.220 career. He was administratively discharged a 00:06:25.220 --> 00:06:27.899 few months later. So the door to physical combat 00:06:27.899 --> 00:06:30.379 closes for him. But because of his background, 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:34.500 his family, his aptitude for tech, the door to 00:06:34.500 --> 00:06:38.019 digital combat swings wide open. He gets a job 00:06:38.019 --> 00:06:40.480 as a security specialist at the Center for Advanced 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:43.199 Study of Language at the University of Maryland. 00:06:43.379 --> 00:06:45.259 Right. Now, security specialist sounds pretty 00:06:45.259 --> 00:06:47.519 fancy, but from what I gather, he was basically 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:49.740 a guard. Technically, yes, he was guarding the 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:53.579 building. But this facility was an NSA -sponsored 00:06:53.579 --> 00:06:56.560 research center. So to work security there, even 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.259 just to guard the door, he needed a top -secret 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:02.199 security clearance. And a polygraph. And a polygraph. 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:05.100 And that right there, that clearance? That's 00:07:05.100 --> 00:07:06.980 the golden ticket. Right. Once you have that 00:07:06.980 --> 00:07:09.279 clearance, you are an incredibly valuable commodity 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:11.019 in that world. In the intelligence community, 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:13.579 the clearance is often worth more than the college 00:07:13.579 --> 00:07:15.800 degree. And that ticket gets him into the CIA 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:19.540 in 2006. He goes to a job fair and they just 00:07:19.540 --> 00:07:21.579 scoop him up. Of course they do. They see this 00:07:21.579 --> 00:07:23.939 computer wizard who already has a top secret 00:07:23.939 --> 00:07:26.399 clearance. It's a no brainer for them. So they 00:07:26.399 --> 00:07:28.100 send him off to training. They send him to what 00:07:28.100 --> 00:07:30.920 they call The Hill, which is the CIA's secret 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.800 training school for technology specialists. He 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:36.259 lived in a hotel for six months, just training 00:07:36.259 --> 00:07:39.480 day and night. And by March of 2007, he's on 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:41.920 a plane. He's stationed in Geneva, Switzerland, 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:45.139 with full diplomatic cover. Okay, so this Geneva 00:07:45.139 --> 00:07:47.899 period is fascinating because it's his first 00:07:47.899 --> 00:07:50.180 real taste of how the sausage is actually made. 00:07:50.339 --> 00:07:55.120 It is. Geneva is this... Global hub for banking, 00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:59.000 diplomacy and obviously espionage. And there's 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:01.550 this one anecdote that. Snowden tells the Swiss 00:08:01.550 --> 00:08:03.910 banker incident that really seems to be a turning 00:08:03.910 --> 00:08:05.769 point for him. It's a scene straight out of a 00:08:05.769 --> 00:08:07.970 Spidey movie, honestly. Lay it out for us. So 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:10.290 Snowden claims that some CIA operatives he was 00:08:10.290 --> 00:08:12.769 working with wanted to recruit a particular Swiss 00:08:12.769 --> 00:08:15.569 banker to get access to secret financial records. 00:08:15.709 --> 00:08:17.730 Okay, standard stuff. But it was the method. 00:08:17.949 --> 00:08:20.350 He alleges they deliberately got the banker drunk, 00:08:20.470 --> 00:08:23.269 encouraged him to drive home, and when he inevitably 00:08:23.269 --> 00:08:26.490 got arrested for a DUI. The CIA swoops in to 00:08:26.490 --> 00:08:29.370 save the day. Exactly. A CIA operative swoops 00:08:29.370 --> 00:08:32.429 in and offers to fix the problem with the local 00:08:32.429 --> 00:08:35.610 police in exchange for his cooperation. In other 00:08:35.610 --> 00:08:38.269 words, in exchange for becoming an informant. 00:08:38.350 --> 00:08:41.269 It's straight up blackmail. Or at least leveraged 00:08:41.269 --> 00:08:43.929 recruitment. It's manipulation. Now, we have 00:08:43.929 --> 00:08:46.129 to be rigorous with the sources here. This is 00:08:46.129 --> 00:08:48.549 Snowden's account. The Swiss president at the 00:08:48.549 --> 00:08:51.470 time, Willy Marmer, he publicly disputed this 00:08:51.470 --> 00:08:53.830 story later on. On what grounds? He basically 00:08:53.830 --> 00:08:56.129 said it was highly unlikely the CIA could just 00:08:56.129 --> 00:08:58.450 bribe or manipulate the Geneva police or their 00:08:58.450 --> 00:09:02.830 judiciary to make a DUI charge just disappear. 00:09:02.889 --> 00:09:05.110 Which is fair. Swiss bureaucracy is famously 00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:08.269 rigid. Exactly. But here's the thing. Whether 00:09:08.269 --> 00:09:10.570 the event happened exactly as Snowden described 00:09:10.570 --> 00:09:13.169 it or not, the impact on him was real. It planted 00:09:13.169 --> 00:09:15.149 a seed of doubt. It was the beginning of his 00:09:15.149 --> 00:09:17.250 disillusionment. He felt the agency was more 00:09:17.250 --> 00:09:19.210 interested in manipulating people for its own 00:09:19.210 --> 00:09:21.909 ends than in actually protecting them. He started 00:09:21.909 --> 00:09:23.909 to see the human intelligence side of the business 00:09:23.909 --> 00:09:27.309 as well as morally corrosive. So he resigns from 00:09:27.309 --> 00:09:30.289 the CIA in 2009, but he doesn't leave the game. 00:09:30.429 --> 00:09:33.110 Not at all. He just changes teams in a sense. 00:09:33.149 --> 00:09:35.009 He jumps over to the private sector to Dell. 00:09:35.450 --> 00:09:37.230 And this is a distinction that I think is absolutely 00:09:37.230 --> 00:09:38.870 critical for you to understand if you want to 00:09:38.870 --> 00:09:41.289 get this story. He's now working for the NSA, 00:09:41.549 --> 00:09:44.330 but he is employed by Dell. This is the era of 00:09:44.330 --> 00:09:46.509 massive outsourcing in the intelligence community. 00:09:46.889 --> 00:09:49.289 Post 9 -11, the surveillance state just grew 00:09:49.289 --> 00:09:51.370 so fast the government couldn't hire people fast 00:09:51.370 --> 00:09:53.429 enough. So they turned to contractors. They turned 00:09:53.429 --> 00:09:56.250 to contractors like Dell and later Booz Allen 00:09:56.250 --> 00:09:59.750 Hamilton. So Snowden is at Dell from 2009 to 00:09:59.750 --> 00:10:03.110 2013. He's assigned to NSA facilities, first 00:10:03.110 --> 00:10:05.870 in Japan and then back in Maryland. And he is 00:10:05.870 --> 00:10:09.950 not some low -level tech support guy. His title 00:10:09.950 --> 00:10:13.210 is cyber strategist. He described his role as 00:10:13.210 --> 00:10:16.009 literally sitting down with the CIO of the Central 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:18.889 Intelligence Agency to solve their hardest technical 00:10:18.889 --> 00:10:22.210 problems. He had what they call privilege access. 