Classified US government data shown to the South China Morning Post by whistle-blower Edward Snowden has provided a rare insight into the effectiveness of Washington's top-secret global cyberspying programme.| That Snowden is a traitor there is no doubt. The question is, is he a catspaw? I can't imagine he obtained all this information on his own. Who aided and abetted him? Why is Glen Greenwald still free? |
The FBI said yesterday it had launched a criminal investigation and was taking "all necessary steps" to prosecute Snowden for exposing secret US surveillance programmes.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee: "These disclosures have caused significant harm to our nation and to our safety. We are taking all necessary steps to hold the person responsible for these disclosures," he said.
| We've got top. people. working on this... |
The detailed records - which cannot be independently verified - show specific dates and the IP addresses of computers in Hong Kong and on the mainland hacked by the National Security Agency over a four-year period. They also include information indicating whether an attack on a computer was ongoing or had been completed, along with an amount of additional operational information.
The small sample data suggests secret and illegal NSA attacks on Hong Kong computers had a success rate of more than 75 per cent, according to the documents. The information only pertains to attacks on civilian computers with no reference to Chinese military operations, Snowden said.
| Of course they were secret and illegal. That's why we had the NSA do it. That's the job of the NSA, to go after intel ABROAD... |
Snowden, who came to Hong Kong on May 20 and has been in hiding since, said the data points to the frequency and nature of how NSA operatives were able to successfully hack into servers and computers, with specific reference to machines in Hong Kong and on the mainland.
According to a New York Times report yesterday, US government lawyers, working with their counterparts in Hong Kong, are understood to have identified several dozen criminal offences with which Snowden could be charged under both Hong Kong and American laws. One of the targets Snowden revealed was Chinese University, home to the Hong Kong Internet Exchange which is a central hub of servers through which all web traffic in the city passes.
| Which is why the NSA went after it... |
| Which means, the NSA is really good at what it does... |
| I'm comfortably certain it wasn't shocking to anyone in the intel business. This is what the NSA does. And MI6. And Israeli intelligence, and the French, the Chinese, the Russians, and so on... |
| Which is what we hired them to do, when they do it abroad in our security interests... |
| He didn't have the access to do everything he did. Who helped? |
Snowden could find himself at the centre of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing as he has explicitly chosen to seek refuge in Hong Kong, a move that will test the Sino-US relationship. He said he had chosen Hong Kong because he believed the city's semi-autonomous status and rule of law would protect him from attempts to extradite him to the US.
It is understood that Snowden arrived in Hong Kong after leaving his home in Hawaii, telling his girlfriend that he would be away for a few weeks. He stayed at the Mira Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui before checking out on Monday and has been in hiding since.
Snowden said he has not spoken to his family since the revelations were made and lives in constant fear for his own safety.