Edward snowden, the man and the theft. In your opinion, why didnt president obama pardon Edward Snowden . President obama in this case was the man who knew too much. Unlike the world of journalism, the world of president s, they have access to the findings of our own Intelligence Community. The c. I. A. , the n. S. A. , the f. B. I. So he knew without a doubt that snowden wases lying when he claimed was lying when he claimed that the u. S. Government, and specifically obama, had trapped him in moscow. He knew that snowden was lying when he said he had no contact with russian intelligence. He knew that snowden was lying when snowden said he had only taken whistleblowing documents since he had the damage report. So, given those facts that we almost there would be almost no reason, not even compassion, because the man isnt in prison, no reason for him to give him a pardon and he did not give him a pardon. Your book, called how america lost its secrets the man and the theft Edward Snowden when did you get interested in doing this story . Ive always been interested in espionage. I temporarily interrupted my interest when the cold war ended. When suddenly it was announced that the someone had stolen communications secrets. In fact, snowden admitted it on video. It wasnt a whodoneit. And went to russia. This interested me because it was a potential i stress the word potential espionage case. O i became interested in 2013, shortly after the theft. How many Different Countries did you go to to do this story . We wont count hawaii as a country, but it was important. Japan with where snodeworked. Hawaii, which was the snowden had worked. Hawaii, which was the scene of the crime. Russia, of course, where he ended up. So i would say three Different Countries. As you know, a lot of reviewers theres a whole group of people that do not think youve done a fair job. They think youre biased. Ive got right here the front page of the book reviewed in the New York Times by nick lemon and he basically i dont know if its fair to say it this way, he said, you dont know what youre talking about. Whats going on here with all these journalists that are negative to this book . You know, for the past five decades, ive been concerned with a single issue. How unverified information becomes established as conventional wisdom. Started with the warren commission, went on to the black panthers. My book news from nowhere, and of course soviet disease information. But in all these disinformation. But in all these years ive never seen a case where the snowden case, where so uncritically journalists have accepted information from a Single Source, Edward Snowden. Who is in moscow, under the control of the russian government. So what i am doing here is questioning the validity of that Single Source. Since so many journalists have tied their reputations, the author of that review was the head of the Pulitzer Prize committee that gave put itser prizes to gave Pulitzer Prizes out, theres a reaction to me that, what business do you have disturbing the peace . What business do you have saying that the conventional knowledge is wrong . They have a perfect right to question my facts. They even question my motives. But my motive is very clear. Im doing exactly what the New York Times reviewer, nick lemon, says im doing. Im not taking at face value the story of Edward Snowden. And im basically looking to what the government, which has access to information that journalists dont, what the government has found about snowden. I want to put i dont want to put words in your mouth, but is this a case where the liberal point of view says hes a whistleblower and the conservative point of view says he committed treason . Theres some sort of rift here, a great divide. Im not sure its only the liberals. I think journalism has gone beyond being liberal, right wing. I think theres a libertarian streak, a privacy streak. And even now a commitment to journalism as a religious institution, where you have to have faith in other journalists and if journalists win the Pulitzer Prize, you have to assume that they somehow know what theyre talking about, even though, and im trying to say that basically the emperor wore no clothes. Ll these journalists, all of them had only a Single Source. Other than documents. The documents provided are egitimate. What do you think of him . Snoden . I think he was a disgruntled employee who didnt like the n. S. A. He started more or less like he said he started. He was working for a private company. He started more or less like you said he started. He held antisurveillance parties in hawaii, got angrier and angrier, and left with the documents. He wound up in a situation in hong kong where his only escape route was to russia. He went to russia, and the home of the russian Intelligence Services, right into their hands. They are going to squeeze him. That is what they do. That is what we would do in reverse situation. I never interviewed snowden, not that that would help, and i only know the same things from the video clips that everyone else has seen. How hard did you try to interview him . Dr. Epstein i went to moscow twice. I met with his lawyer in moscow who was very helpful, but said his aclu lawyer in america has he keys to seeing snowden. I went to that lawyer, wrote to him, and he said that snowden eclined to see me. So, that is as far as i went. When all of this became public in the guardian, the washington post, there was an interview video made with snowden. Lets watch a little bit of hat from 2013. My name is ed snowden. I am 29 years old. I work for booth Allen Hamilton as an infrastructure analyst for the nsa in hawaii. What are some positions you have held previously in the ntelligence community . A systems engineer, systems administrator, Senior Advisor for the Central Intelligence