00:10:22.470 --> 00:10:26.399 Or God mode. Sys admin access. As a systems administrator, 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:28.519 you have to be able to see everything to fix 00:10:28.519 --> 00:10:30.539 everything. You're the custodian of the entire 00:10:30.539 --> 00:10:32.779 network. You have keys that the generals and 00:10:32.779 --> 00:10:35.159 the agency directors don't have. You can see 00:10:35.159 --> 00:10:37.600 the file structures, the user directories, the 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:40.700 raw data streams, everything. So he's in this 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:43.860 position of immense power and trust. He's seeing 00:10:43.860 --> 00:10:46.559 the raw data. He's already disillusioned. But 00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:50.379 what was the final catalyst? What turns him from 00:10:50.379 --> 00:10:53.600 a disillusioned employee into a whistleblower 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:56.000 who is willing to literally burn his entire life 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.919 to the ground? Snowden himself points to a very 00:10:58.919 --> 00:11:02.460 specific date, March 12, 2013. OK. He's watching 00:11:02.460 --> 00:11:04.980 a televised Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 00:11:05.059 --> 00:11:07.879 And Senator Ron Wyden asks James Clapper, who 00:11:07.879 --> 00:11:09.840 is the director of national intelligence, a very 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:13.210 direct and actually a prepared. I remember this 00:11:13.210 --> 00:11:16.529 clip so vividly. Wyden asks, does the NSA collect 00:11:16.529 --> 00:11:19.629 any type of data at all on millions or hundreds 00:11:19.629 --> 00:11:21.590 of millions of Americans? And you can see Clapper 00:11:21.590 --> 00:11:23.570 just squirm. He rubs his forehead. He leans back 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:25.649 and he replies, no, sir. And then he adds the 00:11:25.649 --> 00:11:28.710 weasel words. He pauses and then he adds, not 00:11:28.710 --> 00:11:31.889 wittingly. Which Snowden knew, for a fact, was 00:11:31.889 --> 00:11:34.830 an outright lie. He knew because he was one of 00:11:34.830 --> 00:11:36.970 the people looking at the systems that did exactly 00:11:36.970 --> 00:11:40.899 that every single day. Snowden said later that 00:11:40.899 --> 00:11:42.840 seeing the highest intelligence official in the 00:11:42.840 --> 00:11:46.320 entire country lie under oath to the Congressional 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:49.580 Oversight Committee. That meant the entire system 00:11:49.580 --> 00:11:51.679 of checks and balances was broken. There was 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:53.700 no internal channel to report this to. How could 00:11:53.700 --> 00:11:55.820 there be? The people at the very top were in 00:11:55.820 --> 00:11:58.039 on the deception. If the oversight committee 00:11:58.039 --> 00:12:00.460 is being lied to, then oversight doesn't exist. 00:12:00.519 --> 00:12:02.899 It's a sham. So that's it. He decides to act. 00:12:03.019 --> 00:12:06.500 And this move he makes in early 2013 is very, 00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:09.360 very calculated. He leaves his job at Dell. A 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:11.399 job he apparently liked and was paid very well 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:13.860 for. And he takes a pay cut to go and join Booz 00:12:13.860 --> 00:12:16.440 Allen Hamilton. Why that specific switch? It 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:18.519 was a tactical move. Booz Allen Hamilton had 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:21.620 a specific contract at the NSA's Regional Operations 00:12:21.620 --> 00:12:23.919 Center in Hawaii, the place they call the Kunia 00:12:23.919 --> 00:12:26.580 Tunnel. Right. And this specific position gave 00:12:26.580 --> 00:12:29.779 him access to a different set of lists and directories 00:12:29.779 --> 00:12:32.259 that he needed to complete his collection. He 00:12:32.259 --> 00:12:35.220 explicitly sought out that job to get that specific 00:12:35.220 --> 00:12:37.679 data. He was positioning himself for the heist. 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:40.759 Let's talk about the heist itself. So, Hawaii. 00:12:41.980 --> 00:12:45.190 Paradise on the outside. A subterranean intelligence 00:12:45.190 --> 00:12:49.190 bunker on the inside. How does one person move 00:12:49.190 --> 00:12:52.990 potentially 1 .5 million classified documents 00:12:52.990 --> 00:12:56.370 out of a secure facility like that? The reality 00:12:56.370 --> 00:12:59.409 is surprisingly mundane. No Mission Impossible 00:12:59.409 --> 00:13:02.049 style acrobatics? No. We know he started downloading 00:13:02.049 --> 00:13:04.070 some documents while he was still at Dell, but 00:13:04.070 --> 00:13:06.690 the bulk of it happened in Hawaii. And he used 00:13:06.690 --> 00:13:09.029 thumb drives? Thumb drives. Mini SD cards. Things 00:13:09.029 --> 00:13:11.220 you could easily conceal. But... Thumb drives. 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:14.519 Yeah. In a top -secret NSA facility. Don't they 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:16.799 check your pockets when you leave? Well, it highlights 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:19.500 a massive security gap at the time. The NSA's 00:13:19.500 --> 00:13:21.360 systems were all designed to keep people out. 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:23.299 They weren't very good at monitoring the people 00:13:23.299 --> 00:13:24.960 who were already inside. The insider threat. 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:26.840 The ultimate insider threat. But there was also 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:29.460 this social engineering element that has been 00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:31.440 debated heavily ever since. What's that about? 00:13:31.740 --> 00:13:33.860 Reuters reported on this, citing anonymous government 00:13:33.860 --> 00:13:36.320 officials. They claim that Snowden persuaded 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:39.019 somewhere between 20 and 25 of his coworkers 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:42.120 to give him their login credentials. The classic 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:45.019 IT move. Hey, I just need your login to run a 00:13:45.019 --> 00:13:47.480 system update real quick. That's exactly the 00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:49.980 alleged pretext. He told them he needed their 00:13:49.980 --> 00:13:52.539 credentials to perform his duties as a systems 00:13:52.539 --> 00:13:55.139 administrator, to do maintenance on the servers. 00:13:55.419 --> 00:13:57.600 And if that's true, it would have allowed him 00:13:57.600 --> 00:14:00.419 to access parts of the network his own clearance 00:14:00.419 --> 00:14:02.960 might not have covered. Or, perhaps more importantly, 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:06.059 to mask his activities. To make it look like 00:14:06.059 --> 00:14:08.039 other people were accessing these files, not 00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:10.039 just one guy downloading the entire library. 