General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What information does Snowden have that the NSA is so concerned about? [View all]jmowreader
(53,177 posts)A little topography here: google Teufelsberg and you'll see pictures of Field Station Berlin, where James Hall did most of his spying. The building topped with the thing that looks like a dick with a set of balls (this is no joke) was the operations building. The second and third floors had raised computer center floors.(About a year after I got there, we got a memo from the station commander: the floor is not a refrigerator. Someone from Fort Monmouth came in to evaluate our cooling capacity, picked up all the floor tiles, and discovered over fifty six-packs of soda people had put down there to keep cold. This had gone on so long that some of it was in steel cans.)
Back to James Hall. When he was there, the copier was on the second floor, in the foyer between the two ramps leading to the workspace, so it would be easy to get to. And James Hall, who had his own car, would put manuals on a library cart, push them out in the hall, and copy for hours on end. There was no control over the paper supply; if you needed a case of paper you just got one.
During the investigation, lots of people said they saw him doing this but everyone thought he was just working hard.
When I was there, the copier was downstairs in a room under two-man rule (if the room was occupied two people had to be in it at all times), you had to fill out a form to get anything copied, a staff sergeant had to sign paper requests, and the library cart was in the colonel's office with plants on it. Later on they moved the copier upstairs - to right in front of the watch officer's desk.