The Snowden Operation

Chapter Four: History Lessons

In the 1970s, the nuclear disarmament movement in the West was moribund. People worried more about the energy crisis, militant trade unions, terrorism and other issues. That began to change in 1977, when the Soviet leadership launched a vigorous and successful public campaign in continental Europe against the ‘neutron bomb’—an American anti-tank weapon aimed at shoring up the alliance’s fragile conventional defences in Europe. The anti-nuclear cause was fuelled further by the NATO decision in 1979 to place Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe in response to the Soviet deployment of the similar SS20 missiles from 1977 onwards.

As the anti-nuclear movement mushroomed, the Atlantic alliance came under huge strain. Ronald Reagan was seen in Europe as a warmonger and a cowboy. Pro-American governments burned political capital fighting against seductive if simplistic arguments. Surely it was better to have fewer nuclear weapons, not more? Why not try unilateral confidence-building moves to defuse tension, rather than escalate the risk of war by boosting arsenals further? ‘Ban the bomb’, and the romantic eccentricity of the ‘Women’s Peace Camp’ at Greenham Common near London, had an appeal that the dry arguments for the status quo could not match. Few went as far as the Spartacist League, with their hallmark chant of ‘Smash NATO! Defend the Soviet Union!’ But the consensus in the peace movement was that America was a bigger threat than the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union’s own role in the anti-nuclear movement is still unclear. Defectors such as Stanislav Lunev (from Russia’s GRU military intelligence service) and Sergei Tretyakov (of the SVR foreign intelligence service) have made sweeping claims. Academic studies have been more cautious. After Communism collapsed, a senior member of Britain’s CND, Vic Allen, unrepentantly admitted to passing information to the East German Stasi.[69] The Soviet Union financed British and other communist parties, which played a role in the ‘peace’ movements disproportionate to their tiny numbers.[70]

What is not in doubt is that CND and the like served Moscow’s purpose. To be sure, the campaigners said they opposed Soviet and Western nuclear weapons alike. But the focus of their efforts was asymmetric: they could apply political pressure to Western governments, political parties and institutions, whereas their influence in the Soviet bloc was minimal. The Soviet Union enjoyed conventional military superiority in Europe; demanding a ‘nuclear-free Europe’ in effect meant accepting Soviet hegemony on the continent. ‘Peace’ was therefore a big Soviet talking point in all international forums and discussions, both from diplomats and from nominally independent but state-funded outfits such as the World Peace Council.

Regardless of their direct or indirect involvement, the information-warfare experts of the Soviet KGB were delighted with the divisive and distracting effects the ‘peace’ movement was having in the West. Soviet decision-makers relied on the anti-nuclear campaigners in the West to weaken and constrain the resolve of governments there.

Their successors in the Kremlin now see a similar opportunity. Like the anti-nuclear movement of the early 1980s, modern campaigners for privacy and digital freedom see their own countries’ flaws with blinding clarity, and ignore those of the repressive regimes elsewhere. They manifest a corrosive mistrust for their political leaders and public officials, to the point that little said by governments carries any weight at all.

It is worth noting that the Snowdenistas go far beyond the anti-nuclear campaigners in their thirst for damage. Disagreeing with your government’s actions is one thing. Sabotaging them is another. Imagine, for example, that a British or American anti-nuclear activist got hold of the acoustic signatures of his country’s nuclear submarines. These signatures—the noise that the vessels make under water—are among the most closely guarded of all defence secrets. They are distinctive and almost impossible to change. Once you know them, it becomes much easier to track a submarine and if necessary destroy it. Submarines’ effectiveness largely depends on their invisibility. So publishing the acoustic signatures of the nuclear submarines would be a simple and devastating way of making them useless—in effect, sabotage.

Such a move would cost the country concerned billions of dollars. It would also tip the strategic balance in favour of countries whose nuclear deterrent remained secret and effective. Even an anti-nuclear newspaper like the Guardian would decry such a move. Yet in effect, that is what Snowden and his allies have done. They have rendered ineffective some of their countries’ most expensive and sensitive defence capabilities, while leaving adversaries untouched.