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:13.240 But Snowden denies this. He denies it vehemently. 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:16.360 His quote is, I never stole any passwords, nor 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:19.299 did I trick an army of coworkers. So what's his 00:14:19.299 --> 00:14:21.720 argument? His argument is simple. Why would I 00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:23.980 need their passwords? I was the system admin. 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.480 I already had the keys to the kingdom. It's possible 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.539 both things are true, in a way. He had the access, 00:14:29.779 --> 00:14:32.080 but maybe he used their credentials to cover 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:34.899 his tracks. It's certainly possible. But regardless 00:14:34.899 --> 00:14:38.440 of the exact method, by May of 2013, he has the 00:14:38.440 --> 00:14:41.039 data. He's already made contact with journalists 00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:44.200 Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. He's using 00:14:44.200 --> 00:14:47.059 code names. He used Cincinnati's, right? cincinnatus 00:14:47.059 --> 00:14:51.059 and also verax which is latin for truth teller 00:14:51.059 --> 00:14:53.000 cincinnatus is a really telling choice though 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:56.139 it's so specific for those who don't know cincinnatus 00:14:56.139 --> 00:14:58.960 was the roman farmer who was granted absolute 00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:02.080 dictatorial power to save rome from an invasion 00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:05.779 he won the war saved the republic and immediately 00:15:05.779 --> 00:15:08.860 gave up all that power and went back to his farm 00:15:08.860 --> 00:15:11.320 it shows you exactly how snowden viewed himself 00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:14.720 not as a new ruler Not as someone who wanted 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:17.320 to decide what happens next. But as a citizen 00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:20.299 stepping in during a crisis to fix a problem 00:15:20.299 --> 00:15:23.039 and then handing the power, the information back 00:15:23.039 --> 00:15:26.159 to the public. Precisely. So May 20th, 2013, 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:29.440 he tells his supervisor at Booz Allen that he 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:31.299 needs to take some medical leave. He says he 00:15:31.299 --> 00:15:33.320 needs treatment for epilepsy, a condition he 00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:35.139 had been diagnosed with, which made the story 00:15:35.139 --> 00:15:37.480 credible. So he packs a bag, heads to the airport. 00:15:38.509 --> 00:15:40.409 But he's not going to a doctor's appointment. 00:15:40.549 --> 00:15:42.830 No, he gets on a plane and flies to Hong Kong. 00:15:42.929 --> 00:15:45.509 And why Hong Kong? He chose it very carefully. 00:15:45.750 --> 00:15:48.409 He said he believed it had a spirited commitment 00:15:48.409 --> 00:15:51.610 to free speech and the right of political dissent. 00:15:51.730 --> 00:15:54.730 And crucially, a legal system that was at the 00:15:54.730 --> 00:15:57.450 time still seen as independent from both mainland 00:15:57.450 --> 00:16:00.169 China and the U .S., he thought he could fight 00:16:00.169 --> 00:16:03.179 extradition there. He checks into the Mira Hotel, 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:05.500 and this is where the story really takes on that 00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:08.279 spy thriller vibe. He's holed up in his room, 00:16:08.299 --> 00:16:11.139 and he's paranoid about surveillance. But it's 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.379 a practical paranoia. The details are incredible. 00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:15.980 He lined the crack under his hotel room door 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:18.039 with pillows to stop people from eavesdropping 00:16:18.039 --> 00:16:20.580 from the hallway. And when he entered his passwords 00:16:20.580 --> 00:16:23.580 into his laptop, he put a large red hood over 00:16:23.580 --> 00:16:26.580 his head and the scream. A hood, like a blanket. 00:16:26.990 --> 00:16:29.509 It's called a magic mantle. It's a specialized 00:16:29.509 --> 00:16:32.129 hood, usually used by photographers to see their 00:16:32.129 --> 00:16:34.789 screens in bright sunlight. But in the Intel 00:16:34.789 --> 00:16:37.250 world, it's used to prevent hidden cameras from 00:16:37.250 --> 00:16:39.230 seeing what you're typing. Like a camera and 00:16:39.230 --> 00:16:42.409 a smoke detector. Or a vent. Exactly. Or even 00:16:42.409 --> 00:16:44.570 a long -range camera from a window across the 00:16:44.570 --> 00:16:46.669 street. If they can record your keystrokes, they 00:16:46.669 --> 00:16:48.889 can get your password, and then all your encryption 00:16:48.889 --> 00:16:51.509 is useless. So he's sitting there under this 00:16:51.509 --> 00:16:53.730 red hood, communicating with the journalists. 00:16:54.210 --> 00:16:57.860 And then... Early June 2013, the first articles 00:16:57.860 --> 00:17:00.519 drop. The Guardian and the Washington Post start 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:04.180 publishing. The bomb goes off. The world finds 00:17:04.180 --> 00:17:07.059 out about this massive surveillance state. And 00:17:07.059 --> 00:17:10.660 the US government's reaction is swift. It's nuclear. 00:17:10.819 --> 00:17:13.359 They immediately revoke his passport. They charge 00:17:13.359 --> 00:17:15.440 him with multiple counts under the Espionage 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:18.319 Act and with theft of government property. The 00:17:18.319 --> 00:17:20.240 manhunt begins. He needs to get out of Hong Kong. 00:17:20.700 --> 00:17:22.420 And this is where the plan starts to fall apart, 00:17:22.539 --> 00:17:24.279 isn't it? Yeah. He wasn't trying to stay in Hong 00:17:24.279 --> 00:17:26.059 Kong forever, and he certainly was not trying 00:17:26.059 --> 00:17:28.400 to end up in Russia. No, absolutely not. His 00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:30.980 intended destination, his goal, was Ecuador. 00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:34.279 Ecuador. That seems a bit random. Not really. 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:36.420 At the time, Ecuador had been granting asylum 00:17:36.420 --> 00:17:38.880 to Julian Assange, who was living in their London 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.279 embassy. So it was seen as a safe harbor for 00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:43.640 whistleblowers. So he had a plan to get there. 00:17:43.859 --> 00:17:46.000 He had a whole plan. He had actually secured 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.109 an emergency travel document from Ecuador. The 00:17:49.109 --> 00:17:51.049 flight path was supposed to be a multi -leg journey. 