Famous soccer coach Guus Hiddink, lately of Anzhi Makhachkala (l) and Col. Lobarev (ret) (R) head of the power ministry veterans' union, offering aid and comfort to colleague Edward Snowden, here shown before his TV Rain interview.
One of the more bizarre features of the story of the flight of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden from his nerd paradise in Hawaii as an infrastructure analyst working for Booz, Allen Hamilton is the news at Russian news site RBC that Snowden had supposedly sent an email to the Russian union of veterans of the power ministries (the siloviki) asking to join them. Then there was a TV interview with the head of the union. You know, they were saying "Snowden should become a member of our union as a former intelligence agent because he is one of ours." Former, because obviously he was fired now from his BAH job as an US agent.
So, having Snowden join a Russian law-enforcement veterans' union... that would be sort of like having Gerard Depardieu join the Veterans of Foreign Wars because France awarded him the Légion d'honneur medal...or something.
In any event, the story could be entirely fake because stories in the Russian media can always be entirely fake, or it could be "a message" or it could just be crazily true, the way sometimes things are in Russia. But...You know how intelligence agencies take out ads in the Village Voice to communicate with their recruits: "Dear Mortimer, you left your umbrella, I have it, meet me on the R train". So it could be that sort of thing.
So, let's take a second look at this bizarre news story and note two things about it 1) the mention of Edward's IP address and b) the offer to him of an i-pad.
As we know, these adventures of Edward's in Russia are all part of a plan suggested by the notorious provocateur Israel Shamir to have Snowden "meet Russian society" by having a press conference and other meetings. So part one involved his "meeting with human rights activists and lawyers," which included not only, as Simon Shuster of Time pointed out, some unidentified regime goons, but a few regime-sympathizing attorneys like Kucherena (whose biography lets us know he not only sits on the FSB's public council and the presidential human rights council, which has been emptying out of real human rights advocates with Putin's crackdowns, but is on the Interior Ministry's public council (the police); the Defense Ministry's public council; the Transportation Ministry's public council; the traffic safety council; the commission on migration policy; and even the Supervisory Board of the National Union of Veterans of Judo -- Putin's favourite sport. This guy must spend his entire life going to committee meetings!
So now apparently part two of his "civil society program" is to meet the veterans of the FSB, Interior, Defense etc. ministries -- although it doesn't seem Kucherena, his official minder for now, is on board with this.
So they say -- or RBC says -- or somebody says -- that they received an email from Edward and they can tell it's authentic because it has an IP address in North Carolina. It seems Edward found their web site and contacted them through the email address on their web site.
Now that's odd -- not just that it reveals a little bit more snooping than most people might do when they get an email. But because Edward, being the l33t haxor we've been told (even though he didn't seem to realize that the IT platforms didn't provide NSA actual "direct access"), would surely not use something as mundane as some local ISP from North Carolina related to his telephone service or something.
That is, surely, Edward is not going to dial up from Moscow to North Carolina, to send his email. I mean, how wierd would that be?
Surely he would use a proxy, or hushmail, or at least gmail, right? I mean, couldn't he make a new account like [email protected] just for all his contacts with Russian civil society? Maybe that name is taken.
That was just wierd, so somebody explain that to me.
Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina but it just stretches the imagination to think of Edward using, oh, CenturyLink in Raleigh for his Interneting needs.
Okay, let's press on. The other thing these thoughtful veterans said is that they will provide him with "a blanket, batteries, chargers, food and if necessary, a tablet". Planshetnik is the word Russians use for tablets, or i-pads. While lots of English Internet words have invaded the Russian language, for some reason, they don't say, as they do for i-phones, "smartfony" but "planshetniki" for tablets probably because it just "feels right" and "i-pady" doesn't sound like anything the way "i-fony" does.
Why would Edward need an i-pad or a Samsung Galaxy tablet if he has four laptops?
Wait...What happened to the four laptops!!!
Did the Russians take them?!
Is this their way of slyly announcing the fact? "Hahahahah, yo bitches, we're having our veterans' society offer him a tablet because we took his laptops!"
I mean, come to think of it, he wasn't holding the four laptops at the time of the press conference when everyone was trying to film him, and Sarah Harrison was sticking out her hand and telling everyone to stop, like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. But...I'm sure they were in a safe place in an airport locker that you just keep dropping 25 kopeck pieces into in order to keep your belongings secure....