Another lesson from the past concerns the scandal around the Echelon system for collecting information regarding international telecommunications. It was revealed in a series of leaks in the 1990s, eventually prompting a lengthy report by the European Parliament.[71] John Schindler, a former NSA analyst who is now a professor at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, sees a parallel. The exposure of Echelon, he believes, was an ‘active measure’ by Russian intelligence, aimed at stoking distrust between America and its European allies. Without access to classified information, that link is unprovable. But the similarities are startling. Details of the programme were divulged by a disillusioned NSA contractor, Margaret Newsham (who was working for the defence company Lockheed). The story was highlighted by campaigning journalists in the UK and in New Zealand. At first sight the message seemed sensational. America and Britain, together with other close allies, were spying on the rest of the world. They had a global network of facilities which could intercept communications—in those days faxes and telexes, as well as phone calls and the nascent internet. All this seemed to be happening without public consent or political oversight.

The result was fury—especially as one of the journalists involved, Duncan Campbell, claimed that the spying was not just for reasons of statecraft, but also in pursuit of commercial goals. American companies were gaining an unfair advantage over their rivals thanks to the muscle of their intelligence services.

On closer scrutiny, the case largely fell apart. It was exciting to know the code words for the programmes concerned, and to have the supposedly top-secret locations listed, illustrated with maps, photographs and diagrams. The silent fury of the intelligence agencies added another note of drama, as did the self-righteous hysterics of European politicians.

Yet just as with the Snowden revelations, the disclosures were not in themselves surprising. Britain’s GCHQ and America’s NSA exist to collect electronic intelligence. It is hardly surprising that they strive to fulfil their missions. Nor should their close alliance be a surprise. Britain and America have been cooperating closely since the start of the Cold War (as anyone viewing a James Bond film knows).

The details—the means, nature and extent—of those activities and alliances are indeed secret, but for entirely understandable reasons. Intelligence agencies, as explained above, like to keep the other side guessing. Even seemingly unimportant information about budgets, spending plans, logistics and premises can be useful to the adversary, at a potentially high cost. A secret, once released, may be a shock to the unwitting. But a shock is not necessarily a scandal.

Nor could anyone prove that anything revealed in the Echelon disclosures was actually illegal. International law does not prohibit espionage. The national laws of Britain, America and other countries gave (and give) the intelligence and security agencies a remit, and set up a system of oversight. The remit may be too wide, and the oversight too flimsy (or perhaps vice versa: views differ), but these are matters for the political process to resolve.

Perhaps the gravest charge was that America conflated commercial espionage with statecraft. That would be shocking if true. It would be illegal under American law. It would confer unfair advantages on the lucky US companies that received intelligence titbits from the government, and disadvantage their competitors. It would discredit America’s reputation for fair dealing in the eyes of the rest of the world.

It is impossible to prove a negative. Those who believe that the American government and its corporate handmaidens (or Corporate America and its political handmaidens) are capable of any kind of iniquity will not be disabused of their convictions by mere denials, or the absence of facts to support them. But the campaigners against Echelon produced a remarkably thin case to support their contention. It is hardly surprising that American spies may target foreign companies. As Jim Woolsey, the former CIA director, explained in his newspaper article, they may be involved in bribery to gain an unfair advantage, or be breaking sanctions. They may have employees with access to state secrets, either now or potentially. Intelligence agencies are ingenious, curious and adaptive: that is what they are paid to be.

But the gap between spying on foreign companies and handing their commercial secrets to domestic ones is huge. And there is no evidence for it. The most likely explanation for this absence of evidence is that nothing of the kind is going on. Any programme of systematic intelligence sharing with the corporate sector would be simply too risky to contemplate (as well as being wrong). How would it be administered? Who would authorise the security clearances? How much information could be disclosed? And what about the competitors, who in litigious America would be likely to sue the government if they believed they were losing out on access to valuable information collected at taxpayers’ expense?

American companies do get plenty of help from their government. They can receive briefings from officials about political and economic conditions abroad (as do executives from any country with an effective foreign service). Favours may be given through indirect channels such as consulting firms, or by hiring recently retired officials from the intelligence community. Abuses do happen. But it is striking that none of the soi-disant whistleblowers from the NSA or elsewhere, and no conscience-stricken corporate executive anywhere, has given the slightest sign, hint or proof of any programme of state-sponsored commercial espionage, either in the Echelon era or now. By contrast, evidence abounds of such espionage by other countries, chiefly China but also, notably, France.