00:17:51.490 --> 00:17:55.470 Hong Kong to Moscow, Moscow to Havana, Cuba, 00:17:55.589 --> 00:17:59.150 and then Havana to Ecuador. So on June 23rd, 00:17:59.150 --> 00:18:02.269 he boards the Aeroflot flight to Moscow. He lands 00:18:02.269 --> 00:18:04.910 at Sheremetyevo Airport. He walks off the plane, 00:18:05.009 --> 00:18:07.109 ready to go to the gate for his connecting flight 00:18:07.109 --> 00:18:11.769 to Havana. And then, what happens? Nothing. The 00:18:11.769 --> 00:18:13.829 computer says no. What do you mean? While he 00:18:13.829 --> 00:18:15.930 was in the air, flying from Hong Kong to Moscow, 00:18:16.759 --> 00:18:18.519 The U .S. State Department officially canceled 00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:20.799 his passport. So the moment he landed in Moscow, 00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:24.500 he was technically stateless. He couldn't legally 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:26.259 enter Russia because he didn't have a Russian 00:18:26.259 --> 00:18:28.579 visa. And he couldn't board the next plane to 00:18:28.579 --> 00:18:30.680 Cuba because he no longer had a valid travel 00:18:30.680 --> 00:18:33.059 document. And there are reports that it wasn't 00:18:33.059 --> 00:18:35.559 just a passport issue. that there was immense 00:18:35.559 --> 00:18:37.940 geopolitical pressure being put on Cuba. Oh, 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:40.359 almost certainly. Sources suggest the U .S. basically 00:18:40.359 --> 00:18:43.200 threatened Cuba with severe consequences if they 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:45.599 allowed that Aeroflot plane to land in Havana 00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:48.059 with Snowden on it. So the flight leaves without 00:18:48.059 --> 00:18:50.960 him. The Havana flight leaves without him. And 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:54.380 Edward Snowden is stuck. He is physically and 00:18:54.380 --> 00:18:57.259 legally trapped in the transit zone of Charamatevo 00:18:57.259 --> 00:18:59.500 Airport. Which is a kind of legal limbo, right? 00:18:59.539 --> 00:19:01.589 It's not... Technically Russian soil. It's a 00:19:01.589 --> 00:19:04.250 no man's land between borders. And he stays there 00:19:04.250 --> 00:19:07.910 for 39 days. 39 days. Just imagine that for a 00:19:07.910 --> 00:19:10.980 second. Living in an airport terminal. Sleeping 00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:13.539 on benches. Eating whatever you can get from 00:19:13.539 --> 00:19:16.019 vending machines or what the airport staff might 00:19:16.019 --> 00:19:18.539 bring you. All the while not knowing if a U .S. 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:20.680 SEAL team is going to raid the terminal or if 00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:23.319 the FSB is going to hand you over. And while 00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:25.839 he's sitting there probably watching the news 00:19:25.839 --> 00:19:28.779 on the airport TVs, the U .S. is becoming so 00:19:28.779 --> 00:19:31.619 desperate to catch him that they cause this massive 00:19:31.619 --> 00:19:34.579 international diplomatic crisis. The Evo Morales 00:19:34.579 --> 00:19:37.769 incident. This story is just... Wild. It is absolutely 00:19:37.769 --> 00:19:40.190 insane. And it's a story that I think got a bit 00:19:40.190 --> 00:19:42.109 buried in the U .S. media at the time, but it 00:19:42.109 --> 00:19:45.329 was a huge deal globally. So what happened? Evo 00:19:45.329 --> 00:19:47.809 Morales, who was the president of Bolivia, was 00:19:47.809 --> 00:19:51.029 in Moscow for a conference. He gets on his presidential 00:19:51.029 --> 00:19:53.950 plane to fly back to Bolivia. Mid -flight, France, 00:19:54.250 --> 00:19:56.869 Spain, and Italy all suddenly deny his plane 00:19:56.869 --> 00:19:59.769 access to their airspace. They grounded a sovereign 00:19:59.769 --> 00:20:02.690 president's plane. That's practically an act 00:20:02.690 --> 00:20:04.890 of aggression. It is virtually unheard of in 00:20:04.890 --> 00:20:07.190 modern diplomacy. And they did it because of 00:20:07.190 --> 00:20:09.849 a tip or pressure from the U .S. who suspected 00:20:09.849 --> 00:20:12.230 that Snowden was hiding on board. So the plane 00:20:12.230 --> 00:20:14.490 was forced to land. It was forced to land in 00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:17.609 Vienna, Austria. The Spanish ambassador allegedly 00:20:17.609 --> 00:20:20.369 tried to invite himself onto the plane to drink 00:20:20.369 --> 00:20:23.970 coffee and, you know, take a look around. Morales 00:20:23.970 --> 00:20:26.490 was furious. He called it a kidnapping and a 00:20:26.490 --> 00:20:28.730 violation of international law. And of course, 00:20:28.750 --> 00:20:31.210 Snowden wasn't on the plane. No, he was still 00:20:31.210 --> 00:20:33.109 sitting in the airport terminal, probably eating 00:20:33.109 --> 00:20:35.970 a bag of chips. But the incident proved to Snowden 00:20:35.970 --> 00:20:38.109 and his lawyers that there was a global dragnet 00:20:38.109 --> 00:20:40.329 out for him. Right. If the U .S. could pressure 00:20:40.329 --> 00:20:42.630 its European allies to ground a head of state's 00:20:42.630 --> 00:20:45.930 plane, Snowden had zero chance of ever getting 00:20:45.930 --> 00:20:48.029 on a commercial flight to Latin America without 00:20:48.029 --> 00:20:50.869 being intercepted. It effectively sealed his 00:20:50.869 --> 00:20:53.529 fate. Russia was the only place he could be. 00:20:53.829 --> 00:20:56.109 Eventually, Russia granted him temporary asylum, 00:20:56.349 --> 00:20:58.109 which allowed him to finally leave the airport. 00:20:58.990 --> 00:21:00.950 And just like that, the whistleblower who wanted 00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:03.089 to expose the American surveillance state and 00:21:03.089 --> 00:21:05.509 flee to Latin America was stranded in Moscow. 00:21:05.710 --> 00:21:08.789 So he's in exile, but the files are out. And 00:21:08.789 --> 00:21:11.309 I want to shift gears to the what? Part three, 00:21:11.450 --> 00:21:13.990 the revelations. Because I think a lot of people 00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:16.750 get the different programs confused. You hear 00:21:16.750 --> 00:21:21.190 PRISM, XC score, muscular. Let's break down what 00:21:21.190 --> 00:21:22.730 these actually were. Let's start with PRISM. 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:25.859 Prism was the first big headline grabber. It 00:21:25.859 --> 00:21:28.339 was the program that showed the NSA was collecting 00:21:28.339 --> 00:21:31.579 user data directly from the servers of U .S. 00:21:31.579 --> 00:21:34.339 service providers. We're talking Microsoft, Google, 00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:38.599 Yahoo, Facebook, Apple. All of them. All the 00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:40.500 big names. Now, the tech companies pushed back 00:21:40.500 --> 00:21:42.359 on this really hard. They came out and said. 00:21:42.809 --> 00:21:44.849 We do not give the government a backdoor to our 00:21:44.849 --> 00:21:46.890 systems. And that's a crucial nuance that's important 00:21:46.890 --> 00:21:49.089 to understand. It wasn't a backdoor in the sense 00:21:49.089 --> 00:21:50.750 that the NSA could just hack in whenever they 00:21:50.750 --> 00:21:53.390 wanted. It was more like a forced front door. 00:21:53.549 --> 00:21:56.049 A front door that was opened by secret courts. 