Edward Snowden: Why he declares himself a patriot - What led him to become a "deep throat" - Why he characterizes NSA investigators as "absolutely incompetent" - What is his relationship with Greek Mythology - The MonsterMind program and the dangers it hides
A patriot who does not care what will happen to him but only the good of his country, says Edward Snowden in a torrent of interviews he gave to Wired magazine.
The interview has already provoked mixed reactions to both the new revelations and the accompanying photos, in which Snowden appears to have the US flag thrown on a couch.
Despite the revelations that it has done to the detriment of the US National Security Agency, the former NSA associate states that "I'm more interested in my country than what will happen to me. But we can not allow the law to turn into a political weapon or agree to intimidate citizens battling for their rights, as good as the deal, "thus excluding the possibility of returning to the US and moving to someone kind agreement with the NSA despite the fact that it states that "I would volunteer to jail as long as it serves the right purpose."
Στη συνέντευξη που παραχωρήθηκε κάτω από άκρα μυστικότητα μετά από ένα χρόνο προσπάθειας του Τζέιμς Ράμφορντ και με την εφαρμογή όλων των συνομοτικών κανόνων – όπως η αφαίρεση της μπαταρίας από το κινητό τηλέφωνο – ο Edward Snowden περιγράφει τη ζωή του, τη cooperation του με την εθνική υπηρεσία ασφαλείας και τη CIA αλλά και τους λόγους που τον οδήγησαν στο να γίνει ένα νέο «βαθύ λαρύγγι». Ο Edward Snowden ζει σε ώρα Νέας Υόρκη ώστε να επικοινωνεί καλύτερα με τους υποστηρικτές τους και αποφεύγει περιοχές της Μόσχας που συχνάζουν δυτικοί.
Speaking, in fact, about his childhood - although he did not want to go into details - he reveals that one of his best readings was Greek mythology. As he puts it, characteristically, "I think that's when I started thinking about how we recognize problems and came to the conclusion that a person's worth comes from how he or she tackles those problems."
Wanting to convince himself of the goodness of his intentions, Snowden confesses that he acted in such a way that the government has an idea of what exactly he stole. He says he left digital "crumbs" so that those who would undertake the investigation could easily understand which documents he had copied and which documents he had simply "touched" to make it clear that his intention was not to become a spy on behalf of a third country but to make revelations. At the same time, the government would have the necessary time to "cover its backs" by changing codes and reviewing its business plans. In the end, however, he believes that all those who dealt with his case did was come up with the number of documents he touched - 1,7 million. "It simply came to our notice then. "I did not think they would be so completely incompetent."
Trying to interpret the US government's reactions, Snowden estimates that the failure of their investigation - that they do not know exactly what was stolen and are constantly talking about these 1,7 million documents - implies that they believe that the intercepted data is something that scares.
Snowden, however, wasn't always sure if what he was doing would have the intended impact. He remembers thinking on his first flight to Hong Kong with the hot documents in hand that "it was very likely that society would collectively just ignore it and go on." The reality of course disproved him as the NSA surveillances became for a long time one of the first themeon the global agenda.
How did the "deep throat"
The first concerns about US intelligence practices arose in Snowden during the Bush administration, when "we tortured people and had surveillance without warrants." But then he changed his mind in view of the Obama election. "He said he was not going to sacrifice our rights. "That we will not change who we are just to capture a small percentage of terrorists." But the first African-American president disappointed him: "They took the opposite path. "What does it mean for democracy and a society when the people you elect on the basis of their commitments can redeem the will of the voters?" he wonders.
The next blow came in March 2012 when Snowden discovered that the NSA was channeling untreated communications and data into Israeli counterintelligence. These were mainly emails and phone calls from millions of Americans of Arab and Palestinian descent whose relatives in Palestine could only be targeted based on their communications.
And "surprises" continued for Snowden when he learned that in 2012 a group of hackers within the NSA (TAO) attempted to "invade" a large Internet service provider in Syria in the midst of civil war in the country. With the program that the team would install, the NSA would have access to the internet "traffic" of the whole country. But something went wrong and eventually with their intervention the hackers threw the whole internet in Syria even though the Syrians never realized that behind this move was the American government.
The drop that overflowed the glass was the existence of a secret program that allows it to pass through a one million square meter building known as the Mission Data Repository in which it is possible to maintain a quadruize million gigabyte of data.
And the occasion was given when NSA Director James Klapper appeared in his jury's testimony before the Senate to admit, according to Snowden, that the cheating of the Americans was something quite normal.
The MonsterMind program
According to Snowden, the program codenamed MonsterMind developed by the NSA is even more worrying. This program, which is presented for the first time in public in the interview on Wired, is the US guard against possible cyber attacks. But what makes it unique is that it has the ability to "counterattack" on its own without human intervention. And that's a problem, Snowden explains, because these attacks are usually covert. "One could be in China and make the attack look like it started in Russia. And then we would end up bombing a Russian hospital. What happens then? " he wonders.
At the same time, this program is the end of privacy as, as the former NSA associate explains, in order to detect a possible cyber-attack, he must first monitor all private conversations of people from the other side of the Atlantic with American citizens.
His biggest fears
Two are at the moment Snowden's biggest fears. First, it will do some blunder that will destroy as many reforms have been made. Nevertheless he recognizes that at some point he will make the mistake and then catch him.
The second reason for concern is that with the thunder of these revelations they will have the same impact as a news story about deaths during a war. "A death is a tragedy, one million deaths are statistical," he says using Stalin's phrase. "Just as the first spy was sparked by Merkel and not the 80 spying of millions of Germans."
That is why he believes that the solution to the whole problem lies in technology and not in politicians. “The answer is simply coding. By making the encoding of all communications an international constant we could end mass once and for all monitoring wherever it comes from.
