Snowden's 2012 Hawaii NSA employment details

CHAPTER 4 Thief We begin by coveting what we see every day. —HANNIBAL LECTER, The Silence of the Lambs N HAWAII IN 2012, Snowden was living a very comfortable life. He was earning just over $120,000 a year from Dell. His hous- ing allowance covered the rent and the lease on his car. He worked five days a week at the NSA base. The commute, as I timed it, took only ten minutes. Driving past a sign marked “Restricted Area: Keep Out,” and the security booth where NSA guards checked his cre- dentials, he left his car in the outdoor lot for the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center. (When I drove into the base in 2016, I was detained nearly two hours at the security booth before being turned back.) Snowden worked in a three-story reinforced concrete building called “the tunnel,” even though it was above the ground. It had been built during World War II to serve as an aircraft assembly plant. During the war, it was entirely covered with earth and shrub- bery to proof it against Japanese bomber attacks. In 1980, the NSA converted it to its regional base in Hawaii for its intelligence gather- | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 38 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019526