00:21:56.490 --> 00:21:59.329 Exactly. The NSA would go to the Foreign Intelligence 00:21:59.329 --> 00:22:02.470 Surveillance Court, the FISA Court, get a secret 00:22:02.470 --> 00:22:05.569 order, serve it to Google, and Google was legally 00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:08.250 compelled to hand over the data. What kind of 00:22:08.250 --> 00:22:12.079 data? Emails, photos, chat logs, videos, stored 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:14.359 data, pretty much anything associated with a 00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:17.160 specific target. So it was a legal process, but 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:20.480 a secret legal process. Right. The big controversy 00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:23.359 was about the scope. The NSA was only supposed 00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:26.240 to target foreigners reasonably believed to be 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:28.799 outside the United States. But if that foreigner 00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:31.859 was emailing an American citizen. Their data 00:22:31.859 --> 00:22:34.140 gets swept up, too. It gets swept up in the collection. 00:22:34.279 --> 00:22:36.480 They called it incidental collection. But given 00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:38.339 how interconnected the world is, that's a lot 00:22:38.339 --> 00:22:40.759 of incidental data on Americans. So PRISM is 00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:43.299 the legal front door collection. But then there's 00:22:43.299 --> 00:22:45.900 muscular. And this is the one that really, really 00:22:45.900 --> 00:22:47.940 angered the engineers in Silicon Valley. Well, 00:22:47.980 --> 00:22:51.490 they were furious. Muscular is a completely different 00:22:51.490 --> 00:22:54.049 beast. This was a joint program between the NSA 00:22:54.049 --> 00:22:56.829 and its British counterpart, GCHQ. And what was 00:22:56.829 --> 00:22:58.829 it doing? They basically realized that while 00:22:58.829 --> 00:23:01.369 they could ask Google and Yahoo for data through 00:23:01.369 --> 00:23:04.480 the prism front door. That legal process was 00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:06.700 sometimes slow and bureaucratic, so they just 00:23:06.700 --> 00:23:09.579 decided to take the data instead. They hacked 00:23:09.579 --> 00:23:11.740 the infrastructure between the company's own 00:23:11.740 --> 00:23:14.700 data centers. So not from the public Internet, 00:23:14.819 --> 00:23:18.240 but the private links. Exactly. So Google has 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:20.559 these massive data centers all over the world. 00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:23.440 When you send an email, the data might move from 00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:25.799 a server in Dublin to a server in Finland for 00:23:25.799 --> 00:23:29.059 backup. That data travels over private, leased 00:23:29.059 --> 00:23:32.059 fiber optic cables. The NSA found the physical 00:23:32.059 --> 00:23:34.740 spots. often outside the U .S., where those cables 00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:37.180 were unencrypted, and they tapped them. They 00:23:37.180 --> 00:23:39.000 were just copying the entire data stream as it 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.339 flowed by. They were literally copying the data 00:23:41.339 --> 00:23:43.920 as it flowed through the pipes, completely bypassing 00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:45.960 the company's legal teams, their encryption, 00:23:46.180 --> 00:23:48.299 everything. And there's that slide in the leaks 00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:51.460 that showed this, the famous smiley face slide. 00:23:51.660 --> 00:23:54.180 Yes. It's this hand -drawn diagram showing the 00:23:54.180 --> 00:23:56.960 public internet and the Google Cloud. And right 00:23:56.960 --> 00:23:59.460 in the middle, on the link connecting them, some 00:23:59.460 --> 00:24:02.869 NSA analyst had drawn a little smiley face. That's 00:24:02.869 --> 00:24:05.809 unbelievably arrogant. That smiley face represented 00:24:05.809 --> 00:24:08.549 the point where the NSA was secretly siphoning 00:24:08.549 --> 00:24:11.529 off all their data. When Google engineers saw 00:24:11.529 --> 00:24:14.839 that slide, they were apoplectic. I can imagine. 00:24:15.160 --> 00:24:18.160 One senior engineer posted on Google, plus, eh, 00:24:18.359 --> 00:24:21.579 just F these guys, it felt like such a profound 00:24:21.579 --> 00:24:24.019 violation of the basic trust of the Internet. 00:24:24.180 --> 00:24:26.500 They were working so hard to encrypt the front 00:24:26.500 --> 00:24:28.819 door, and the spies were just breaking in through 00:24:28.819 --> 00:24:31.220 the basement window. Okay, so you have Prism 00:24:31.220 --> 00:24:33.559 pulling data from the front door, Muscular from 00:24:33.559 --> 00:24:35.700 the back, and then you have the tool that brings 00:24:35.700 --> 00:24:39.440 it all together, XKeyscore. XKeyscore is, you 00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:41.910 can think of it as Google for spies. Okay. All 00:24:41.910 --> 00:24:44.269 that data from PRISM, from Muscular, from other 00:24:44.269 --> 00:24:46.670 collection programs like Upstream, it all goes 00:24:46.670 --> 00:24:49.890 into these massive databases. But WA data is 00:24:49.890 --> 00:24:51.849 useless if you can't search it. X -key score 00:24:51.849 --> 00:24:54.210 is the search bar for all of it. Snowden made 00:24:54.210 --> 00:24:56.769 a claim about this program that at the time people 00:24:56.769 --> 00:24:59.750 called hyperbole. They did. He said, I, sitting 00:24:59.750 --> 00:25:02.369 at my desk, could wiretap anyone from you or 00:25:02.369 --> 00:25:04.190 your accountant to a federal judge or even the 00:25:04.190 --> 00:25:06.410 president if I had a personal email address. 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:09.599 And the government immediately denied that capability. 00:25:09.819 --> 00:25:13.400 They called it a wild exaggeration. But the X 00:25:13.400 --> 00:25:15.339 -key score training manuals that were in the 00:25:15.339 --> 00:25:18.599 leaks, they basically confirmed it. So how did 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:21.420 it work? An analyst could sit at their terminal, 00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:24.240 and with just an email address or a phone number 00:25:24.240 --> 00:25:27.059 or an IP address, they could pull up a user's 00:25:27.059 --> 00:25:30.920 entire internet history. Their chats, their metadata, 00:25:31.259 --> 00:25:33.940 their browsing activity, it didn't require a 00:25:33.940 --> 00:25:36.920 specific warrant for every single search. It 00:25:36.920 --> 00:25:40.259 was an analyst -driven query system. So an analyst 00:25:40.259 --> 00:25:42.259 could just type in an email address and hit enter? 