Apologies for the long quote, but I wanted to preserve as much context as possible.
On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 05:23:32PM -0400, David Golumbia wrote: > > Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had > > obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, > > and did not keep any copies for himself. > > Poitras and Greenwald visited Snowden on June 1; reports indicate only a > single visit (see > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/glenn-greenwald-edward-snowden-documents_n_3716424.html). > They both report leaving Hong Kong with the files a day or two later (see > http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all). > > Yet the *South China Morning Post* reports specifically that Snowden gave > them documents on June 12, over a week later: > http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1268209/snowden-sought-booz-allen-job-gather-evidence-nsa-surveillance?page=all, > http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusive-snowden-safe-hong-kong-more-us-cyberspying-details-revealed?page=all: > > > The latest explosive revelations about US National Security Agency > > cybersnooping in Hong Kong and on the mainland are based on further > > scrutiny and clarification of information Snowden provided on June 12. > > > > The former technician for the US Central Intelligence Agency and > > contractor for the National Security Agency provided documents revealing > > attacks on computers over a four-year period. > > > > The documents listed operational details of specific attacks on computers, > > including internet protocol (IP) addresses, dates of attacks and whether a > > computer was still being monitored remotely. > > This is not trivial because Snowden specifically claims he "did not keep > any copies for himself." "did not keep" is a journalist's words, not Snowden's. As the NYT printed it, > Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had > obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, > and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to > Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said. Very likely he still had a copy while in Hong Kong but destroyed them before leaving for Moscow. This is supported by the fragmentary actual quote that NYT printed: > “What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of > the materials onward?” he added. I hvae no idea what happened, but if I were Ed and Glen, I would have sent Glen (or another courier) home with a copy encrypted under a key unknown to the carrier; after safely arriving the key can be delivered over another channel. > So once Greenwald and Poitras left, he should not > have had any documents of this sort. I don't see any particular reason to assume that. When Glen and Laura left, Ed apparently thought he was going to stay in Hong Kong for a while; it wasn't until the HK government started applying pressure that he decided to leave. -andy -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
