{"id":79859,"date":"2016-09-19T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=79859"},"modified":"2016-09-17T18:30:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T17:30:04","slug":"new-film-tells-the-story-of-edward-snowden-here-are-the-surveillance-programs-he-helped-expose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/09\/new-film-tells-the-story-of-edward-snowden-here-are-the-surveillance-programs-he-helped-expose\/","title":{"rendered":"New Film Tells the Story of Edward Snowden; Here Are the Surveillance Programs He Helped Expose"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"snowden-sh-fin1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

16 Sep 2016 – <\/em>Oliver Stone\u2019s latest film, \u201cSnowden,\u201d bills itself as a dramatized version of the life of Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower who revealed the global extent of U.S. surveillance capabilities.<\/p>\n

Stone\u2019s rendering of Snowden\u2019s life combines facts with Hollywood invention, covering Snowden being discharged from the military after an\u00a0injury in basic training, meeting his girlfriend, and training in the CIA with fictitious mentors (including Nicolas Cage\u2019s character, most likely a composite of whistleblowers like Thomas Drake and Bill Binney). Snowden then goes undercover, only to see an op turn ugly; becomes a contractor for the CIA and NSA; and finally chooses to leave the intelligence community and disclose its vast surveillance apparatus, some of which he helped develop.<\/p>\n

The movie hits key points in Snowden\u2019s story, including his growing interest in constitutional law and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, some of the U.S. surveillance programs he eventually unmasked, and parts of his furtive meetings in Hong Kong with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras (co-founders of The Intercept), as well as\u00a0The Guardian\u2019s Ewen MacAskill.<\/p>\n

There are doses of artistic license \u2014 for example, a Rubik\u2019s Cube hiding the drive where he stored the documents, and Snowden\u2019s CIA mentor spying on his girlfriend through her webcam. In hazier focus are the global questions his revelations raised, including the legal and moral implications of the U.S. government collecting data on foreigners and Americans with relative impunity, and the very real stories born of Snowden\u2019s massive disclosures.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s a retrospective of sorts for moviegoers and others interested in the journalism Edward Snowden made possible through his decision to become a whistleblower: In all, over 150 articles from 23 news organizations worldwide have incorporated documents provided by Snowden, and The Intercept and other outlets continue to mine the archive for stories of social and political significance.<\/p>\n