00:25:42.579 --> 00:25:45.579 Effectively, yes. Now, there were internal auditing 00:25:45.579 --> 00:25:47.839 logs and rules about what you could search for, 00:25:47.940 --> 00:25:50.359 but the technical capability to do so without 00:25:50.359 --> 00:25:53.579 prior judicial approval was there. And it wasn't 00:25:53.579 --> 00:25:55.140 just used for hunting terrorists. That's the 00:25:55.140 --> 00:25:56.740 argument we always hear, right? We need these 00:25:56.740 --> 00:25:59.099 tools to stop the bad guys. Right. But the leaks 00:25:59.099 --> 00:26:01.220 show that the targets of this surveillance went 00:26:01.220 --> 00:26:04.109 far, far beyond that. Absolutely. We saw clear 00:26:04.109 --> 00:26:06.509 evidence of economic espionage. They were spying 00:26:06.509 --> 00:26:09.150 on Petrobras, the state -owned Brazilian oil 00:26:09.150 --> 00:26:12.230 company, to get an edge in oil contract negotiations, 00:26:12.650 --> 00:26:15.970 to understand Brazil's energy strategy. That's 00:26:15.970 --> 00:26:18.690 not counterterrorism. They were spying on Joaquin 00:26:18.690 --> 00:26:21.170 Almunia, who was the EU's competition commissioner. 00:26:21.450 --> 00:26:24.549 And most famously, they were monitoring the personal 00:26:24.549 --> 00:26:27.829 cell phone of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. 00:26:28.049 --> 00:26:30.750 Which caused a massive diplomatic rift, spying 00:26:30.750 --> 00:26:33.740 on your closest allies. It destroyed a lot of 00:26:33.740 --> 00:26:36.259 trust. But maybe the most disturbing aspect for 00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:38.299 the average person was the revelation of the 00:26:38.299 --> 00:26:42.359 Lovint scandal. Lovint. Like for signals intelligence 00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:45.539 or HUMINT for human intelligence. Exactly. It's 00:26:45.539 --> 00:26:48.339 a dark play on those acronyms. Lovint was the 00:26:48.339 --> 00:26:51.160 internal slang term for NSA employees using these 00:26:51.160 --> 00:26:53.339 incredibly powerful surveillance tools to stalk 00:26:53.339 --> 00:26:55.460 their own love interest. You're kidding me. No. 00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:57.779 Girlfriends, boyfriends, ex -spouses. There were 00:26:57.779 --> 00:27:00.279 multiple documented cases. So is my husband cheating 00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:04.180 on me? And you just. Check X -key score. Precisely. 00:27:04.180 --> 00:27:06.799 Or, who was that cute person I met at the bar? 00:27:06.900 --> 00:27:09.859 Let me run their email. It showed that without 00:27:09.859 --> 00:27:13.420 strict, independent, external oversight, these 00:27:13.420 --> 00:27:16.779 tools were being abused for petty, personal reasons. 00:27:17.259 --> 00:27:20.099 Now, it wasn't widespread systemic abuse, but 00:27:20.099 --> 00:27:22.420 the fact that it happened at all showed the internal 00:27:22.420 --> 00:27:24.720 controls were just not sufficient. And then there 00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:26.799 was that other tactic tracking the pornography 00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:29.660 habits of people they considered radicalizers. 00:27:29.819 --> 00:27:32.960 Yes. The idea there was that if someone was preaching 00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:36.359 radical views online, the NSA could dig up embarrassing 00:27:36.359 --> 00:27:39.380 personal details, like their specific porn habits, 00:27:39.579 --> 00:27:41.799 and then leak that information to destroy their 00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:43.880 reputation and their moral authority. It's a 00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:45.859 weaponization of privacy. They weren't trying 00:27:45.859 --> 00:27:47.299 to arrest them. They were just trying to ruin 00:27:47.299 --> 00:27:49.500 them publicly. Exactly. So if the files are out, 00:27:49.539 --> 00:27:51.579 the world is changing. Let's look at the aftermath, 00:27:51.799 --> 00:27:54.339 part four. How did the U .S. government respond? 00:27:55.019 --> 00:27:57.839 Officially. Aggressively. The narrative from 00:27:57.839 --> 00:28:00.380 the top, from President Obama, from James Clapper, 00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:03.019 from Secretary of State John Kerry, it was very 00:28:03.019 --> 00:28:05.480 consistent. What was that narrative? They argued 00:28:05.480 --> 00:28:08.500 that Snowden had caused grave and serious damage 00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:11.579 to national security. They argued that by revealing 00:28:11.579 --> 00:28:15.519 the how the. methods we use to track terrorists, 00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:18.140 he had essentially taught them how to hide. They 00:28:18.140 --> 00:28:20.480 said he put troops at risk. They did, though 00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:22.559 it's worth noting that in the decades since, 00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:25.099 the government has never publicly identified 00:28:25.099 --> 00:28:28.019 a specific individual who was killed or a specific 00:28:28.019 --> 00:28:30.960 military operation that was botched as a direct 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:33.930 result of the Snowden leaks. But the potential 00:28:33.930 --> 00:28:36.269 for harm was their main argument. Dan Donald 00:28:36.269 --> 00:28:38.650 Trump back in 2013, before he was president, 00:28:38.789 --> 00:28:41.470 was even more blunt about it. Oh, yeah. He tweeted 00:28:41.470 --> 00:28:43.930 multiple times that Snowden was a traitor and 00:28:43.930 --> 00:28:45.789 implied he should be executed. He called him 00:28:45.789 --> 00:28:48.490 a spy who should be executed. But ironically, 00:28:48.670 --> 00:28:51.109 years later, when he was president in 2020, she 00:28:51.109 --> 00:28:53.410 actually floated the idea of pardoning him. He 00:28:53.410 --> 00:28:55.349 did. It was a complete reversal. He said, I'm 00:28:55.349 --> 00:28:57.910 going to look at it and noted that a lot of people 00:28:57.910 --> 00:29:00.829 think he's not being treated fairly. His attorney 00:29:00.829 --> 00:29:03.109 general, Bill Barr, apparently shut that down 00:29:03.109 --> 00:29:05.970 very quickly. It just shows you how the political 00:29:05.970 --> 00:29:09.230 winds had shifted on the issue. But the real 00:29:09.230 --> 00:29:11.529 vindication for Snowden didn't come from politicians. 