Edward Snowden: Why he declares himself a patriot – What led him to become a “deep throat” – Why he characterizes NSA researchers as “totally incompetent” – What is his relationship with Greek Mythology – The MonsterMind program and the dangers it hides
A patriot who does not care about what will happen to himself but only the good of his country, declares Edward Snowden in a scathing interview he gave to the magazine Wired.
Already the interview has generated varied reactions both for the new revelations and for the photos that accompany it, in which Snowden appears to have the US flag hanging on a couch.
Despite the revelations he made against the US national security agency, the former NSA associate states that «I am more interested in my country than in what will happen to me. But we cannot allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to the intimidation of citizens fighting for their rights, no matter how good the agreement is» thereby excluding this way the possibility of returning to the US and proceeding with some kind of agreement with the NSA, despite the fact that he says «I would voluntarily go to prison if that served the right purpose».
In the interview granted under extreme secrecy after a year of effort by James Ramford and with the implementation of all conspiratorial rules – such as removing the battery from the mobile phone – Edward Snowden describes his life, his cooperation with the national security service and the CIA, as well as the reasons that led him to become a new «deep throat». Edward Snowden lives in New York time so that he can communicate better with his supporters and avoids areas of Moscow frequented by Westerners.
Speaking, indeed, about his childhood – although he did not want to go into details – he reveals that one of his best readings was Greek mythology. As he says, actually, specifically, «I believe that it was then that I started to think about how we recognize problems, and I concluded that a person's worth arises from how they deal with those problems».
Wanting to convince of the goodness of his intentions, Snowden confesses that he acted in such a way that the government would have an idea of exactly what he stole. As he says, he left digital «breadcrumbs» so that those who would take up the investigation could easily understand which documents he has copied and which documents he simply «touched» so that it becomes clear that his intention was not to become a spy on behalf of a third country but to proceed with disclosures. At the same time, this way the government would have the necessary time to «cover its tracks» by changing passwords and revising its operational plans. In the end, however, he believes that all those who dealt with his case only ended up with the number of documents he touched – 1,7 million documents. «I thought it would simply be difficult for them. I didn’t think they would be so utterly incompetent».
Attempting to interpret the reactions of the American government, Snowden estimates that the failure of their investigation – that they do not know exactly what was stolen and they constantly talk about these 1.7 million documents – implies that they believe that among the stolen material there is something that scares them.
Snowden, however, was not always sure whether what he did would have the intended impact. He remembers thinking on his first flight to Hong Kong with the hot documents in his hands that “it was very likely that society would collectively become oblivious and continue its course».
How it became the «deep throat»
The first concerns about the practices of the US secret services arose during Snowden in the Bush administration when «we tortured people and had surveillance without warrants». But then the opinion changed in view of Obama’s election. «He said that he would not sacrifice our rights. That we would not change who we are just to catch a small percentage of terrorists». But the first African‑American president disappointed him: «They took the completely opposite path. What does it mean for democracy and for a society when the people you elect, based on their commitments, can buy the will of the voters;» he wonders.
The next blow came in March 2012 when Snowden discovered that the NSA was channeling communications and data to Israeli intelligence without processing. These mainly concerned email and phone calls of millions of American citizens of Arab and Palestinian origin whose relatives in Palestine could become targets solely based on their communications.
And the «surprises» kept continuing for Snowden when he learned that in 2012 a group of hackers within the NSA (TAO) attempted to «invade» a large internet service provider in Syria amid a civil war in the country. With the program the team would install, the NSA would have access to the online «movement» of the entire country. But something went wrong and ultimately, with their intervention, the hackers threw the entire internet into Syria even though the Syrians never realized that behind this movement was the American government.
The drop that overflowed the glass was the existence of a secret program that allows passing through a building of one million square meters known as the Mission Data Repository, in which there is the capability to store four million gigabytes of data.
And the impetus was given when the NSA director James Clapper, in his sworn testimony before the Senate, appeared to admit, according to Snowden, that deceiving the Americans was something completely normal.
The MonsterMind program
Even more alarming, according to Snowden, is the program code‑named MonsterMind developed by the NSA. This program, which is presented publicly for the first time in the Wired interview, is the United States' guard against potential cyber‑attacks. However, what makes it unique is that it has the ability to «counterattack» on its own without human intervention. And this is a problem, explains Snowden, because these attacks are usually concealed. «Someone could be in China and make his attack appear to start from Russia. And then we would end up bombing a Russian hospital. What happens then» he wonders.
Simultaneously, this program marks the end of privacy, as the former NSA associate explains, in order to detect a potential cyberattack it must first monitor all private conversations of people on the other side of the Atlantic with American citizens.
His greatest fears
Two are currently Snowden's biggest fears. First, that he will make some blunder that will destroy all the reforms that have been made. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that at some point he will make a mistake and then they will catch him.
The second reason for his concern is that with the golden of the revelations these will have the same impact as a news item about deaths during a war. «One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is statistics» he says characteristically using Stalin's phrase. «Exactly as the first news was espionage against Merkel and not the espionage of 80 million Germans».
Because’ this and he believes that the solution to the whole problem lies in technology and not in politicians. «The answer is simply encoding. By making the encoding of all communications an international constant we could finish a good one with mass surveillance wherever it originates.
