Allegations of Edward Snowden’s CIA employment and internal disciplinary actions

53 to an adversary intelligence services on the prowl for a source. If any party was looking for a disgruntled US employees, Snowden’s Internet chatter about bad choices in gambling could arouse its interest. That Snowden used his TheTrueHooHa alias for these Internet posting would not prevent a sophisticated espionage organization, such as the Russian Intelligence service, from quickly uncovering that his true identity was Edward Snowden. Nor would it be difficult to place him at the CIA since, it will be recalled, he was listed by his true name on the roster of the US Mission to the UN. By consulting personnel records it would further emerge that he did not actually work for the State Department. Since it was no secret, at least to the Russian Intelligence services, that the US mission in Geneva housed the CIA station for all of Switzerland, it was probable that this brittle gambler who played the options market worked for the CIA. Even though it cannot be precluded that Snowden was spotted in Geneva by another intelligence service, there is no evidence, at least that I know of, to suggest that he was approached by one. Nor is there reason to believe that if he had been contacted by a foreign service in 2008, he would have responded positively. Despite his indiscreet posting about his outside activities, he apparently still respected the boundaries of secrecy that had been clearly defined in the oath he had taken in the CIA. For example, after the New York Times published an article revealing secret American intelligence activities in Iran on January 11, 2009, Snowden railed against the newspaper on the Internet under his True HOOHA alias, He wrote “This shit is classified for a reason... It’s because this shit won’t work if Iran knows what we are doing.” He clearly recognized that revealing intelligence sources was extremely damaging. As for the New York Times, he said “Hopefully they’ll finally go bankrupt this year.” When another Internet user asked him if it was unethical to release national security secrets, he answered,” YEEEEEEEEEES.” Nevertheless, he had his career-ending problem at the CIA. As with every CIA officer, he had to undergo a two year evaluation and take a routine polygraph test. It was then, in December 2008, that his superior at the CIA placed the “derog” in his file. The reason remains somewhat murky. According to a New York Times story by veteran intelligence reporter Eric Schmitt, Snowden’s superior had suspected that Snowden “was trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access.” Schmitt evidently had well-placed sources in the CIA. He said that he interviewed two senior American officials who were familiar with the case. According to what they told Schmitt, the CIA superior had decided to “send Snowden home.” Officially, however, according to a CIA reply to the New York Times report, Snowden had not been fired or accused of attempting to “break into classified computer files to which he did not have authorized access.” The discrepancy was explained to me by a former CIA officer who had also been at the US Mission in Geneva. He said that the spin the CIA put on the story was “necessary containment.” After the Snowden breach occurred in June 2013, the CIA had a problem which could, as he put it, “blow up in its face.” If Snowden had been fired but allowed to keep his secrecy clearance in 2009, the CIA’s incompetency could be partly blamed for the NSA’s subsequent employment of him. If he had broken into a computer he was not authorized, he should have been fired, if not arrested. What this spin glossed over, according to this former CIA officer, is the part of Snowden’s behavior that concerned his superior. Technically, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020205