I am sorry
children, but the end game remains in the hands of Mr. Snowdon. How it will
play out remains to be seen although I presume that we will now see progress
simply because they are communicating.
Snowdon
curiously can demand and enforce an ethical resolution well ahead of any
necessary financial and protective issues.
Doing that could well save his life.
In the meantime the NSA will need to review its procedures and to also
understand that placing loyal contractors under an ethical Geias can and
obviously will backfire.
You cannot have
it both ways. Educate your citizen to
uphold a high ethical standard and then breach those standards out of a false
loyalty. Not after Hitler, Stalin and
Mao.
DOD official:
Snowden ‘stole everything — literally everything’
1:21 PM 12/17/2013
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden stole vastly more information than previously speculated, and is
holding it at ransom for his own protection.
“What’s floating is so dangerous, we’d be behind for
twenty years in terms of access (if it were to be leaked),” a ranking
Department of Defense official told the Daily Caller.
“He stole everything — literally everything,” the
official said.
Last month British and U.S. intelligence officials
speculated Snowden had in his possession a “doomsday cache” of intelligence
information, including the
names of undercover intelligence personnel stationed around the world.
“Sources briefed on the matter” told Reuters that
such a cache could be used as an insurance policy in the event Snowden was
captured, and that, “the worst was yet to come.”
The officials cited no hard evidence of such a
cache, but indicated it was a possible worst-case-scenario. Some version of
that scenario appears to have come true.
“It’s only accessible for a few hours a day, and is
triple encrypted to the point where no one can break it,” the official said of
the data cloud where Snowden has likely hidden the information.
According to the official, there are at least two
others in possession of the code to access the information, and, “if we nail
him — he’ll release the data.”
“Everything you don’t want the enemy to know, he
has,” the official said. “Who we’re listening to, what we’re after — they’d
shut us down.”
The damage would be “of biblical proportions,” the
official said.
Another official from the NSA task force
commissioned to assess the data stolen and leaked by Snowden said on television
recently that granting Snowden amnesty is “worth having a conversation about”
in order to secure any potential stolen data.
Director of the NSA Gen. Keith Alexander said on “60
Minutes” Sunday that he opposes the idea, and said that people need to be held
accountable for their actions. The White House stated Monday it would not be
changing its policy regarding Snowden.
The NSA director has repeatedly testified before
Congress about the revealed programs, and continues to state that the leaks
have compromised U.S. national security.
Alexander announced in October he would be retiring
as NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command effective March, and a recent
White House task force charged with improving NSA transparency has suggested
appointing a civilian head to steer the signals intelligence agency.
The official said that following Alexander’s
retirement, he doesn’t “know how (the amnesty conversation) is going to play
out.”
