EXCLUSIVE: Edward Snowden Tells Brian Williams: 'I Was Trained as a Spy'

[Recursion]

46. Well, yeah, *if* Obama used a gmail account, sure

For that matter, if Obama walked across H street to the Radio Shack and bought a normal cell phone, people could listen to that, too: there's a reason the NSC would all resign if he started doing that.

The U.S. army confirmed to the Guardian that Snowden enlisted for special forces.

On a side note, it's only relatively recently that people have been able to do that (18X started IIRC in 2003 or 2004) and I think it's a horrible idea, for reasons that at this moment should be fairly obvious... But at any rate, while I have no particular reason to doubt him that just seems weird -- 18X contracts are highly sought after and getting a no-diploma waiver for it would be difficult. Though not impossible. Though the terminology is confusing, too; I know a few SO/SOC guys and they always say "SOC" rather than "special forces", but then again the military does use that in PR and recruiting so either A. Snowden was using that phrase because it was more accessible or B. the Guardian was. It's just another thing that made my ears pick up when I first heard it...

In his original missive to Greenwald he included his CIA ID number and his CIA alias. In the published version, that info is redacted. The CIA has been silent, as it should be, but the evidence exists.

The Guardian claimed he was a CIA agent given diplomatic cover (!) in Geneva (!!) on his first assignment (!!!). I've never read Snowden himself claiming that, though it seems likely he was the Guardian's source (and obviously nobody expects CIA to confirm or deny that). Like getting the 18-X contract with just a GED, that just sounds weird to me. Diplo cover is highly sought after. A Geneva posting is very highly sought after. Giving somebody that on their first assignment just sort of raises a red flag to me, whether it's that he's not telling the truth about it at all or not telling the whole truth -- if he did get a plum on his first assignment, there was a reason that he's not mentioning (and may not even know).

That said, taking this claim at face value, we have an admitted CIA agent who then left the CIA allegedly over concerns about their ethics (?) and then took a contract job with the NSA (?!?) at which point he stole everything and has released a shit ton of information about the NSA and precisely zero information about the CIA, which is the NSA's chief rival and which was the only agency for which he claims to have actually been an agent.

If that doesn't seem weird to you, well...