Potential Russian Influence Over Edward Snowden’s Activities and Employment Shifts

160 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS surveillance, as the CIA deputy director later revealed. Such moves could indicate that at least part of the U.S. communications intel- ligence that Snowden had stolen was in enemy hands. The CIA and NSA’s monitoring of these countermeasures was itself extremely delicate, because revealing what they learned about Russian and Chinese countermeasures risked compromising even more U.S. communications sources than had Snowden. General Alexander said in his interview with The Australian Financial Review, “We absolutely need to know what Russia’s involvement is with Snowden.” He further said, “I think Snowden is now being manipulated by Russian intelligence. I just don’t know when that exactly started.” At what point did Snowden first come in contact with the Russians? The counterintelligence issue was not if this U.S. intelligence defector in Moscow was under Russian control but when he came under it. There were three possible time periods when Snowden might have been brought under control by the Russian intelligence service: while he was still working for the NSA; after he arrived in Hong © Kong on May 20, 2013; or after he arrived in Russia on June 23, © 2013. The NSA Scenario The first scenario could stretch as far back as when Snowden was forced out of the CIA in 2009. It will be recalled that the CIA had planned to launch a security investigation of Snowden, but it was aborted when he resigned. He had also incurred large losses specu- lating in the financial markets in Geneva, which is the kind of activ- ity that had in the past attracted the interest of foreign intelligence services. So it has to be considered in this scenario that Snowden had been recruited by the Russians after he left the CIA and directed to take jobs at civilian contractors servicing the NSA. Such “career management,” as it is called by the CIA, could explain why Snowden had switched jobs in March 2013 to Booz Allen Hamilton, which, unlike his previous employer, Dell, allowed | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 160 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019648