The Edward Snowden Affair (29 page)

The fallout was catastrophic, but it could have all been avoided if it hadn’t been for seven people.

After declaring on July 19, “We [the White House] call on the Russian government to cease its campaign of pressure against individuals and groups seeking to expose corruption, and to ensure that the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of all of its citizens, including the freedoms of speech and assembly, are protected and respected,”
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Press Secretary Jay Carney produced the U.S. government’s first official response to Snowden’s asylum shortly after Russia granted the whistleblower his freedom. Washington’s fatigue and exasperation was obvious. Carney issued the subdued statement, “[ … ] we are extremely disappointed by this decision by Russian authorities” before glibly inserting, “This move by the Russian government undermines a longstanding record of law enforcement cooperation.”
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Various U.S. senators went on record. Charles Schumer announced, “Russia has stabbed us in the back.” Former presidential candidate John McCain proclaimed, “We cannot allow today’s action by Putin to stand without serious repercussions.” Lindsey Graham stood by his previous call to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, if Snowden wasn’t returned to the United States.
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The latter two congressmen also suggested ignoring America’s nuclear disarmament agreement with Russia.
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They called for the completion of the last phase of America’s European missile-defense program. In anticipation of Russia providing Snowden safe harbor,
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several politicians had already begun to pressure the president
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to cancel his meeting with Putin, which was scheduled to take place before the commencement of the G20 Summit in Moscow on September 5 in Saint Petersburg. Carney reported that the White House was now “evaluating the utility” of a pre-summit conversation.

The U.S. government immediately set out to engage in damage control as it had attempted but failed to do the day before.

Hours after news agencies across the globe started reporting Snowden had been granted asylum, CNN announced
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the U.S. would be—in an “unprecedented” move—closing 22 embassies and consulates on August 4. Two days later, the motive for the security precaution was unveiled. U.S. intelligence had intercepted a message by senior-level al-Qaeda operatives which suggested a planned attack.
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CNN obliged the Obama administration’s request not to broadcast any further details concerning the matter due to “the sensitivity of the information.”
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National Security Analyst Peter Bergen and Bailey Cahall, a research associate at the New America Foundation (where Bergen is a director), offered a reason for the heightened security alert in their op-ed CNN piece, “What’s behind the timing of the terror threat.”
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They state that it is the date, August 4, which—in the authors’ determination—is “seen by al Qaeda’s would-be martyrs as a particularly auspicious day to die.” This is because August 4 is when the holiest of holy days, Laylat al-Qadr or the “Night of Destiny” during Islam’s hallowed month, Ramadan, would take place in 2013. A photographic history of attacks by Islamic extremists accompanies the report. It includes attacks which took place on February 1, 2013; September 11, 2012; September 13, 2011; April 5, 2010; September 17, 2008; July 9, 2008; January 12, 2007; September 12, 2006; March 2, 2006; December 7, 2004; February 28, 2003; October 13, 2002; June 14, 2002; March 20, 2002; January 22, 2002; and August 6, 1998. Within the article, Bergen and Cahall add that in 2000, during that year’s Night of Destiny, al-Qaeda factions tried to bomb the
USS The Sullivans
on January 3 and failed. However, on October 12 of the same year, al-Qaeda succeeded in destroying the
USS Cole
. The co-authors list the Riyadh U.S Embassy attack on May 12, 2003, as well as the violence that erupted at the Jeddah Consulate on December 6, 2004, which ended in what the CNN reporters catalog as five (actually nine)
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deaths. Their editorial also includes the first attempt to destroy the embassy in Yemen on March 18, 2008.

But there is a problem with the headline. Just one of Bergen and Cahall’s 21 cited examples took place within the corresponding dates of Ramadan for the representative year: the September 17, 2008 attack upon the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. September 11, 2001 didn’t even occur within the confines of the Islamic holy month.

The answer as to why two noted experts on the Middle East, specifically al Qaeda, representing one of the world’s leading news sources produced such a highly suggestive and misleading report is found in CNN’s agreement not to provide further details about the alert. The U.S. government was wagging the dog. Instead of a media blackout, which prohibits specific topics from being broadcast or discussed in the news, the White House instigated a whiteout. Like the blinding weather conditions for which it is named, the Obama administration hoped to suffocate Snowden-related headlines to distract from its failure to capture and try the American exile. Not only had three countries implied the whistleblower’s actions were justified by granting him asylum, but Russia had taken a definitive stand by issuing Snowden asylum and providing him a home.