In the hope that Stone\u2019s movie will spark more widespread interest in the NSA programs Snowden helped bring to light, The Intercept has compiled its stories based on the archive of documents, which can be explored through the chart below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Published<\/td>\nArticle<\/td>\nCode Names<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2\/14\/14<\/td>\nThe NSA\u2019s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program<\/a><\/td>\nGILGAMESH, SHENANIGANS, VICTORYDANCE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2\/18\/14<\/td>\nSnowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters<\/a><\/td>\nANTICRISIS GIRL, TEMPORA, XKEYSCORE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2\/24\/14<\/td>\nHow Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3\/7\/14<\/td>\nThe NSA Has an Advice Columnist. Seriously.<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3\/12\/14<\/td>\nHow the NSA Plans to Infect \u201cMillions\u201d of Computers With Malware<\/a><\/td>\nCAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE, FOGGYBOTTOM, FOXACID, GROK, GUMFISH, HAMMERCHANT, HAMMERSTEIN, QUANTUM, QUANTUMCOPPER, QUANTUMHAND, QUANTUMSKY, SADDLEBACK, SECONDDATE, SOCIALIST, STELLARWIND, TURBINE, TURMOIL, UNITEDRAKE, VALIDATOR, WILLOWVIXEN<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3\/13\/14<\/td>\nForeign Officials in the Dark About Their Own Spy Agencies\u2019 Cooperation With NSA<\/a><\/td>\nPRISM, TEMPORA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3\/15\/14<\/td>\nCompare the NSA\u2019s Facebook Malware Denial to Its Own Secret Documents<\/a><\/td>\nQUANTUMHAND, QUANTUMTHEORY, TURBINE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3\/20\/14<\/td>\nInside the NSA\u2019s Secret Efforts to Hunt and Hack System Administrators<\/a><\/td>\nQUANTUM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4\/4\/14<\/td>\nThe \u201cCuban Twitter\u201d Scam Is a Drop in the Internet Propaganda Bucket<\/a><\/td>\nROYAL CONCIERGE, SALAMANCA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4\/30\/14<\/td>\nBritish Spy Chiefs Secretly Begged to Play in NSA\u2019s Data Pools<\/a><\/td>\nBLARNEY, GHOSTMACHINE, PRISM, STORMBREW,<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/19\/14<\/td>\nData Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cellphone Call in the Bahamas<\/a><\/td>\nMYSTIC, SOMALGET<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7\/9\/14<\/td>\nMeet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7\/14\/14<\/td>\nHacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet<\/a><\/td>\nANGRY PIRATE, CHANGELING, ELATE, GATEWAY, GESTATOR, IMPERIAL BARGE, PREDATORS FACE, ROLLING THUNDER, SLIPSTREAM, SPRING BISHOP, UNDERPASS<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7\/23\/14<\/td>\nThe NSA\u2019s New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia\u2019s Brutal State Police<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/3\/14<\/td>\nCash, Weapons, and Surveillance: The U.S. Is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack<\/a><\/td>\nYESTERNIGHT<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/5\/14<\/td>\nNPR Is Laundering CIA Talking Points to Make You Scared of NSA Reporting<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/25\/14<\/td>\nICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google<\/a><\/td>\nCRISSCROSS, GLOBALREACH, ICREACH, PROTON,<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9\/14\/14<\/td>\nThe NSA and GCHQ Campaign Against German Satellite Companies<\/a><\/td>\nTREASURE MAP<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9\/15\/14<\/td>\nNew Zealand Launched Mass Surveillance Project While Publicly Denying It<\/a><\/td>\nSPEARGUN, XKEYSCORE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10\/10\/14<\/td>\nCore Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany<\/a><\/td>\nSENTRYCONDOR, SENTRYEAGLE, SENTRYHAWK, SENTRYOSPREY, SENTRYRAVEN<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12\/4\/14<\/td>\nOperation AURORAGOLD: How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide<\/a><\/td>\nAURORAGOLD, OPULANT PUP, WOLFRAMITE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12\/13\/14<\/td>\nOperation Socialist: How GCHQ Spies Hacked Belgium\u2019s Largest Telco<\/a><\/td>\nHACIENDA, HOPSCOTCH, LEGSPIN, NOCTURNAL SURGE, STELLARWIND, SOCIALIST<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2\/4\/15<\/td>\nWestern Spy Agencies Secretly Rely on Hackers for Intel and Expertise<\/a><\/td>\nINTOLERANT, LOVELY HORSE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2\/10\/15<\/td>\nNSA Claims Iran Learned From Western Cyberattacks<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2\/19\/15<\/td>\nThe Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle<\/a><\/td>\nDAPINO GAMMA, HIGHLAND FLING, XKEYSCORE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3\/10\/15<\/td>\niSpy: The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple\u2019s Secrets<\/a><\/td>\nDREAMY SMURF, NOSEY SMURF, PARANOID