Who Is Edward Snowden, the Man Who Spilled the NSA's Secrets?

by BILL DEDMAN, MIKE BRUNKER and MATTHEW COLE

Few have vaulted from anonymity to the front pages more spectacularly than Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who revealed secrets from the National Security Agency's spying program.

NBC News will devote an hour of primetime on Wednesday to the first American television interview with Snowden, who disclosed secrets from the National Security Agency. Brian Williams, the anchor and managing editor of "NBC Nightly News," traveled to Moscow last week for an exclusive, wide-ranging interviewwith Snowden. The interview airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central.

While some call Snowden a traitor who disclosed American secrets, others call him a patriot who exposed violations of the constitution.

Although his intense gaze and stubbled chin became the face of an international debate over privacy and security, many questions remain about his motivations, the exact extent of his removal of documents, and his future.

The impact of Snowden's disclosures, however, is already widespread. President Barack Obama appointed a review panel that criticized the NSA's domestic data collection. Obama recommended in March that the NSA end the warrantless collection in bulk of metadata on Americans, which can show the most intimate details of an individual's life and the patterns of movement and communication of millions. And the House recently passed a bill to end that bulk metadata collection.

Here, in anticipation of Wednesday's special report, is a primer on Snowden's life, his actions, and his impact.

What did he disclose?

Snowden is a former systems administrator for the CIA who later went to work for the private intelligence contractor Dell, first inside a National Security Agency outpost in Japan and then inside an NSA station in Hawaii. In early 2013, he went to work for contractor Booz Allen Hamilton inside the same NSA center in Hawaii.

While working for the contractors, at some point Snowden began downloading secret documents related to U.S. intelligence activities and partnerships with foreign allies, including some that revealed the extent of data collection from U.S. telephone records and Internet activity.

What are the key disclosures?

Among the revelations are the NSA’s bulk collection of phone and internet metadata from U.S. users, spying on the personal communications of foreign leaders including U.S. allies, and the NSA’s ability to tap undersea fiber optic cables and siphon off data.

Based on the Snowden documents, NBC News reported on Jan. 27 that British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their U.S. partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time the documents were printed, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter.

NBC News also reported on Feb. 7, based on the documents, that British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.” According to the documents, which come from presentations prepped in 2010 and 2012 for NSA cyber spy conferences, the agency’s goal was to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” enemies by “discrediting” them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.

What is his background?

Snowden, now 30, was born June 21, 1983, in Elizabeth City, N.C., where he lived with his parents, Lonnie, a Coast Guard officer, and Elizabeth, known as Wendy. The family moved to Maryland in the early 1990s, while he was still in grade school, and his parents divorced. He lived outside Baltimore with his mother, a federal court employee.

Snowden was, by his own admission, not a stellar student. He dropped out of high school in his sophomore year. But by that time, he had developed a fascination with computers and technology and was able to develop considerable skills on his own, and via friends and online forums. After attending a community college off and on, he passed a General Educational Development test in the early 2000s, receiving a high school equivalency credential.

He enlisted in an Army Reserve Special Forces training program in 2004 with the intention of fighting in Iraq to “fight to help free people from oppression,” he latertold Britain’s Guardian newspaper. But he said he broke his legs in a training accident, and Army records show he was discharged after just four months.

He also worked briefly as a security guard before beginning his intelligence work in 2006, when he was hired by the CIA as a computer systems administrator.

How did Snowden gain access to top-secret documents?

Despite being a high-school dropout who eventually received a GED equivalency credential, Snowden was granted top-secret clearance when he was hired by the CIA.

He maintained that clearance during subsequent jobs with CIA and NSA contractors Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Removing the documents was not complicated for someone with his access and expertise, NBC News reported in August. When Snowden stole the crown jewels of the National Security Agency, he didn’t need to use any sophisticated devices or software or go around any computer firewall. All he needed, said multiple intelligence community sources, was a few thumb drives and the willingness to exploit a gaping hole in an antiquated security system to rummage at will through the NSA’s servers and take 20,000 documents without leaving a trace. “It’s 2013 and the NSA is stuck in 2003 technology,” said an intelligence official.

NBC also reported in August that intelligence sources said Snowden accessed some of the secret documents by assuming the electronic identities of top NSA officials. “Every day, they are learning how brilliant [Snowden] was,” said a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case. “This is why you don’t hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble.”

Whom did he give the documents to?

In late 2012, Snowden began to reach out to journalists, and in 2013 he leaked documents to Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian, Barton Gellman of The Washington Post, and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras.

The Pulitzer Prize board in April awarded its highest honor, the medal for public service, to The Washington Post and The Guardian for their articles based on the documents provided by Snowden. The award echoed the Pulitzer given in 1972 to The New York Times for its reports on the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the Vietnam War.