Washington’s primary concern wasn’t that a Quinnipiac poll conducted in the last three days and released when Snowden was granted Russian asylum showed 55 percent of American voters labeled Snowden a “whistleblower” as opposed to 34 percent which considered him a “traitor.”
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The U.S. government’s fear was that the number might grow.
The Huffington Post
had published a study in June that found that the more educated a person is in relation to Snowden’s case, the greater the likelihood the former statistic will rise, “[Those] paying the most attention to the leak story were more likely to say they thought Snowden had done the right thing” and “Among those who said they had ‘heard a lot’ about the story, 50 percent said that they thought Snowden had done the right thing, and 34 percent said he had done the wrong thing.”
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The Capitol was simultaneously distracting the public and undermining the NSA leaker’s character and impact. Without once mentioning his name, Bergen and Cahall’s story relates—but by no means gives free air time—to Snowden’s role as a national security agent who had released confidential intelligence information. A 21
^st
-century rendition of Jonathan Edwards’ hellfire sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” the exposé reminds readers that national security is still a very relevant concern and its secrets should remain hidden because America is always on the brink of war. In this literary context, the co-authors equate God with national intelligence because it is only due to the good graces of both agencies that America does not wake to find itself engulfed in flames.

Perhaps under pressure from those who found the article’s timing and contents suspicious, four days after the first ambiguous security announcement was made a news leak occurred.
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The information had been released by a group of newspapers owned by one of the largest publishing companies in America, the McClatchy Company. The editorials revealed that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had spoken to Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based al-Qaeda faction in the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Zawahiri had told al-Wuhayshi to “do something.”
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Late that afternoon, CNN did a follow-up highlighting that McClatchy had already divulged the delicate information.
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By midday on August 4, the one-day closures of several of the diplomatic posts were extended to an entire week.
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Additionally and somewhat predictably, in the early hours of August 6 security sources told CNN “[a] pair of suspected U.S. drone strikes killed four al-Qaeda militants in Yemen [ … ].” The report made sure to include that the strikes were initiated three days before Snowden had been granted asylum. Strangely, the military was just getting around to releasing this information, information that can readily be assumed to be about top secret operations which remained in effect before Ramadan had ended. CNN’s intelligence source “didn’t offer additional details” after reluctantly admitting, “None of those killed on Tuesday were among the 25 names on the country’s most-wanted list.”
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The timing and content of the report bears striking resemblance to the ironic synchronicity of the 1998 Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory bombing amid then-president Bill Clinton’s impending impeachment hearings.

As a capstone, hours before the close of Ramadan and in the wake of an embassy attack by al Qaeda, President Obama appeared on
The Tonight Show
.
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The phrasing and order of the pre-screened questions makes an easy case for the White House having scripted the entire interview. After opening banalities, host Jay Leno began the interview with the diplomatic post closings, moved directly into the leaned question of how the president intends to answer those claiming the White House’s response to the Middle East security threats was “overreact[ion],” before segueing into Snowden. Leno introduced the latter by asking, “Is it safe to say that we learned about these threats through the NSA intelligence program?” Of the 19 questions put to him, the president took the longest amount of time, 1:58, to address this concern. Three questions directly pertained to the NSA or Snowden yet the president only mentioned Snowden’s name once. In the process, he alarmingly announced, “There have been times where they [Russia] slip back into Cold War thinking and Cold War mentality.”