The veterans rubbed it in later in the article when they said again that Aleksandr Lobarev, chairman of the union, told Kucherena -- whom he contacted with the offer to help -- that his group was prepared to help Snowden out with vital necessities.
"The man has clearly not prepared for the situation into which he has fallen, therefore he may simply not have with him the basic necessities," Lobarev told RBK Daily. "New clothes, a blanket, batteries for electric gadgets or chargers, perhaps he needs a tablet to communicate with his relatives. All of this and other necessary items we're prepared to offer him."
I don't know if getting a tablet from the veterans' society is like, well, the sharing experience that getting a gift of a Lenovo laptop can be, but there's the offer.
And while there is a reference to "batteries for electric gadgets" that doesn't sound like four laptops, but maybe phones or even just an electric razor.
And Edward, who seems to communicate very rarely since he went to Moscow, and only through Julian Assange or Glenn Greenwald, i.e. via Sarah Harrison evidently, would seem to have urgent communication needs to get in touch with "the movement" or "G9" or "the team" or whatever it is they call themselves in their WikiLeaks cell on the IRC channel. We've surmised that the four laptops aren't really to hold files but to have encrypted and secure communications.
But sure, I bet his dad would love to talk to him on Skype, he's worried and has asked him to come home and work out a deal for the least sentence he can -- and maybe a tablet is better for that. (Oops, let me update that -- Dad now thinks Russia is a better place for him because of the "bias" at home now where he ostensibly couldn't get a fair trial due to Obama's "silence" in the face of congressmen calling his son "a traitor". Are we beginning to get an idea of why Edward turned out like he did?)
Russians love Skype and a lot of them even in the hinterlands use Skype and also have tablets -- even with only 30% Internet penetration, it's a very rapidly Internetizing country especially in the big cities. So contacting your family with your tablet would seem like a basic necessity.
But of course, Edward could do that on one of his four laptops, right? But what if they're gone?
Lobarev then adds another statement that is, well, also weird. Says RBC:
According to the trade union leader, Snowden is their former colleague and they don't intend to leave him in trouble. "We have already conducted a meeting with our North American colleagues and they support us in this decision," Lobarev elaborated.
What the hell does that mean? There's a chapter of veterans of intelligence agencies in the US that holds annual barbecues with their counterparts in Russia now? And they've agreed that their fellow guy has to be helped with the basics as he's now a refugee? Or is this just a signal that the FSB has already talked to the FBI or the CIA or whomever and they've approved of him having that bugged tablet along with clean underwear?
Kucherena didn't exactly take up the union boss on his offer, but told RBC that he had lots of calls from Muscovites -- girls offer him a place to live or marriage (as Anna Chapman, the notorious spy caught in the US and expelled to Russia did on Twitter) and men offer him financial help. I'll bet there are some babushki knitting him a sweater now, too!
Is Lobarev authentic? Well, he seems to be.Here you can see Lobarev talking about benefits for police and others as a way to prevent widespread practice of benefits; he's also urging the creation of an Internet platform to help union activity.Here's Lobarev in the International Police Association talking about police reforms in Russia.
Colonel Lobarev spent 25 years in the police and is now retired. You can follow him on Twitter. There his time line has things like the news that "bandits shot four policemen in Dagestan" -- where Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent his summer vacation last year, remember? Col. Lobarev marvels at the ways of the West, where a student is arrested for barking at a police dog.
And here he tweets about Snowden with a picture of himself before a TV interview and here he tweets a link to the RBC article
Before the TV interview on the Snowden case I talked with Khiddink and we didn't even know..I gave a thumbs up! Imagine...
That would suggest that in fact this power ministry union offer to Snowden is real, not just a fake article in the paper, but it could be part of the hoax, who knows.
But you know what's interesting is that the picture shows Lobarev with Guus Hiddink. Who is he, you might wonder, if you don't follow sports? Why, he's a famous Dutch soccer coach. Where was he last? At Anzhi Makhachkala, the same soccer club in Dagestan, whose logo decorated the Twitter account of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
I've maintained all along that more study of Anzhi has to be made to understand how an American college kid who hadn't been in his native land in years, and no longer played soccer, came to put that on his Twitter, and what the possible relationship is of the Makhachkala sports/crime/government world (they are all linked in Russia and in particular in Dagestan) to the Boston bombing. How is it that Lobarev just happens to run into him? They're both coincidentally on TV at the same time in the studio? Did they know each other before? Lobarev's involvement with the Dagestan can be seen here in this interesting meeting with police whistleblowers from Dagestan and human rights activists.