agency. Solutions consultant and a telecommunications informations systems officer. Who is this fellow . Dr. Epstein even in the clips we just saw, he tells a lie. He said he was a Senior Advisor to the cia. What he was was a communications officer, what is called a hack, working at the cia for two years and was actually forced out. He was not a senior adviser, but that is not my complaint. The interesting thing about this video is that he made it. If snowden had gone directly to moscow or if any intelligence or any person who steals intelligence had gone directly to moscow, no one would pay much attention. The narrative would be established. U. S. Intelligence worker steals secrets and goes to moscow. But he stopped in hong kong and made this video. Supplying, just as we have seen, alternative video where he himself, the selfinterested party, of course, identifies himself as a whistleblower. From this video and the story he told the journalists i think they honestly reported what he said. I have no complaints against the journalists who took this Single Source, a great story, and ran with it because the government did not immediately respond. The government was shellshocked and did not immediately respond. Where it responded, people found that it was not credible, the government. They didnt like the u. S. Government. At that point, the story became established. This is the way he established his narrative. Host how did he move out of the database at the n. S. A. And ow did he do it . Dr. Epstein despite what snowden says and despite what his supporters say based on at he says, he removed 1. 5 million documents. A vast patch of secret documents. The way i know this is this is in the report of the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence, signed by all the democrats and all the republicans. These members of this commission had only one source essentially, and that was the u. S. Intelligence community. They read the damage reports, ok . That is my source. The more interesting question is, what was the intelligence damage assessments based on . Each compartment from which snowden stole information had a log, and the log said when he coppedy a document, when he selected a document and when he moved a document. So that is how they know the minimum number of documents he moved. But where he was working, he changed jobs to work here, where he was working he had whats called a thin computer. That is a computer without any Storage Capabilities or ports, so you cannot make copies because it was such a highsecurity facility. So, he had to move the information with this workstation to a server, and from that server, where he erased the data, he then had to move it or try to reverse, because they reconstructed with forensic tools, to another computer which was approximately 20 miles away, where he had previously worked. To a thick computer that had ports so he could make some thumb drives or external drives. So the n. S. A. Or actually the department of defense, which had a much more intensive investigation than the n. S. A. , was basically able to trace the movement of his information, how much he moved, and how much he removed from one computer to another. That is how they came to the 1. 5 million. St how did he pick, the journalists who did the journalists, how did he pick those people to release this to . Dr. Epstein he wrote to Laura Poitras, who had been making antinsa films, and said you selected yourself, because of the work you had done. He picked them, because he knew they would be on his side. He knew they were actually all ourageous reporters. Laura poitras made films of what she found, and she elieved that she was under surveillance with good reason, possibly. And Glenn Greenwald was her friend, became a coauthor and cowriter. He also wrote to lenox about the n. S. A. , and the n. S. A. , and bob gellman also had been writing about surveillance. He picked three people who he knew would be sympathetic to what he was about to do. In his First Communications ith them, he lied to them. He said he was a Government Employee which he was not who is a Senior Member of the Intelligence Community which he was not. He did not belong. 17 agencies make up the Intelligence Community and he did not belong to any of hem. At the time, he was a System Administrator working for an dell secure works, an outside contractor for the n. S. A. Host lets introduce now in discussion, the three people that were involved. Bartgellman, laura patrois and glen green waldorf. This is from a New York Times hosted skype discussion among the three. Here is the first reaction from mark of the New York Times. He is no longer there, but he is writing a book. Sometimes [inaudible] to latin america, where he was going to a train to russia. By the time he arrived in russia, the United States government canceled his passport. Making him for travel purposes a stateless person. As far as the security threat, he deliberately did not bring any of the documents with him to russia for the express purpose of making sure that he could not be compelled to disclose them. He did not bring any means of obtaining those documents. Host im going to read you some but im holding some tweets back in early january from mark about your book. Have you read those . Dr. Epstein no, i dont do twitter. Host these are quite critical. First of all, whats your reaction . He was talking about things that you dispute. Dr. Epstein this is a good illustration of the snowden narrative. Snowden destroyed all his material. Efore he went to russia. He did not transfer any material to the cloud or anything. Snowden gave the russians nothing. This all comes and can only come from a Single Source, and that is snowden. Now gelman is repeating what snowden said. What i found is the opposite. I will give you four bits of evidence