The executive editor of The Washington Post, Martin Baron, said when the Pulitzers were announced, "“Disclosing the massive expansion of the NSA’s surveillance network absolutely was a public service. In constructing a surveillance system of breathtaking scope and intrusiveness, our government also sharply eroded individual privacy. All of this was done in secret, without public debate, and with clear weaknesses in oversight."

Without the disclosures, Baron said, "we never would have known how far this country had shifted away from the rights of the individual in favor of state power. There would have been no public debate about the proper balance between privacy and national security. As even the president has acknowledged, this is a conversation we need to have.”

Congressman Peter King (R-N.Y.) tweeted that "awarding the Pulitzer to Snowden enablers is a disgrace."

How much information did he take?

Government officials initially said that it could be up to 200,000 classified NSA documents, and later gave the estimate of 1.7 million. Officials, including NSA Director Keith Alexander, have assured the public that the government knows the scope of the leak.

But Snowden has not said how many documents he took, and NBC News reported in August that officials say the NSA has been unable to determine how many documents he took and what they are.

What was in the documents?

Among the revelations from documents in the Snowden trove are the NSA’s bulk collection of phone and Internet metadata from U.S. users; NSA spying on the personal communications of foreign leaders, including U.S. allies; and the NSA’s ability to tap undersea fiber optic cables and siphon off data.

Did anyone suspect he was taking documents?

Snowden’s CIA supervisor at the CIA during his assignment in Geneva placed a critical assessment of his behavior and work habits in his personnel file and voiced the suspicion that he had tried to “break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access,” the New York Times reported after he was identified as the leaker.

“The supervisor’s cautionary note and the CIA’s suspicions apparently were not forwarded to the NSA or its contractors, and surfaced only after federal investigators began scrutinizing Mr. Snowden’s record once the documents began spilling out,” the newspaper reported, citing unidentified intelligence and law enforcement officials.

And the Wall Street Journal reported in August 2013 that a federal review of his employment at the CIA and the intelligence contractors found the final security check that Snowden underwent in 2011 was inadequate. Investigators “failed to verify Mr. Snowden's account of a past security violation and his work for the CIA, … didn't thoroughly probe an apparent trip to India that he had failed to report, and they didn't get significant information from anyone who knew him beyond his mother and girlfriend,” it said.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice has joined a whisteblower’s lawsuit against USIS, the company that vetted Snowden, alleging the company faked 665,000 background checks it conducted for the Office of Personnel Management. It is not clear whether Snowden’s check was among those that, according to the criminal complaint, were fraudulently classified as “complete.” (The case is still pending. The company told NBC News in January that "a small group of individuals" was responsible for the bogus checks and a source said they had been “terminated.”)

What is he charged with?

In a criminal complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on June 21, 2013, the U.S. Justice Department charged Snowden with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.” The latter two charges are violations of the 1917 Espionage Act.

Each of the three charges carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, for a total of 30 years. Additional counts could be added.

Snowden has retained a prominent Washington attorney who has represented several clients charged with violating the Espionage Act, reportedly in hopes of negotiating a plea deal.

Why did he do it?

Snowden has said in interviews that he acted out of the belief that the spying program was illegal and immoral.

"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," he told The Guardian in his first interview.

Snowden also has said he didn’t trust the Obama administration, having seen it prosecute whistleblowers at an unprecedented rate.

Did he have foreign help?

Snowden has denied suggestions that he worked with or for foreign governments. NBC reported in January that law enforcement officials have not found any evidence that Snowden was working for Russia as a spy.

What damage did Snowden’s leaks do to the U.S.?

That is a matter of considerable debate.

The man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called the Snowden disclosures the most significant leak in U.S. history. "Edward Snowden has done more for our Constitution in terms of the Fourth and First Amendment," Ellsberg said, "than anyone else I know."

Privacy advocates say that Snowden’s revelation of the extensive U.S. spying operations was a bold and necessary step that forced the federal courts, the Congress, and the Obama administration to re-examine the previously secret programs and, in some cases to reform them.

But U.S. officials, members of Congress, and others have said that the Snowden disclosures harmed national security by enabling foreign spies.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the revelations caused "huge, grave damage" to the nation's intelligence capabilities.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified in March that the Pentagon might need to spend billions to overcome the damage done to military security by Snowden's leaks of intelligence documents. Unnamed intelligence officials were quoted by AP saying that the agencies were scrambling to maintain surveillance of terror groups after they changed their methods of communication in the wake of Snowden's revelations.

The officials have not given details of any specific damage caused by the Snowden leaks.

The U.S. was also embarrassed by the disclosures — or by the behavior being disclosed — when the Snowden documents revealed that the U.S. has eavesdropped on the personal communications of foreign leaders, including allies.

