> Investigators also need to determine whether anyone else was involved in disclosing the information to reporters, officials said.
> Officials questioned some of Snowden’s assertions in his interview with the Guardian, saying that several of his claims seemed exaggerated. Among them were assertions that he could order wiretaps on anyone from “a federal judge to even the president.”
> “When he said he had access to every CIA station around the world, he’s lying,” said a former senior agency official, who added that information is so closely compartmented that only a handful of top-ranking executives at the agency could access it.
> Current and former administration officials were flummoxed by Snowden’s claim that he was authorized to access the orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
It seems very reasonable to believe he never actually got these type of air-gapped files, he just thought he did and also confused intelligence officials. It's also worth pointing out that he himself has been incredibly coy about how he actually got data out of the secure facility (I seem to remember the movie portraying a Rubik's cube).
I was of the opinion until a few months ago that he was a solo actor until that conversation I had with that IT guy. He said the US Gov response to the Snowden leaks was not a hardening of the classification systems, but a doubling down on background checks and training on foreign agents. Especially seeing how Russia has acted the last few years, I an now more open to the idea than I was before.
> Investigators also need to determine whether anyone else was involved in disclosing the information to reporters, officials said.
> Officials questioned some of Snowden’s assertions in his interview with the Guardian, saying that several of his claims seemed exaggerated. Among them were assertions that he could order wiretaps on anyone from “a federal judge to even the president.”
> “When he said he had access to every CIA station around the world, he’s lying,” said a former senior agency official, who added that information is so closely compartmented that only a handful of top-ranking executives at the agency could access it.
> Current and former administration officials were flummoxed by Snowden’s claim that he was authorized to access the orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
It seems very reasonable to believe he never actually got these type of air-gapped files, he just thought he did and also confused intelligence officials. It's also worth pointing out that he himself has been incredibly coy about how he actually got data out of the secure facility (I seem to remember the movie portraying a Rubik's cube).
I was of the opinion until a few months ago that he was a solo actor until that conversation I had with that IT guy. He said the US Gov response to the Snowden leaks was not a hardening of the classification systems, but a doubling down on background checks and training on foreign agents. Especially seeing how Russia has acted the last few years, I an now more open to the idea than I was before.