Here's Lobarev's TV interview. TV Rain, which is relatively independent, actually quotes Kucherena as saying that the letter from the veterans' union is "a provocation" and "a lie". Interesting, eh? Kucherena is supposed to be in bed with the FSB, but he found this Snowden appeal for help a fake like we all do.
It's quite a performance. "He's our silovik," says Lobarev about Snowden -- as a fellow intelligence agent. Try that out for size: "Edward Snowden, silovik." Creepy, huh.
Is this evidence of the split in the intelligence community about how to handle Snowden that Shamir also writes about? (which could also be contrived).
Here's his full statement:
We reviewed this at the union committee and took a decision that this is a person who is on the territory of Russia from the power agencies. We will offer him social, living assistance. We immediately wrote Anatoly Kucherena a letter with a request to confirm whether there was such a letter because we did not have contact with him. If there was, we confirmed that we are ready to provide him with social and legal assistance. It's difficult for him now. He decided, perhaps, to tell the truth. He has come, perhaps, with material evidence. The court will review all of this case. But the man is suffering. He is the representative of a power bloc. And we, the trade union, defend the representatives of the law-enforcement agencies and veterans of power agencies. He is our silovik, we we understand what sort of situation he has fallen into it. It is simply necessary to help him to resolve some social, living, and legal needs...He is in that situation. It is very difficult for him.
Kucherena told reporters that Snowden is waiting to hear back from the Federal Migration Service which handles asylum requests. "The review can take up to three months," he warned.
BTW, it's important to know that "asylum" isn't something done every day in Russia. In fact, it's seldom done. In fact, high-profile defectors like Depardieu don't have to spend hours waiting in offices and filing papers and languishing three months -- they are walked through the process, of course. Russia isn't exactly a place of political asylum, you know. Although, in the scheme of things, some people who don't have a lot of choices to go there for asylum. For example, Turkmen opposition leaders and former officials who broke with the regime have been quietly allowed to live in exile in Moscow. They are issued Russian passports. There are the occasional Vietnamese or Afghan or Somalians -- likely from the Soviet Union's intelligence adventures and then even occasionally a humanitarian case. There is a process for becoming a refugee and some people do clear it -- it's just not done that often and so there's some murkiness about it.
Catherine. Could it get more weird?
You took the words right out of my mouth re Edward's father. The apple fell very close to the tree.
Posted by: Craig Pirrong | July 28, 2013 at 10:11 AM
Funny you mention Lenovo laptops. They've now been banned by most Anglosphere intelligence services.
Posted by: Craig Pirrong | July 28, 2013 at 10:14 AM
I guess you comments don't allow html. I tried to post this link to the article re Lenovo: http://www.afr.com/p/technology/spy_agencies_ban_lenovo_pcs_on_security_HVgcKTHp4bIA4ulCPqC7SL
Posted by: Craig Pirrong | July 28, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Fascinating! Thank you.
Posted by: BostonBoomer | July 28, 2013 at 02:12 PM
Here's an interesting addition to the story. I noted how Kucherena seemed to be discounting this whole thing as a hoax -- he is quoted as such in the Russian media.
But it's not that the veterans' group offering to help Snowden is a hoax -- that has played out and as you can see they are at least posing that they want to do this.
But Kucherena thinks the email itself was fake, not really from him.
Maybe this indicates some rivalry between Russian intelligence and law-enforcement factions, who knows, but here's more of what Kucherena said:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=16180:report-of-snowden-seeking-ties-to-kgb-vets-false-lawyer-says&Itemid=619
"Snowden did not address any letter to any association," Kucherena told The Moscow News. "Where it came from, whose fabrication it was, it's difficult for me to say." The attorney expressed surprise that a group claiming to be made up of former intelligence and law enforcement veterans were fooled by it.
"It's surprising the leaders believed it," he said.
Posted by: Catherine Fitzpatrick | August 03, 2013 at 08:14 PM