Where is he now?

Since August of last year, Snowden has been living at an undisclosed location in Russia, under temporary asylum granted by Russian authorities as they consider his application for permanent political asylum.

What happens next?

His one-year temporary asylum in Russia expires on Aug. 1, but it could be extended if Moscow has not ruled on his request for permanent asylum.

It is also possible – but considered unlikely – that Russia would hand him over to U.S. authorities at that point.

Edward Snowden Gives Wide-Ranging Interview to Brian Williams

by Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole and Mark Schone

 "NBC Nightly News" anchor and managing editor Brian Williams traveled to Moscow this week for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Edward Snowden. The former NSA contractor's first-ever American television interview will air in an hour-long NBC News primetime special on Wednesday, May 28 at 10 p.m. Eastern/9 p.m. Central.

Williams' in-person conversation with Snowden was conducted over the course of several hours and was shrouded in secrecy due to Snowden's life in exile since leaking classified documents about U.S. surveillance programs a year ago. Williams also jointly interviewed Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has reported stories based on the documents in media outlets around the world, about how they came to work together and the global debate sparked by their revelations.

Snowden, now 30, is a former systems administrator for the CIA who later went to work for the private intelligence contractor Dell inside a National Security Agency outpost in Japan. In early 2013, he went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton inside the NSA center in Hawaii.

While working for the contractors, Snowden downloaded secret documents related to U.S. intelligence activities and partnerships with foreign allies, including some that revealed the extent of data collection from U.S. telephone records and Internet activity.

On May 20, 2013, Snowden went to Hong Kong to meet with Greenwald and with filmmaker Laura Poitras. The first articles about his documents appeared in the Guardian and The Washington Post in early June, as did a taped interview with Snowden.

The U.S. government charged Snowden with espionage and revoked his passport. Snowden flew to Moscow on June 23, but was unable to continue en route to Latin America because he no longer had a passport. 

 After living in the airport transit area for more than a month, and applying for asylum in more than 21 countries, he was granted temporary asylum in Russia, where he has been living ever since.

U.S. officials have asserted that Snowden may have taken as many as 1.7 million documents. Among the revelations from documents in the Snowden trove are the NSA’s bulk collection of phone and internet metadata from U.S. users, spying on the personal communications of foreign leaders, including U.S. allies, and the NSA’s ability to tap undersea fiber optic cables and siphon off data.

President Barack Obama responded by appointing a review panel that criticized the NSA's domestic data collection, and in March he recommended ending bulk domestic metadata collection. This week, the House passed a bill to end the NSA’s bulk domestic metadata collection. 

Snowden: Feinstein a Hypocrite for Blasting CIA Spying

by MATTHEW COLE

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden accused Sen. Dianne Feinstein of hypocrisy Tuesday for complaining about alleged CIA spying on U.S. senators while tolerating government spying on private citizens.

Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that the CIA had searched the committee's computers and that the search was potentially criminal and may have violated the Fourth Amendment.

"It's clear the CIA was trying to play 'keep away' with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that's a serious constitutional concern,” said Snowden in a statement to NBC News. “But it's equally if not more concerning that we're seeing another 'Merkel Effect,' where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it's a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them."

Snowden was apparently referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s indignation at reports that the U.S. had listened in on her personal conversations, but her failure to condemn the NSA for mass surveillance of communications of German citizens. Both were revealed by the release of documents that Snowden took from NSA computers and distributed to journalists.

In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Feinstein said she had asked the CIA for an apology for spying and an acknowledgment that its actions were wrong and had received neither.

"The CIA just went and searched the committee's computers," Feinstein said. She later called the matter a "defining moment" for the oversight of the committee.

The search came as the committee was investigating the CIA's use of secret detention and enhanced interrogation during the Bush administration, including waterboarding, which President Obama has referred to as torture.

At issue is an internal review of the detention and interrogation program ordered by Leon Panetta, who was director of the agency from 2009 to 2011. Feinstein says the committee obtained the review from the CIA because it was provided as part of a searchable database of documents. The CIA has alleged that the committee may have obtained that document illegally.

Al Qaeda Announces New English-Language Terror Magazine

by MATTHEW COLE and ROBERT WINDREM

Al Qaeda has used a slickly produced video with audio from Malcolm X to announce the upcoming launch of a new English-language on-line terror magazine called “Resurgence.”

If the magazine is launched, it will mark the first English-language publication from the central branch of the terror group. Al Qaeda’s media wing, as-Sahab, which released the 80 second video on the internet this weekend, has for years released messages from senior leaders of the terror group like Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The brief video appears to combine audio from a 1965 Malcolm X speech justifying violence — including the quote “talk the language that they understand” – with images of U.S. soldiers, Islamic militants, a purported attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan and the Boston Marathon bombings.

