The Edward Snowden Affair (27 page)

After waking up the world by exposing PRISM, Greenwald dispensed piecemeal disclosures to counter each progressive refutation by Washington that it was not committing invasive privacy violations. With each report, he further restricted the U.S. government’s argumentative wiggle room. Aided by a global editorial team, he gradually built up his case while taking the time to show that the surveillance abuses were not exclusive to the United States. But Greenwald had saved the best for last. After proving Washington had cleverly given itself the legal authority to domestically spy under the ruse of foreign targeting protocols, he established that it also had the technological capability to do so. It was his most condemning exposé to date. The only thing left to prove was that the technological capability was being abused.

During Washington’s July 31 public relations effort, Hayden appeared on CNN. When Erin Burnett asked about Greenwald’s XKeyscore report, “So you’re [Hayden] saying they [NSA analysts] can search through any given civilian … the text, the databases, the email searches, the internet searches, all those things [to] find that needle in the haystack,” a notably flustered Hayden reluctantly grumbled, “Yes.”
²³

As with the meticulous timing of most every report, Greenwald knew Washington was sending out its best to help curb the world’s discontent with U.S. intelligence programs.
The Guardian
released Greenwald’s story on Wednesday morning. Even if the various government representatives compensated for XKeyscore by quickly editing what they were planning to say, their mere presence put a bad taste in the audiences’ mouths, especially after the same audiences had just finished reading Greenwald’s headline piece. Still, those familiar with Snowden’s plight could not help but wonder about the journalist’s poor timing. He had even made a point to specifically name Snowden as the responsible party.

The appearance of Greenwald’s report could be read in two ways. Snowden had either told the journalist the two of them had nothing to fear because he was about to be granted Russian asylum, or all hope was lost because he’d been informed that his application was going to be denied and he was about to be deported. Though Greenwald had been delicate with what information he released and was conscientious about when he released it, Snowden not taking advantage of his newfound freedom after the Russian Federal Migration Service recognized his paperwork signaled something was wrong. Another ominous sign was Lon Snowden had given up hope of visiting his son in Russia.

Snowden’s father had been reticent to speak to the press after he and the world learned that his son was the one responsible for the NSA disclosures. By June 17, Eric Bolling of Fox News had convinced Lon to conduct an exclusive interview.
²⁴
This was “after days of talking, emailing, and texting,” once Snowden’s father had “[ … ] reached out to someone in [Washington] D.C. whom he trusted.” That person, in Bolling’s words, “happen[ed] to trust me.”

From the commencement of the dialogue, it is clear Edward inherited his linguistic dexterity. Lon speaks of “political discourse” and reports that the last time he saw his son was “in the shadow of the National Security Agency” on April 4. He exhibits a familiarity with law, incorporating the frequently heard legalese defense “I can’t speak to that” when asked if Edward had broken the law. Like his son, Lon is a thinker.

Even though he is Edward’s father, Lon refuses to produce a blanket defense for his son’s actions. Lon announces he “served [the] nation for over 30 years honorably” and admits “that’s [stealing classified data] not something I could have done” but adds, “I’m not in Ed’s shoes.” He judiciously states because he is not aware of what Edward saw or experienced, he cannot rightly pass judgment.

Lon acknowledges that a distinct line between right and wrong does not exist as he nonetheless stands on principle. The audience comes to understand where Edward derived his ethical sensibilities. Lon eloquently reports that his son had been confronted by what he viewed to be a “moral hazard,” the conflict between Edward’s oath to guard national security while simultaneously respecting the tenants of the Fourth Amendment.

Lon states he personally does not “want the government listening to my phone calls, I don’t want the government archiving the places that my other children visit on the internet [ … ]. I don’t want them reading my email. I don’t want them reading my texts,” even under the guise of “we need to keep you safe.” He offers the analogy of the NSA’s snooping being akin to the government walking up to a person’s mailbox, nonchalantly opening an individual’s mail, looking and copying the contents “in case you do something wrong sometime in the future” and resealing the envelopes before putting them back as if nothing happened.

