The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster

Glossary/Dramatis Personae

Jacob Appelbaum — Hacker, cyber-libertarian, cryptography expert. Now living in Berlin.

Glenn Greenwald — Blogger and journalist, former trial lawyer. Fierce critic of American corporate and government wrongdoing. Now lives in Brazil.

Laura Poitras — Heiress, former chef, award-winning filmmaker. Now living in Berlin.

Edward Snowden — Former contractor for the NSA, who took up to 1.7m secret documents and fled to Russia.

CIA — America’s Central Intelligence Agency. Responsible for human intelligence (HUMINT). Based in Langley, Virginia.

NSA — National Security Agency, responsible for collecting electronic intelligence. Based in Fort Meade, Maryland.

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters: Britain’s counterpart to the NSA, based in Cheltenham.

FISC — Also known as the FISA court. Set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to oversee the issuance of warrants for intelligence collection within the United States.

Meta-data — Details about a communication, but not involving its actual content. In a letter, for example, this would include the destination address on an envelope, the sender (if given), post-mark and stamp. For a mobile phone call, this would be the location of the device, number dialled and duration of call. For an e-mail, the meta-data could include the size, date, addressee, and details about the sender such as his internet connection and the kind of software or computer used.

Spelling and style in some of the quoted material has been anglicised. Links cited in the endnotes are available at www.edwardlucas.com/snowden.