After Ramadan had ended the next day and no embassy had been attacked, the White House announced Obama would not meet with Russia’s president before the G20 Summit.
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Though a list of justifications for the canceled discussion were offered, Putin’s aide, Yuri Ushakov, unhesitatingly proclaimed, “It’s clear that the decision is linked to the situation around former CIA contractor Edward Snowden.”
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The cost of Washington’s unwillingness to accept that it had lost the Snowden battle was a reported 31 lives, two of which were confirmed civilians,
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by the close of Ramadan. No “high-value targets” had been destroyed after a minimum of seven drone attacks. It was later reported that U.S. intelligence had not been in possession of “specifics of any al-Qaeda plot.”
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After a week of diverting the public’s attention away from Snowden and amid more disclosures, the White House realized the issue of privacy violations and the American surveillance system was not going away. Obama consented to give his first press conference in four months
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on Friday, August 9, in the East Room of the White House. He opened the meeting by announcing he had called for a four-step review and reconstruction of American surveillance programs.
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The first is “reforms to Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act” even though “[I]t does not allow the government to listen to any phone calls without a warrant. But given the scale of this program, I understand the concerns of those who would worry that it could be subject to abuse.” Obama stated adjustments will be made to these two laws to ensure “greater oversight, greater transparency, and constraints on the use of this authority.”

He then proposed FISC oversight in the form of a legal representative being present to review request orders, because the court currently “only hears one side of the story, may tilt it too far in favor of security, may not pay enough attention to liberty.” Obama, a Harvard lawyer, acknowledged a kangaroo court was in effect because no defense attorney was present to represent those whom the U.S. government was attempting to target.

The president went on to announce, under his directive, that declassification of intelligence data pertaining to how the NSA functions will begin. He proclaimed this act will be a testament to the administration’s pledge of greater transparency. Declassification will be accompanied by a new NSA website which will “serve as a hub for further transparency.” In addition, “The NSA is taking steps to put in place a full-time civil liberties and privacy officer and release information that details its mission, authorities, and oversight.”

Lastly, he stated a “high-level group of outside experts” will be assigned to “review our entire intelligence and communications technologies” because, he admitted, “governments, including our own, [have the] unprecedented capability to monitor communications.” Three days later Obama announced he had appointed the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, to establish the external oversight review committee. The motley crew had been given the title, “Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.”
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The impact of the international disclosures—especially those pertaining to China, Germany and the EU—was obvious during the conference. The president very gingerly acknowledged, “[ … ] how these [surveillance] issues are viewed overseas [is important] because American leadership around the world depends upon the example of American democracy and American openness, because what makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation; it’s the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.” He went on to state, “[ … ] to others around the world, I want to make clear once again that America is not interested in spying on ordinary people. Our intelligence is focused above all on finding the information that’s necessary to protect our people and, in many cases, protect our allies.”

Without mentioning Snowden once, Obama closed by taking a jab at the American exile, “And I believe that those who have lawfully raised their voices on behalf of privacy and civil liberties are also patriots who love our country and want it to live up to our highest ideals.”

During follow-up questions from the press, Obama was asked to account for his shift from being a senator critical of surveillance practices to a president who avidly supports them, especially after the Snowden affair. After subtly testifying he was an advocate of oversight before the first disclosure by referring to his speech on the afternoon of May 23 at the National Defense University (which was arguably instigated after the
The Washington Post
alerted the U.S. government it had a leak), he accepted responsibility for the programs and laws, “When I looked through specifically what was being done, my determination was that the two programs in particular that had been an issue—215 and 702—offered valuable intelligence that helps us protect the American people, and they’re worth preserving.” Even though a large portion of the American surveillance data released to the press contains information from the start of 2013 until April, he reported, “What we also saw was that some bolts needed to be tightened up on some of the programs. So we initiated some additional oversight reforms, compliance officers, audits and so forth.” Despite acknowledging, “[Disclosures have been released] one a week to kind of maximize attention and see if they can catch us at some imprecision on something,” he made the mistake of offering the defense, “[W]hat you’re not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs and listening in on people’s phone calls or inappropriately reading people’s emails.” Blatantly ignoring
The Guardian
’s Microsoft exposé, he lent the reassurance, “[I]f people don’t have confidence that the law, the checks and balances of the court and Congress, are sufficient to give us confidence that government’s not snooping, maybe we can embed technologies in there that prevent the snooping regardless of what government wants to do. There may be some technological fixes that provide another layer of assurance.” Though he continually reiterates he is confident current surveillance mechanisms are not being abused, he failed to address the issue of the NSA hiding specific programs such as Boundless Informant from Congress in order to evade government oversight.