Despite his intellectual acumen, it is painfully clear he is outside his element. Lon plays directly into the hands of the media. He instantly becomes a clichéd caricature of the bereaved parent. Less a minute into the interview, he is brandishing a childhood photo of Edward. It is obvious he does not possess his son’s sociopolitical understanding of the media. Lon placates Bolling and makes an appeal directly into the camera. He asks his son not to release any more classified information for fear of being accused of treason, a concern a former military employee has been trained to dread. He declares, “I would rather my son be a prisoner in the U.S. than a free man in a country that did not have the freedoms that are protected, that we have.” Lon would have many more opportunities to get a handle on the media and the political maelstrom that had engulfed his boy.

Lon proceeded to search for a legal defense team in case Edward was apprehended. He also wanted to contact and possibly travel to meet his son. Famed Washington attorney and former assistant deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan, Bruce Fein, offered his services for free. Fein’s interest in the Snowden affair was a supposed matter of principle. As part of the Reagan administration, he followed the “fundamental premise of who we are as a people—the right to be left alone.”
²⁵

Less than two weeks later, on Lon’s behalf, Fein presented a letter to Attorney General Holder.
²⁶
It outlines terms Lon purportedly believed would goad Edward to return to the U.S. on his own volition and stand trial. Three extremely idealistic provisions are cited.

1. He [Edward Snowden] would not be detained or imprisoned prior to trial.

2. He would not be subject to a gag order.

3. He would be tried in a venue of his choosing.

The request asks that these guarantees be made and should any of them not be honored, Snowden’s case would be “dismissed without prejudice.” Fein failed to punctuate the last sentence.

The next day, June 28, Lon appeared on the
TODAY
²⁷
program on NBC. During the interview with Michael Isikoff, Lon inadvertently creates a divide between his son’s supporters. He doubts the sincerity of WikiLeaks’ interest in his son, stating the anti-secrecy group’s agenda was not to uphold the Constitution but to “release as much information as possible.” It is obvious Lon had not yet been in contact with Edward, otherwise he might have been more reluctant to pass judgment on the organization that had recently pulled strings to get his son to safety.

It is possible the former warrant officer had spent a long 11 days meditating upon Edward’s predicament and come to a handful of conclusions, but later evidence suggests Fein was already directing Lon’s media approach. Whereas he had been reserved and indisposed to pass judgment on June 17, Lon now declared his son, “[ … ] has in fact broken U.S. law, in the sense that he has released classified information. And if folks want to classify him as a traitor, in fact he has betrayed his government. But I don’t believe that he’s betrayed the people of the United States.”

That weekend, Assange personally contacted Fein. WikiLeaks’ founder relayed a message from Edward, asking that Fein and Lon refrain from commenting on matters pertaining to him.
²⁸
A month and a half later, Snowden would provide a definitive 170-word statement to
The Huffington Post
, declaring that neither Fein, his wife (a politician and business partner to Fein) or his father spoke for or represented him.
²⁹

Undeterred by the whistleblower’s polite demand, Fein published an open letter
³⁰
to Edward on July 2. Fein’s verbose address is less a note of support than a platform the Washington attorney uses to project his political philosophy. He alludes to American revolutionary Thomas Paine, makes a pained reference to 18
^th
-century German philosophy, and speaks of the “vicissitudes” of life and Clapper’s “stupendous mendacity” before addressing Edward’s “reduction to de
facto
statelessness.” It is unclear who he believes his audience to be. He tells Snowden, “You have forced onto the national agenda the question of whether the American people prefer the right to be left alone from government snooping absent probable cause to believe crime is afoot to vassalage in hopes of a risk-free existence.” He closes by modestly announcing, “[ … ] [W]e will be unflagging in efforts to educate the American people about the impending ruination of the Constitution [ … ].”

Fein informed the website
Politico
that he’d posted the letter online because Lon was unable to contact his son directly.
³¹
The statement brings into question Fein’s interest in Lon. If the letter was solely meant to be a personal address to Edward, Fein had a channel to Assange. Centered at the top of both letters, the address and telephone number of Fein’s legal firm rests above his personal email address.

On July 26 two things became clear. Lon’s abruptly aggressive approach to the media had been at Fein’s instruction, and Edward’s father realized he’d lost control of the situation. This is apparent in the third chapter of Fein’s letter-writing campaign
³²
—to none other than the president—and Lon’s trio of complementary interviews.