00:29:11.670 --> 00:29:14.809 It came from the courts. Yes. This is the part 00:29:14.809 --> 00:29:16.430 of the story that often gets left out of the 00:29:16.430 --> 00:29:19.710 traitor narrative. In September of 2020, seven 00:29:19.710 --> 00:29:22.250 years after the leak, the U .S. Court of Appeals 00:29:22.250 --> 00:29:24.690 for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling. In what 00:29:24.690 --> 00:29:28.220 case? The case was United States v. Mullen. And 00:29:28.220 --> 00:29:30.720 they reviewed the legality of the bulk collection 00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:33.720 of American telephone metadata, the very first 00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:36.039 program Snowden exposed. And what did the court 00:29:36.039 --> 00:29:38.119 find? They ruled that the program was illegal 00:29:38.119 --> 00:29:41.859 and possibly unconstitutional. They stated that 00:29:41.859 --> 00:29:43.920 the program violated the Foreign Intelligence 00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:46.579 Surveillance Act. That is a mic drop moment, 00:29:46.660 --> 00:29:48.759 isn't it? It is. The program that started this 00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:50.609 whole thing was illegal. The court essentially 00:29:50.609 --> 00:29:52.869 confirmed that the intelligence leaders who had 00:29:52.869 --> 00:29:55.430 defended the program publicly and under oath 00:29:55.430 --> 00:29:58.109 to Congress had not been telling the truth about 00:29:58.109 --> 00:30:00.309 its legality. And we saw legislative change, 00:30:00.450 --> 00:30:04.470 too. We did. The USA Freedom Act, passed in 2015, 00:30:04.910 --> 00:30:07.529 formally ended that specific type of bulk collection 00:30:07.529 --> 00:30:10.930 of phone records. So the law changed. But I would 00:30:10.930 --> 00:30:13.150 argue the Snowden effect on technology itself 00:30:13.150 --> 00:30:16.470 was even bigger than the laws. 100%. It was a 00:30:16.470 --> 00:30:19.210 sea change. Before Snowden, the vast majority 00:30:19.210 --> 00:30:21.789 of the internet was unencrypted. HTTP was the 00:30:21.789 --> 00:30:24.529 standard. Your emails were basically sent like 00:30:24.529 --> 00:30:27.119 postcards. Anyone handling them along the way 00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:29.640 could read them. And after Snowden. After Snowden, 00:30:29.779 --> 00:30:32.799 Silicon Valley panicked. They realized they couldn't 00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:34.940 trust the pipes, the basic infrastructure of 00:30:34.940 --> 00:30:36.599 the Internet. They realized their entire business 00:30:36.599 --> 00:30:38.599 model depended on user trust, and that trust 00:30:38.599 --> 00:30:41.599 was gone. Exactly. So they raced to roll out 00:30:41.599 --> 00:30:44.359 end -to -end encryption. WhatsApp, iMessage, 00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.380 SignalDs became the standard. Websites rapidly 00:30:47.380 --> 00:30:51.099 moved to HTTPS by default. If you look at a graph 00:30:51.099 --> 00:30:54.160 of encrypted Internet traffic worldwide. There 00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:56.920 is just this massive vertical spike right after 00:30:56.920 --> 00:30:59.339 2013. So the Internet became hardened against 00:30:59.339 --> 00:31:01.299 surveillance because of the leaks. Without a 00:31:01.299 --> 00:31:03.019 doubt. So we've changed the Internet. We've changed 00:31:03.019 --> 00:31:07.160 the laws. But Snowden himself, he's still in 00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:10.799 Russia. Let's talk about part five, life in exile. 00:31:11.279 --> 00:31:13.759 What is his life actually like over there? It's 00:31:13.759 --> 00:31:17.319 a very strange, frozen existence that has slowly, 00:31:17.539 --> 00:31:21.359 over a decade, thawed into a new reality. He 00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:23.779 lives in Moscow. He lives in Moscow. He isn't 00:31:23.779 --> 00:31:26.039 in a gulag or some safe house. He has an apartment. 00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:29.839 And critically, he isn't alone. His longtime 00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:32.279 girlfriend, Lindsay Mills. The woman he left 00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:34.839 behind in Hawaii without a word. That's the one. 00:31:34.940 --> 00:31:37.220 She actually moved to Russia in 2014 to be with 00:31:37.220 --> 00:31:39.759 him. That is a serious testament to loyalty. 00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:42.240 I mean, moving to Moscow to be with the most 00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:44.940 wanted man in the world. It really is. They got 00:31:44.940 --> 00:31:48.180 married in a private ceremony in 2017. And they 00:31:48.180 --> 00:31:51.160 now have two sons, both born in Russia. So he 00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:53.299 is raising a family there. He's learning the 00:31:53.299 --> 00:31:55.200 language, though he admits he's not very good 00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:57.180 at it. And how is he making a living? He's not 00:31:57.180 --> 00:31:59.279 on the Russian payroll, according to him. No, 00:31:59.299 --> 00:32:01.420 he's become a prominent figure on the global 00:32:01.420 --> 00:32:04.799 speaker circuit. He beams into conferences, universities, 00:32:05.099 --> 00:32:07.960 and tech events via video link. He gets paid 00:32:07.960 --> 00:32:10.259 for that. He gets paid well. He has reportedly 00:32:10.259 --> 00:32:13.339 earned over $1 .2 million from speaking fees 00:32:13.339 --> 00:32:16.079 alone. He's a very popular speaker on topics 00:32:16.079 --> 00:32:18.920 like privacy and cybersecurity. And then there's 00:32:18.920 --> 00:32:21.400 his book, Permanent Record. A huge bestseller, 00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:24.599 published in 2019. But there's a big catch with 00:32:24.599 --> 00:32:27.730 the book. What's that? The U .S. government sued 00:32:27.730 --> 00:32:30.309 him for all the proceeds. Not for the content. 00:32:30.430 --> 00:32:32.250 They couldn't stop the book from being published 00:32:32.250 --> 00:32:34.509 under the First Amendment. But because he had 00:32:34.509 --> 00:32:36.910 violated the nondisclosure agreements he signed 00:32:36.910 --> 00:32:40.170 when he joined the CIA and NSA. He didn't submit 00:32:40.170 --> 00:32:42.549 the manuscript for pre -publication review. He 00:32:42.549 --> 00:32:44.549 didn't. And a judge ruled that the U .S. government 00:32:44.549 --> 00:32:47.130 is therefore entitled to seize every dollar he 00:32:47.130 --> 00:32:50.410 made from it, over $5 million. So he wrote the 00:32:50.410 --> 00:32:52.769 book, he told his story, but he didn't get rich 00:32:52.769 --> 00:32:54.819 off it. Okay. We have to address the elephant 00:32:54.819 --> 00:32:58.140 in the room here. He is in Russia. He is living 00:32:58.140 --> 00:33:00.599 there as a guest of Vladimir Putin. It is the 00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:03.180 great glaring irony of his entire narrative. 00:33:03.279 --> 00:33:06.299 Right. He sacrificed his life to expose state 00:33:06.299 --> 00:33:08.900 surveillance, and now he lives under a regime 00:33:08.900 --> 00:33:11.920 that is notorious for state surveillance, for 00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:14.299 suppressing dissent, and for jailing journalists. 