SMURF, TRACKER SMURF, WARRIORPRIDE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4\/2\/15<\/td>\nBritain Used Spy Team to Shape Latin American Public Opinion on Falklands<\/a><\/td>\nQUITO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/5\/15<\/td>\nThe Computers Are Listening: How the NSA Converts Spoken Words Into Searchable Text<\/a><\/td>\nRHINEHART<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/11\/15<\/td>\nThe Computers Are Listening: Speech Recognition Is NSA\u2019s Best-Kept Open Secret<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/8\/15<\/td>\nThe Computers Are Listening: NSA Won\u2019t Say If It Automatically Transcribes American Phone Calls In Bulk<\/a><\/td>\nPRISM, UPSTREAM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/8\/15<\/td>\nU.S. Government Labeled Al Jazeera Journalist as Al Qaeda<\/a><\/td>\nSKYNET<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/18\/15<\/td>\nSnowden Files Give New Details on Osama Bin Laden Raid<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/21\/15<\/td>\nThe NSA Plan to Find Bin Laden by Hiding Tracking Devices in Medical Supplies<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/28\/15<\/td>\nInside NSA, Officials Privately Criticize \u201cCollect It All\u201d Surveillance<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/22\/15<\/td>\nControversial GCHQ Unit Engaged in Domestic Law Enforcement, Online Propaganda, Psychology Research<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/22\/15<\/td>\nPopular Security Software Came Under Relentless NSA and GCHQ Attacks<\/a><\/td>\nCAMBERDADA, PRISM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/22\/15<\/td>\nSpies Hacked Computers Thanks to Sweeping Secret Warrants, Aggressively Stretching U.K. Law<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/26\/15<\/td>\nHow the NSA Started Investigating the New York Times\u2019s Warrantless Wiretapping Story<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7\/1\/15<\/td>\nXKEYSCORE: NSA\u2019s Google for the World\u2019s Private Communications<\/a><\/td>\nBADASS, NUCLEON, XKEYSCORE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7\/15\/15<\/td>\nIsraeli Special Forces Assassinated Senior Syrian Official<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/3\/15<\/td>\nGCHQ and Me: My Life Unmasking British Eavesdroppers<\/a><\/td>\nCARBOY, FROSTING, ECHELON, SHAMROCK, SOUNDER, TRANSIENT<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/11\/15<\/td>\nThe Philosopher of Surveillance: What Happens When a Failed Writer Becomes a Loyal Spy?<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9\/25\/15<\/td>\nFrom Radio to Porn, British Spies Track Web Users\u2019 Online Identities<\/a><\/td>\nBLACKHOLE, INFINITE MONKEYS, KARMA POLICE, MARBLED GECKO, MEMORY HOLE, MUTANT BROTH, SAMUEL PEPYS, SOCIAL ANTHROPOID, TEMPORA, XKEYSCORE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9\/28\/15<\/td>\nDid a Rogue NSA Operation Cause the Death of a Greek Telecom Employee?<\/a><\/td>\nSENTRYOWL<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11\/18\/15<\/td>\nOverwhelmed NSA Surprised to Discover Its Own Surveillance \u201cGoldmine\u201d on Venezuela\u2019s Oil Executives<\/a><\/td>\nCADENCE, PINWALE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1\/28\/16<\/td>\nIsraeli Drone Feeds Hacked by British and American Intelligence<\/a><\/td>\nANARCHIST<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5\/16\/16<\/td>\nNSA Closely Involved in Guant\u00e1namo Interrogations, Documents Show<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/7\/16<\/td>\nFacing Data Deluge, Secret U.K. Spying Report Warned of Intelligence Failure<\/a><\/td>\nMILKWHITE, PRESTON<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6\/28\/16<\/td>\nThe Hunter: He Was a Hacker for the NSA and He Was Willing to Talk. I Was Willing to Listen<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/15\/16<\/td>\nIn Bungled Spying Operation, NSA Targeted Pro-Democracy Campaigner<\/a><\/td>\nPRISM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8\/19\/16<\/td>\nThe NSA Leak Is Real, Snowden Documents Confirm<\/a><\/td>\nBADDECISION, BLINDDATE, ELIGIBLE BOMBSHELL, FOXACID, MAGICBEAN, MAGIC SQUIRREL, NIGHTSTAND, POLARSNEEZE, SECONDDATE, TURBINE<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9\/6\/16<\/td>\nInside Menwith Hill: The NSA\u2019s British Base at the Heart of U.S. Targeted Killing<\/a><\/td>\nGHOSTHUNTER, GHOSTWOLF<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Since the first revelations from Snowden were published in Glenn Greenwald\u2019s June 6, 2013, Guardian article, \u201cNSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily,\u201d nearly 1,200 documents from Snowden\u2019s disclosures have been released to the public. These include fragments of the \u201cblack budget,\u201d a secret document presented to Congress by intelligence agencies, images hacked from drone feeds, and PowerPoint presentations that painstakingly detail the technology behind the NSA\u2019s surveillance efforts.<\/p>\n

