The Crime Scene Investigation | 145

The Crime Scene Investigation | 145 Hawaii. Nor would that data be forthcoming from Snowden, who may be the only witness to the crime. By June 23, he was in a safe haven in Moscow. Even though the grand jury case against Snowden was cut and dry, it was also irrelevant because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia. The purpose of the intelligence investigation went far beyond determining Snowden’s guilt or innocence, however. Its job was to find out how such a massive theft of documents could occur, how the perpetrator escaped, and, perhaps most urgent, who had obtained the unaccounted-for stolen documents from Snowden. In his interviews with journalists in Moscow, Snowden studiously avoided describing the means by which he breached the security aperture of America’s most secret intelligence service. He only told the journalists who came to Moscow to interview him, with a bit of pseudo-modesty, that he was not “an angel” who descended from heaven to carry out the theft. But the question of how Snowden stole these documents may be the most important part of the story. The NSA, after all, furnishes communications intelligence to the © president, his national security advisers, and the Department of © Defense, intelligence that is supposedly derived from secret sources in adversary nations. If these adversary nations learn about the NSA’s sources, then the information, if not worthless, cannot be fully trusted. The most basic responsibility of the NSA is to pro- tect its sources. Yet Snowden walked away with long lists of them. In doing so, he amply demonstrated that a single civilian employee working for an outside contractor, even one not having the neces- sary passwords and other access privileges, could steal documents that betrayed these vital sources. He also demonstrated that such a massive theft could go undetected for at least two weeks. If Snowden managed this feat on his own, as he claims in his Hong Kong video, it suggests that any other civilian employee with a perceived grievance against NSA practices or American foreign policy could also walk away with some of the most precious secrets held by U.S. intelligence. Such vulnerability extends to tens of thou- sands of civilian contract employees in positions similar to the one held by Snowden. The lone disgruntled employee explanation is therefore hardly reassuring. If true, it calls into question the entire | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 145 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019633