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56 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS
that he “had been talking some of the more technical guys at work
into setting up some additional fast servers” for Tor. His “work”
place at the time was the NSA. So, if he was telling the truth, he
had already attempted to find co-workers at the NSA who might be
interested in attending an anti-NSA surveillance presentation.
Sandvik not only agreed to be Snowden’s co-presenter but made
the Oahu CryptoParty a Tor-sponsored event. Sandvik flew to
Honolulu on December 6, 2012. It was a fourteen-hour flight and
a relatively expensive one. She later told Wired magazine that the
invitation from Snowden coincided with her plan to take a “vacation
in Hawaii.” Whatever her reason, it brought her in direct contact
with a Tor supporter with access to the computers of its main enemy,
the NSA.
On December 11, following Snowden’s instructions, Sandvik
arrived shortly before 6:00 p.m. at the Fishcake gallery in downtown
Honolulu. She proceeded through a maze of furniture display rooms
to BoxJelly, a public space. She was then directed to a small back room
in which there were folding chairs and worktables already set up for
© the event. Rechung Fujihira, the owner of BoxfJelly, told me that Hi ©
Capacity, a “creative collective” of computer buffs, had arranged the
logistics for the event. As he recalled, Snowden had requested their
help for the CryptoParty.
Sandvik found Snowden waiting for her with Lindsay Mills,
whom he introduced to Sandvik as his girlfriend. He told Sandvik
that Mills was there to make a video of the event. Mills did not men-
tion the party in her blog. But that Snowden brought her and intro-
duced her to Sandvik suggests that he did not keep secret from her
his activities to further Tor.
The event started at 6:00 p.m. sharp. By Sandvik’s count, about
twenty people gradually filled the room. She reckoned that about
half of the attendees were from Snowden’s workplace. Snowden
began the presentation by giving reasons why Internet users needed
to defend their privacy by using both encryption and Tor software.
According to one attendee who asked not to be identified by name,
Snowden, while not revealing that he worked for the NSA, spoke
with such precise knowledge about government surveillance capa-
bilities that the attendee suspected Snowden worked for the govern-
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