Snowden‑facilitated TOR crypto party in Honolulu with alleged NSA contacts

75 her in direct contact with a TOR supporter with access to the computers of its main enemy, the NSA. On December 11, 2012, following Snowden’s instructions, Sandvik arrived shortly before 6 PM at the Fishcake furniture store in downtown Honolulu. She proceed to the back of the store where there was a public space called the Box Jelly. It was used mainly for counterculture events. Folding chairs and work tables had already been set up, Snowden was there waiting for her with Lindsay Mills, who he introduced to Sandvik as his girlfriend. He told her that she was there to film the event. Mills did not mention this Crypto party in her blog. But that Snowden brought her and introduced her to Sandvik suggests that he did not keep secret from her his activities to further TOR. The event started at six PM sharp. By Sandvik’s count, about twenty people gradually filled the room. Some of them were from the local “Hi-Cap” computer club and other attendees were from Snowden’s NSA base. 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 capabilities that he suspected Snowden worked for the government. Snowden next introduced Sandvik, who took the podium and discussed the work of the TOR project, stressing the importance of expanding the TOR network. Following their presentations, Snowden and Sandvik took questions from the audience. The Oahu crypto party, according to Sandvik, ended about 10 PM. No one objected to Mills making a video of the meeting even though it was dedicated to the idea of protecting privacy. The video was not posted on the Internet so presumably Snowden wanted it for his own purposes. Afterwards, Sandvik went to a local diner called Zippy’s for a late dinner. She left Hawaii two days later. Even though a number of the prominent hacktavists he invited were unable to attend, Snowden declared the Crypto party a huge success in his after-hours report. One of the people Snowden invited under the alias Cincinnatus was Parker Higgins, who was a prime mover in the previously-mentioned Electronic Freedom Foundation. He now lived in California where he had founded the San Francisco Crypto Party. (Higgins would make headlines in 2013 by flying a chartered blimp over the NSA’s secret facility in Utah and photographing it from the air). Despite Snowden’s efforts, Higgins wrote him that he was unable to attend the December Crypto Party because of the high price of the airfare that month between San Francisco and Honolulu. (Higgins was hardly poor: his family home in Oahu had been rented to President Obama for two of his vacations in Hawaii.) As a consolation, Higgins told Snowden that he would try to attend Snowden’s next Crypto Party, which was scheduled for February 23, 2013. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020227