00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:16.619 It's a fundamental contradiction he has to live 00:33:16.619 --> 00:33:18.640 with every day. Has he been critical of Russia 00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:21.839 at all? He has, but carefully. He's called the 00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:24.519 Russian government problematic. He's criticized 00:33:24.519 --> 00:33:27.380 some of their big brother laws, like the Uravaya 00:33:27.380 --> 00:33:30.140 law, which requires telecom companies to store 00:33:30.140 --> 00:33:32.880 user data. But he walks a tightrope. He has to. 00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:35.500 He can't push too hard or he risks losing his 00:33:35.500 --> 00:33:37.240 sanctuary. There's nowhere else for him to go. 00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:40.220 And in September of 2022, that relationship was 00:33:40.220 --> 00:33:43.380 formalized. Vladimir Putin granted Edward Snowden 00:33:43.380 --> 00:33:46.710 full Russian citizenship. He swore the oath of 00:33:46.710 --> 00:33:49.230 allegiance. Snowden's reasoning was that it was 00:33:49.230 --> 00:33:51.890 to ensure stability for his family. He didn't 00:33:51.890 --> 00:33:53.769 want to be separated from his Russian -born sons 00:33:53.769 --> 00:33:56.250 if his asylum status was ever revoked. He didn't 00:33:56.250 --> 00:33:58.769 want to be stateless anymore. But for his critics? 00:33:59.009 --> 00:34:01.349 For his critics, seeing the American whistleblower 00:34:01.349 --> 00:34:03.730 accept a Russian passport from Putin was the 00:34:03.730 --> 00:34:06.910 final confirmation of his traitor status. The 00:34:06.910 --> 00:34:09.409 optics were terrible for him. And his stance 00:34:09.409 --> 00:34:11.369 on the Ukraine invasion has complicated things 00:34:11.369 --> 00:34:14.820 even further. It really has. In the weeks leading 00:34:14.820 --> 00:34:18.420 up to the 2022 invasion, Snowden was very publicly 00:34:18.420 --> 00:34:20.760 skeptical of the U .S. intelligence reports that 00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:23.679 said Russia was about to attack. He tweeted that 00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:25.400 he thought the warnings were a disinformation 00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:28.079 campaign. He didn't trust the U .S. intelligence 00:34:28.079 --> 00:34:31.760 agencies. Fundamentally, no. His default position 00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:35.159 is to assume the CIA is lying. He thought they 00:34:35.159 --> 00:34:37.699 were crying wolf again, like they did with WMDs 00:34:37.699 --> 00:34:41.000 in Iraq. But this time they were right. And he 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:43.789 was wrong. And he was very publicly wrong. When 00:34:43.789 --> 00:34:46.269 the invasion actually happened, he faced a massive 00:34:46.269 --> 00:34:48.829 backlash for having, even if unintentionally, 00:34:48.829 --> 00:34:51.190 echoed the Kremlin's line that they weren't the 00:34:51.190 --> 00:34:53.630 aggressors. He later walked it back and said 00:34:53.630 --> 00:34:56.050 he lost confidence in his own skepticism, but 00:34:56.050 --> 00:34:58.510 the damage to his reputation was done. It shows 00:34:58.510 --> 00:35:00.809 that even a world famous whistleblower can have 00:35:00.809 --> 00:35:03.650 blind spots. Especially when their personal survival 00:35:03.650 --> 00:35:05.769 depends on the goodwill of their host country. 00:35:06.010 --> 00:35:08.710 It just muddies the water. It makes him an incredibly 00:35:08.710 --> 00:35:12.309 complex and compromised figure. But I think it's 00:35:12.309 --> 00:35:15.190 important that we try to separate the man from 00:35:15.190 --> 00:35:18.090 the revelation. The man is in a very difficult 00:35:18.090 --> 00:35:21.329 geopolitical position. The revelations themselves, 00:35:21.610 --> 00:35:24.829 however, are facts. Facts that change the world 00:35:24.829 --> 00:35:26.869 we live in. So we wrap up with this fundamental 00:35:26.869 --> 00:35:30.309 question. Is there any way back for him? Can 00:35:30.309 --> 00:35:32.849 he ever come home? He says he would return tomorrow 00:35:32.849 --> 00:35:35.929 if he could be guaranteed a fair trial. But under 00:35:35.929 --> 00:35:38.150 the law he was charged with, the Espionage Act 00:35:38.150 --> 00:35:41.429 of 1917, a fair trial is basically impossible 00:35:41.429 --> 00:35:43.489 for him. Explain that to the listener. What does 00:35:43.489 --> 00:35:45.550 that mean? If you are charged under the Espionage 00:35:45.550 --> 00:35:47.650 Act, you are not allowed to make a public interest 00:35:47.650 --> 00:35:50.389 defense. So you can't tell the jury why you leaked 00:35:50.389 --> 00:35:53.190 the documents. Correct. You cannot stand up in 00:35:53.190 --> 00:35:55.369 court and say, I did this to save the Constitution 00:35:55.369 --> 00:35:57.510 or I did this because the government was lying 00:35:57.510 --> 00:35:59.869 to the American people. The court will not allow 00:35:59.869 --> 00:36:02.070 that testimony. The only question the jury is 00:36:02.070 --> 00:36:05.150 allowed to consider is, did you or did you not 00:36:05.150 --> 00:36:07.829 take the documents and give them to an unauthorized 00:36:07.829 --> 00:36:10.949 person? And since he freely admits he did that. 00:36:11.260 --> 00:36:13.159 The trial will be over in 10 minutes. He would 00:36:13.159 --> 00:36:15.139 be found guilty and would be facing decades, 00:36:15.420 --> 00:36:17.460 potentially the rest of his life, in a federal 00:36:17.460 --> 00:36:20.800 prison. So unless that law changes or a future 00:36:20.800 --> 00:36:22.920 president decides to pardon him, he's a Russian 00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:25.179 citizen for life. Which leaves us with a really 00:36:25.179 --> 00:36:27.659 provocative thought to end on, I think. The U 00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:30.219 .S. judicial system, years later, eventually 00:36:30.219 --> 00:36:32.739 agreed with Snowden. The mass surveillance program 00:36:32.739 --> 00:36:36.039 was illegal. The system corrected itself, but 00:36:36.039 --> 00:36:39.380 only because of his leak. Right. So if the catalyst 00:36:39.380 --> 00:36:41.480 for that correction is treated as a criminal 00:36:41.480 --> 00:36:44.400 who can't even get a fair trial, what does that 00:36:44.400 --> 00:36:46.460 say about our system of checks and balances? 00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:48.860 Does it mean it only works when someone is willing 00:36:48.860 --> 00:36:50.980 to break the law to trigger it? And to take that 00:36:50.980 --> 00:36:52.940 one step further, if you look at it from a pure, 00:36:53.059 --> 00:36:56.860 cold geopolitical perspective. By revoking his 00:36:56.860 --> 00:36:58.679 passport and forcing him into the arms of an 00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:01.179 adversary, did the U .S. intelligence community 00:37:01.179 --> 00:37:03.579 accidentally create the very thing they feared? 00:37:03.739 --> 00:37:06.619 Did they hand a permanent high -value intelligence 00:37:06.619 --> 00:37:10.440 asset to Russia on a silver platter? Was trapping 00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:12.719 him in that airport the greatest strategic failure 00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:15.179 of this entire saga? That is a heavy question. 00:37:15.579 --> 00:37:17.679 Thanks for diving deep with us on the Snowden 00:37:17.679 --> 00:37:20.820 Files. Stay curious. And stay encrypted. We'll 00:37:20.820 --> 00:37:22.019 see you on the next Deep Dive.