The Intercept and other outlets have reported<\/a> extensively on some of the major technical programs mentioned during the film \u2014 PRISM and Upstream, both authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. PRISM vacuums up hundreds of millions of internet communications every day from the people it \u201ctargets,\u201d and those they communicate with \u2014 as well as some irrelevant communications it picks up \u201cincidentally\u201d because of the way the technology works. It\u2019s unclear how many of those communications belong to Americans. Upstream gathers communications while they\u2019re traveling through the cables of the internet \u2014 voice, text, and more. In the movie, Snowden gets a glimpse at\u00a0these programs while going undercover for the CIA.<\/p>\n

When Snowden shares a map with a few of his colleagues displaying data on surveillance conducted within different countries, the film is likely nodding toward a program called Boundless Informant \u2014 another one of the first Snowden stories<\/a>\u00a0reported by Greenwald and MacAskill. The NSA denied at the time that it could determine with absolute certainty \u201cthe identity or location\u201d of all the communications it collected \u2014 but the program gave\u00a0it a general sense of the volume of information it got\u00a0from each country, appearing like a sort of heat map. The U.S. was not, like the movie suggests, the country where the NSA collected the most information; there were many more intercepts from Iran, at least during the time period reported on by The Guardian.<\/p>\n

The Intercept debuted its Snowden coverage with a February 10, 2014, article by Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald titled \u201cThe NSA\u2019s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program.\u201d Since then, we have published at least 50 other pieces based on documents from the Snowden archive.<\/p>\n

In July 2015, The Intercept delved into<\/a> one of the NSA\u2019s central programs, also mentioned in the film, called XKeyscore. The program runs like a search engine that helps NSA detect, analyze, and extract information from the massive amounts of communications and online information it collects every day through various filters. Otherwise, the sheer volume of information would be overwhelming.<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s use of cellphone and computer hacking for surveillance has been a recurring theme in The Intercept\u2019s reporting on the Snowden documents. In May 2015, Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley uncovered the CIA and NSA\u2019s joint mission to crack the security of popular consumer products, including Apple\u2019s notoriously secure iPhone. In the movie, Snowden covers his laptop\u2019s webcam, which he knows the NSA is capable of exploiting<\/a> through a program called QUANTUM. In reality, the NSA has developed malware implants potentially capable of infecting millions of targeted computers covertly, and automated some of the processes involved in the attacks, as Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald reported<\/a>\u00a0in March 2014.<\/p>\n

Many news stories from the Snowden archive involve foreign surveillance and the NSA\u2019s partnerships with intelligence agencies from other countries, a subject the Snowden film barely touches\u00a0\u2014 for example, never mentioning\u00a0the NSA\u2019s close relationship to the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ); its partnership with countries like Saudi Arabia; or foreign officials\u2019\u00a0lack of understanding about their own spies\u2019 connections to the NSA. The film\u2019s only nod to foreign intelligence occurs when Snowden passes off a special microchip to MacAskill, suggesting it might help him learn more about British spying.<\/p>\n

The NSA is obviously more than its technical programs and tools. Stone conjures up Snowden\u2019s friends and colleagues at the spy agencies, including T-shirt-wearing hackers, super genius engineers, and domineering bosses. The Intercept\u2019s Peter Maass has written about the human side of the agency, including its resident advice columnist, who went by<\/a> \u201cZelda\u201d and answered questions about things like kitchen etiquette and gossip, as well as a columnist<\/a> with literary ambitions who called himself \u201cthe SIGINT Philosopher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the movie reflects Stone\u2019s image\u00a0of the life of an NSA contract employee. For a real window into the agency, there may be no better resource than the NSA\u2019s own documents. In May 2016, The Intercept began the first concerted effort to make large portions of the Snowden archive available to the public with the release of<\/a> a set of SIDtoday newsletters, the internal news organ of the Signals Intelligence Directorate at the NSA. The batch releases are ongoing\u00a0and will likely constitute one of the largest single collections of NSA files.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

Jenna McLaughlin<\/a> – \u2709jenna.mclaughlin@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Talya Cooper<\/a> – \u2709talya.cooper@firstlook.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the hope that Oliver Stone\u2019s movie will spark more widespread interest in the NSA programs Snowden helped bring to light, The Intercept has compiled its stories based on the archive of documents, which can be explored through the chart below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}