Luke Harding, who has already written a book about Russia's mafia and another one about WikiLeaks, has his book about Snowden out now.
The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man
Here are two comments I've made at the Guardian, where he has published excerpts:
So far, I don't see anything new. I see a rehash. But I'll buy and read the whole book and get back to you.
So far -- not too impressed. I was hoping that Luke as a critical reporter on Russia although rather uncritical on WikiLeaks might put these two interests together and be more critical about Snowden. Not seeing it.
One comment of my comments is about the second extract here, Is Edward Snowden a Prisoner in Russia?
Luke,
I don't know how much you studied the Russian media for your book -- but here's what I found:
o The Russian media said he went to the Ecuadorian embassy to live, like Julian Assange (Julian set it up). He was never at the airport all that time, that was just a decoy. (Or at least, maybe he was there part of the time, or brought back for the meeting with the human rights groups, but it really seems to defy the imagination that he was held 6 weeks in the lounge.) I tend to think he wasn't at the airport, because it would be too hard to secure him in an open place like that and he'd be too findable. Too many people would talk.
o Like so many journalists entranced with Snowden, you seem to buy the line that he himself and WikiLeaks purvey (as if they are honest brokers on this score!) that Russia and China never got any documents. One would think that after having your own apartment tossed in the classic KGB fashion that you'd be a little more skeptical.
The story of the 22 malicious Tor nodes found inside Russia, with one of their attacks made in Hong Kong on June 5 (which is in the Swedish researcher's essay I cover) lets us know that maybe the crypto kids' own Tor darknets backfired on them and they got owned by the FSB -- just like our government got owned by these people exploiting Tor for taking down the NSA in the first place. All this bears a lot more scrutiny.
o Snowden's journalists, Gellman and Greenberg, plus his legal advisor Wizner, claim they are in "daily" contact. Obviously he consults with them on selection and interpretation of documents. He doesn't have to have physical access to his own trove; *they do* and they *discuss it with him* in encrypted chat. How is that materially different than having access?! It isn't. It's like a hands-free relay. Furthermore, ever since he got to Russia, he has tended to leak materials not about civil liberties issue in the US such as spying on Americans (ostensibly) but has tended to leak things that are damaging to US relations with allies and help Russia by undermining the US. Hmm, funny, that.
My book on Snowden, published last week.
Luke,
There's a number of issues you leave unanswered, at least in this excerpt.
We know from Glenn Greenwald's vehement tweet regarding Bart Gellman's work, trying to prove he had Snowden first, that he himself said he first contacted Snowden substantively in *February*. That was *before* Snowden went to get a job deliberately at Booz Allen Hamilton in order to have greater access to NSA files. Did Poitras or Greenwald have any wish list for him or get involved in the selection of what Snowden hacked? Greenwald denies this. It's definitely worth probing. All of them were active together in the anti-NSA cause for years.
You don't mention the coincidence of Snowden in Hawaii in March 2013, starting work at Booz just when Jacob Appelbaum, already Poitras' tech helper on encryption of Snowden's files, and a number of other hackers arrive in Hawaii in March 2013 for the Spring Break of Code. You don't mention that Appelbaum's girlfriend who was at that Hawaian retreat wrote a strange tweet on 30 May about a Rubik's Cube.
There's lots more that I develop in my own book on Snowden, Privacy for Me and Not for Thee that is much more critical than the standard Guardian coverage (I was hoping you would have come out of the fog by now as you did on Assange and WiliLeaks.)
But I'm glad you've established that coded messages were used in tradecraft here, i.e. Ewan's Guinness remark. That means we have to look at that Rubik's Cube tweet closely (its author has never answered queries about it).
Ultimately, I do feel with this excerpt that you are trying to establish this: Snowden isn't one of you, he's not a proper labour leftist with solid credentials, but a lover of Ron Paul and something of a gold bug. That's just in case this goes more south.
Looking forward to reading the whole book.
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