direct bits of evidence that we may not believe, but they come from witnesses. First, vladimir putin. E said snowden had contacted before putin authorized him to come snowden to come to russia which meant he was in contact with russian officials. Secondly, anatoly gujarati, when asked if snowden had given all his documents to journalists in hong kong, he said no, he gave only some of them. When asked whether snowden had brought he was in moscow at the time he brought documents to moscow or had them in moscow, undisclosed documents which means secret material secret documents, to be precise. And he said yes. Host and this is hisdr. Epstein yes. Lawyer . E had overseas intelligence france, others who said snowden shared his intelligence with ussian intelligence. They said that is when intelligence what Intelligence Services do. I think he was correct. And finally, we have the House Select Committee report which that ry unambiguously snowden was in contact with russian intelligence after he arrived in moscow, and continues to be n contact with them. This report was declassified in december 22, 2016. Whatever snowden brought or did not bring to moscow, he had the secrets in hishe said he did. Head. He told the New York Times that he had secrets that he could disclose that could make the n. S. A. Go dark. He said the same thing to gelman and everyone else, so the russians knew he had secrets in his head. The assertion that he gave nothing to the russian, the assertion we have seen in that video, comes from snowden, and i dont believe snowden. Host where is he right now . Dr. Epstein snowden is in moscow at an undisclosed location, under the protection of the russian government. Host bart gellman and his tweets i wont try to address every bizarreo claim talking about your book past a certain point, bad faith work, oesnt merit the effort. Dr. Epstein the ad hominem attacks i cant really say very much about gellman. He has a basically almost eligious commitment to his faith in the person who gave him this Pulitzer Prize. And was greenwald. They believe in him. When you argue with someone with faith, you are automatically wrong because you are violating what they believe in. Faith of evidence is two different categories. I think this is become it eligious matter. Anyone who contradicts snowden, even the house committee, gellman also attacked them with the same vicious comments. Host he said clearly it was an awful report. Dr. Epstein he said that even efore they declassified the report, and the summary of the report, and having not read the report, he attacked it with the same slurs he attacked me with. Host here is a specific. You can answer this one. He says in another tweet snowden, epsteins book says, reached unreachable level three secrets that only a spy could want. There is no such category at the nsa. As level three. In your book you say level one, level two, level three and hes saying no such thing. Dr. Epstein this comes from the former director of the nsa, the former director of intelligence, michael mcconnell, who is vice chairman of boos allen from a piece in the wall street journal in which he said there were four levels. The first level is administrator documents. The second level is documents or material from which the source has been removed, which is what they circulate. The third level, i call a level three, he might call it the third tier, is information that still has the sources included in them, and the fourth level is so secret that mcconnell cannot say in the wall street journal what it is. So there is level three, whether it is called tier three, third tier, anyhow. Host this shows a clip of Glenn Greenwald talking what harm has the release of this all this done . What the specific arm has it done to this country or people . Dr. Epstein well, two different worlds. In the world of intelligence, 1. 5 million documents were removed. 58,000 of them, roughly, were given to journalists. We really dont know what happened to the rest, whether he gave them to the russians, whether the chinese made copies of them while he was in hong kong. We just dont know. When intelligence is not mised, the danger is that they will check down the channel, but they will use it to tell you misinformation. As if the mafia found out the fbi was tapping a phone, it wouldnt unplug the phone because they would cap another phone, they would keep talking over it. Damage is much harder to assess in the intelligence world. The second is the world of counterterrorism. There, we can assess the damage. One of the programs is called 02, prism, one of the programs basically was intercepting the internet, foreign internet abroad while it was still unencrypted. They were able to do that is the structure of the internet takes about 90 of the material through the united dates on the companies n the like google, to the facebook, twitter, whatever. Those companies encrypt it. But before it gets to them, it is in plain text. The nsa was intercepting those and intercepting communications between bomb makers in pakistan and between operatives in america who were going to set off the bombs. One example of the pakistan bomb maker communicating with an american of afghan descent in colorado who was planning to blow up penn station, Grand Central station, on september 11, 2009. This information was shared with the f. B. I. , and the guy was arrested before he could detonate the bomb. Ow, tra tragedy, that bloodbath, was averted because the program was still secret. They didnt know their messages were being intercepted in this way. When snowden publicly revealed it, and revealed it in the video of hong kong which we ave seen here, once he revealed it then they of course switched to endtoend encryption. They began encrypts it from the moment it was sent from their phone to when it was received by the