In assessing the effects of Snowden’s actions, it may help to imagine how the whole thing could have been done differently. The overwhelming evidence even from the cherry-picked documents released so far is that the NSA is a bureaucratic and rule-bound organisation. So the first thing that an employee or contractor should do when he encounters a breach in the rules is report it. The NSA, like GCHQ, has a system for this. In America, the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 allows intelligence insiders to disclose classified information concerning a ‘serious or flagrant problem, abuse, [or] violation of law’ to members of congressional intelligence committees. They are obliged to exhaust other channels first, including the NSA’s inspector general and the attorney general.

Snowden did not do that, largely because no such serious problem, abuse or violation was taking place. As shown above, the NSA was acting within at least the letter of the law, under congressional and judicial oversight, in accordance with the instructions of an elected president. What Snowden claims as motivation was the trajectory—that a future government would abuse the collection programmes to create an Orwellian ‘surveillance state’ which individuals would be afraid to challenge for fear of drawing attention to themselves.

That is a political objection. So Snowden, even without disclosing classified information, could have approached the lawmakers, especially in the Senate, who have been publicly critical of what they see as the NSA’s excessive reach. He did not. He could have resigned from his job and applied for a job at one of the many think-tanks and campaigns which worry about privacy in the digital age. By providing stolen secrets he has certainly stimulated a far more intense public debate than mere assertions of an ex-employee would have done. But the quantity and quality of information stolen and published goes far beyond anything necessary to start a debate. It looks more like material for a global anti-American campaign.

Even without going through the legal channels available, Snowden could have made it easy for people to defend him as a genuine whistleblower. He could simply have taken and leaked the FISA court order showing that Verizon, the American mobile phone company, has to routinely hand over its customers’ phone records.[72] To be sure, this collection of meta-data is legal and the order was a routine renewal of a programme which has been going for years. But it was still shocking. People know that their phone companies can do this (and may be glad about it: it helps locate stolen mobile phones). They may be happy that police can analyse the data on a case-by-case basis—for example to find out who has been present at a crime scene. But there are reasonable grounds for worrying about a single government agency creating an automatic, perpetual, searchable warehouse for all such information.

A handful of other documents released by Snowden come into a similar category where a public interest defence would be plausible. If the NSA has indeed been deliberately promoting faulty encryption software, or tweaking industry standards, in order to make it easier to bug and snoop, that is a deplorable and flawed policy. A patriotic American might well try to spare the blushes of American companies who were put in an impossible position by a combination of warrants and gagging orders, while finding some material that illustrated the policy under which such measures were taken.

Had Snowden published such documents, he might well have been prosecuted. American criminal justice officials do take a literal and stern view of the law and (as I have pointed out above) this administration is particularly and deplorably heavy-handed when it comes to dealing with whistleblowers. But he would have had the strongest case for a public interest defence, or a pardon if convicted. He would have been able to say truthfully that he had sought to do the least possible damage to intelligence sources and methods, and to the economic interests of the United States, and had focused his disclosure on the secret aspect of the NSA’s activities which most Americans would find controversial. He could then have argued that any harm he did by breaching his oath of secrecy was outweighed by the public good. He might have faced prosecution and jail—but if he could prove that he had taken nothing else but a limited set of documents, whose publication was embarrassing but necessary and relevant, his defence, both in law and before public opinion, would have been stronger. But he didn’t.

In fact, his behaviour does not meet the most elementary tests for justifying whistleblowing. Rahul Sagar, a professor at Princeton, has defined these well in his new book Secrets and Leaks:[73] First, a whistleblower must have clear and convincing evidence of abuse. Second, releasing the information must not pose a disproportionate threat to public safety. Third, the information leaked must be as limited in scope and scale as possible. Snowden failed all three of these criteria. He has not shown systematic abuse, only secrecy and mistakes. He has harmed and weakened his country and its allies (indeed, for some Snowdenistas, this is a stated aim). He has stolen far more information than was necessary to make the case he purports to want to make. Why?

I have shown that the Snowden disclosures are heavily spun and damaging to American and allied interests in a way that goes far beyond the purported goals of promoting a debate about digital security. I have shown that this damage benefits Russia. I have shown that Snowden’s behaviour cannot be justified as whistleblowing. For these reasons alone, he and his allies deserve condemnation. But it is possible—though not proven—that something more sinister than mere naïveté and carelessness is afoot.