The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man Read Online Free

to 10 weeks’ basic training, then anadvanced infantry course. Finally there was an assessment of suitability for special forces.
    His spell in the US military was a disaster. Snowden was in good physical shape but an improbable soldier. He was short-sighted, with -6.50/-6.25 vision. (‘My visual acuity ends at about four inches from my eyes, and my optometrist always has a good laugh at me,’ he posted.) He also had unusually narrow feet. ‘It took 45 minutes for the civilians in Ft. Benning to find combat boots that would fit me,’ he tells Ars – an episode that ended in an unpleasant reprimand from his drill sergeant.
    Few of his new army colleagues, he maintained, shared his sense of noble purpose, or his desire to help oppressed citizens throw off their chains. Instead, his superiors merely wanted to shoot people. Preferably Muslims. ‘Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone,’ he says.
    Then during infantry training he broke both his legs. After more than a month’s uncertainty, the army finally discharged him.
    Back in Maryland, he got a job as a ‘security specialist’ at the University for Maryland’s Center for Advanced Study of Language. It was 2005. (He appears to have begun as a security guard, but then moved back into IT.) Snowden was working at a covert NSA facility on the university’s campus. Thanks perhaps to his brief military history, he had broken into the world of US intelligence, albeit on a low rung. The Center worked closely with the US intelligence community – or IC as it styled itself – providing advanced language training.
    Snowden may have lacked a degree, but in mid-2006 he landed a job in information technology at the CIA. He was rapidly learning that his exceptional IT skills opened all kinds of interesting government doors. ‘First off, the degree thing is crap, at least domestically. If you “really” have 10 years of solid, provable IT experience … you CAN get a very well-paying IT job,’ he writes in July 2006. ‘I have no degree, nor even a high school diploma, but I’m making much more than what they’re paying you even though I’m only claiming six years of experience. It’s tough to “break in”, but once you land a “real” position, you’re made.’
    Snowden had figured out that US government service offered exciting possibilities including foreign travel and generous perks. You didn’t need to be James Bond – merely apply for a ‘standard IT specialist position’. He describes the State Department as ‘the place to be right now’.
    One of the perks was access to classified information: ‘Yeah, working in IT for the State Department guarantees you’ll have to have Top Secret clearance.’ He also offers tips on career strategy. State was ‘understaffed right now’. He goes on: ‘Europe posts are competitive, but you can get in the door much easier if you express an interest in going to near-east hellholes. Once you’re in, tough out the crappy tour and you should be able to pick from a list of preferred posts.’ Later he remarks, ‘Thank god for wars.’
    Snowden’s job-hopping worked for him personally. In 2007 the CIA sent him to Geneva in Switzerland on hisfirst foreign tour. He was 24. His new job was to maintain security for the CIA’s computer network and look after computer security for US diplomats based at the Geneva mission (the diplomats may have been high-powered but many had only a basic understanding of the internet). He was a telecommunications information systems officer. He also had to maintain the heating and air-conditioning.
    Switzerland was an awakening and an adventure. It was the first time Snowden had lived abroad. Geneva was a hub for all sorts of spies – American, Russian and others. It hid commercial and diplomatic secrets. The city was home to a large community of bankers, as well as several UN secretariats and the HQs of multinational companies; about a