Fein’s presidential missive is propaganda thinly disguised as a “concerned citizen” letter. He does nothing short of accuse Obama of committing evil acts before arriving at his second paragraph: “You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As [18
^th
-century philosopher and politician] Edmund Burke sermonized, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’” Fein proceeds to dig the hole deeper. While providing an account of civil disobedience, he quotes Thoreau’s titular essay and cites the Nuremberg Trials before making the—if not politically incorrect, at least embarrassing—mistake of including slavery as another example. Granted, it is a fine illustration of corrupt, unjust law, but presenting it to an African-American as well as highlighting it by devoting a single-line paragraph to the subject is nothing short of exploiting the reader’s ethnicity in hopes of evoking empathy. Fein would go on to quote Martin Luther King, Jr., while plagiarizing portions of his letter to Holder.

Referring to himself in the third person even though he is credited as the author, Fein proceeds to condemn Obama’s congressional members who have deemed Edward a “traitor” before he has been placed on trial, cites the Morales plane incident, observes that Snowden had effected the change Obama promised but failed to deliver, and proclaims the president “belatedly and cynically embraced” a national debate only after Edward left him no other choice. He closes by “urg[ing]” the president “to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward.”

In the process, Fein makes an eyebrow-raising note: “Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community.” Fein could have misheard his client’s timeline of Edward’s life, or Lon could be vague on matters which took place almost a decade before, but the disclosure accounts for Snowden’s first “dark year” and suggests his entry into American intelligence started at least five months before it was initially reported.

Lon returned to speak on
TODAY
.
³³
He had figured out that Fein scheduled the talks to correspond with letter releases. (In a July 1 telephone interview
³⁴
with Ralph Hallow of
The Washington Times
, Lon said he was shocked to discover the media had copies of his attorney’s letter to Holder. The State Department did not want to give any unnecessary air time to the issue, which left the Washington attorney as the likely culprit, especially once Fein’s letter to the president was placed online.) Though Fein appears alongside him, Lon shifts gears. Asked by Matt Lauer if he believes WikiLeaks was exploiting Edward, Lon replies, “I’m thankful for anybody who is providing him with assistance.” He had also taken the time to educate himself in matters pertaining to national security. While Fein, in his own words, attempted to repeatedly “interject,” Lon mentions Rogers, Wyden, King, Feinstein and Clapper. He makes the astute observation that defense contractors lobby and donate to politicians, thereby influencing and buying support for surveillance programs where it might not otherwise exist. In the process, he quotes his son: “I’ve watched closely the balance of the 36 members on the two intelligence committees within Congress, particularly the House. And the American people don’t know the full truth, but the truth is coming.”

By the end of the month, Lon had grown wise to the stringent sociopolitical atmosphere, media and Fein. Though slightly evident in telephone interviews he conducted with the Associated Press
³⁵
the day of his second
TODAY
chat and earlier with Ralph Hallow—and to a lesser extent during a brief discussion
³⁶
with Anderson Cooper on July 29—Lon admitted he’d undergone “intellectual evolution” and had an “epiphany” since June. On July 30 Lon took center stage.

In the interview
³⁷
where he would incorrectly recall that Edward started working in American intelligence in 2003,
The Washington Post
’s affable reporter Jerry Markon asks questions while the infamously talkative Fein sits idly by.
³⁸
Lon announces he’d rejected the FBI’s offer to send him to Russia to see his son, because the agency could not guarantee the two would meet. Edward’s father shrewdly responded, telling the intelligence bureau, “Wait a minute, folks, I’m not going to sit on the tarmac to be an emotional tool for you.” When asked how Edward’s patriotic upbringing had ultimately manifested itself, Lon makes an about-face from his admission on NBC a month before. He was now “[ … ] absolutely thankful for what he [Edward] did.” He states that his son’s devotion to his country is evident by the actions he’d taken. The greatest revelation for the 30-year military officer was that he’d recognized the political reality Edward was facing. Lon no longer wanted his son to return to America: “If he comes back to the United States he is going to be treated horribly. He is going to be thrown into a hole. He is not going to be allowed to speak.” He goes on to say the jury pool had been “poisoned” because the charges arose from the hub of national intelligence, Alexandria, Virginia, where a person could not “throw a rock without hitting a defense contractor.” Edward’s father ends by declaring, “He [Edward] knows he has done the right thing.” The duo sat down with Jake Tapper on CNN’s
The Lead
the same day. Lon expressed many of the same opinions.