Edward Snowden's Case Summary

While Manning’s case is one highlighting lax security procedure, the case of Edward Snowden is one of stark contrast. Edward Snowden grew up near the National Security Agency headquarters in Maryland (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). He is a high school dropout who found an alternate identity on the Internet (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). His father was a US Coast Guard Officer and mother worked as a clerk in the federal court, they separated when Snowden was still a toddler (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). Snowden started his career as a CIA employee in Switzerland, where he annotated his displeasure with ongoing activities on anonymous chat boards (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). Edward Snowden worked as systems administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton on contract support to the National Security Agency in Hawaii (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). Snowden’s duties allowed him to have administrator privileges; which he used to by-pass authentication procedures to gain access above what he needed or received clearance. The National Security Agency is one of the most secure facilities within the Department of Defense, yet Snowden managed to acquire 1.7 million Top

Secret documents and carry them out of a high security area on a US thumb drive (Toxen, 2014). Top Secret information is expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to national security should it be released to unauthorized personnel (Toxen, 2014).
Snowden’s Activities and Impacts
Snowden is another example of an insider threat that acquired classified government data provided the data to the WikiLeaks organization (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). In Manning’s case, there is little verification of impacts to national security. Contrarily, the leaks by Edward Snowden caused serious and grave consequences for the nation. The Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, Matthew Olson described how Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups modified their communication techniques after the release of the information Snowden downloaded (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). While Manning remains hesitant to discuss his motives despite his conviction and sentencing. However, Snowden speaks freely about his motives for releasing the information about NSAs activities. Living in exile, Snowden must remain in countries without extradition treaties with the United States and continue to seek asylum with each move. Russia originally granted Snowden a one-year asylum in 2013 (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). The US Government is seeking the full prosecution of Edward Snowden with the only concession of not seeking the death penalty (Scherer & Shuster, 2013). The US Government charged him in absentia with crimes associated with the Espionage and Patriot Acts, including violations of Title 10 US Code, Section 798, which deals specifically with Communications Intelligence (COMINT) information (Van Cleave, 2013). As in Manning’s case, each violation is separated into entering, gathering, retaining, and deliver and because the information is related to COMINT, the penalties for actions are much stronger (Van Cleave, 2013). While no single charge carries the death penalty, Edward Snowden faces a combined penalty of multiple life in prison sentences.
Snowden’s Indicators
Contrary to Manning’s Case, Snowden’s situation appears to have provided plenty of indicators of his potential misbehavior.

Snowden admittedly applied for and took a systems administrator job as a means to gain access to the information he wanted to release (Van Cleave, 2013). While in Switzerland working for the CIA, Snowden expressed his displeasure with the secrecy of the CIA on anonymous websites and chat rooms. Snowden also had minor security incidents during his tenure at CIA and his time with NSA in Hawaii (Scherer & Shuster, 2013).. Snowden’s social life or lack thereof also provided a potential indicator that something was not quite right. While no single indicator provides a definitive proof that Snowden would commit his acts, the combination of the factors should have raised the suspicions of security

professionals.