The announcement comes as al Qaeda central has been devastated by drone strikes in western Pakistan over the past several years and the U.S. commando raid that killed the group’s founder and leader, Osama bin Laden, and suggests that the main branch of the organization is trying to reestablish its waning influence over Islamic militants.

Over the past several years al Qaeda's off-shoot in Yemen, named al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has become the most dangerous al Qaeda franchise, according to U.S. government officials.

Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst for NBC News, said the video's production style suggests the new magazine has been influenced by AQAP's Inspire magazine — “everything from the fonts, the graphics, and the use of iconic voices and images.”

“The announcement appears to be a tacit acknowledgement of the success of Inspire,” said Kohlmann.

Inspire, edited by American-raised jihadi Samir Khan, was allegedly the source of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s plans to build pressure cooker explosive devices, which killed three and wounded 264 at the Boston Marathon in April 2013.

Inspire’s most notorious article was called, "How To Make A Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." It provided a recipe for explosives using ingredients that could be purchased easily.

“Clearly, al Qaeda's central leadership is seeking to try and recruit Americans from within U.S. borders, including indirectly if necessary — the homegrown terrorism model,” said Kohlmann.

Khan was killed in the same U.S. strike that killed U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Exclusive: Snowden Docs Show British Spies Used Sex and 'Dirty Tricks'

By MATTHEW COLE, RICHARD ESPOSITO, MARK SCHONE and GLENN GREENWALD, SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

British spies have developed "dirty tricks" for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into "honey traps."

Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and exclusively obtained by NBC News describe techniques developed by a secret British spy unit called the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group (JTRIG) as part of a growing mission to go on offense and attack adversaries ranging from Iran to the hacktivists of Anonymous. According to the documents, which come from presentations prepped in 2010 and 2012 for NSA cyber spy conferences, the agency's goal was to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.

Both PowerPoint presentations describe "Effects" campaigns that are broadly divided into two categories: cyber attacks and propaganda operations. The propaganda campaigns use deception, mass messaging and "pushing stories" via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and YouTube. JTRIG also uses "false flag" operations, in which British agents carry out online actions that are designed to look like they were performed by one of Britain's adversaries.

In connection with this report, NBC is publishing documents that Edward Snowden took from the NSA before fleeing the U.S., which can be viewed by clicking here and here. The documents are being published with minimal redactions.

The spy unit's cyber attack methods include the same "denial of service" or DDOS tactic used by computer hackers to shut down government and corporate websites.

Other documents taken from the NSA by Snowden and previously published by NBC News show that JTRIG, which is part of the NSA's British counterpart, the cyber spy agency known as GCHQ, used a DDOS attack to shut down Internet chat rooms used by members of the hacktivist group known as Anonymous.

Civil libertarians said that in using a DDOS attack against hackers the British government also infringed free speech by individuals not involved in any illegal hacking, and may have blocked other websites with no connection to Anonymous. While GCHQ defends the legality of its actions, critics question whether the agency is too aggressive and its mission too broad.

Eric King, a lawyer who teaches IT law at the London School of Economics and is head of research at Privacy International, a British civil liberties advocacy group, said it was "remarkable" that the British government thought it had the right to hack computers, since none of the U.K.'s intelligence agencies has a "clear lawful authority" to launch their own attacks.

"GCHQ has no clear authority to send a virus or conduct cyber attacks," said King. "Hacking is one of the most invasive methods of surveillance." King said British cyber spies had gone on offense with "no legal safeguards" and without any public debate, even though the British government has criticized other nations, like Russia, for allegedly engaging in cyber warfare.

But intelligence officials defended the British government's actions as appropriate responses to illegal acts. One intelligence official also said that the newest set of Snowden documents published by NBC News that describe "Effects" campaigns show that British cyber spies were "slightly ahead" of U.S. spies in going on offense against adversaries, whether those adversaries are hackers or nation states. The documents also show that a one-time signals surveillance agency, GCHQ, is now conducting the kinds of active espionage operations that were once exclusively the realm of the better-known British spy agencies MI5 and MI6.

According to notes on the 2012 documents, a computer virus called Ambassadors Reception was "used in a variety of different areas" and was "very effective." When sent to adversaries, says the presentation, the virus will "encrypt itself, delete all emails, encrypt all files, make [the] screen shake" and block the computer user from logging on.

But the British cyber spies' operations do not always remain entirely online. Spies have long used sexual "honey traps" to snare, blackmail and influence targets. Most often, a male target is led to believe he has an opportunity for a romantic relationship or a sexual liaison with a woman, only to find that the woman is actually an intelligence operative. The Israeli government, for example, used a "honey trap" to lure nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu from London to Rome. He expected an assignation with a woman, but instead was kidnapped by Israel agents and taken back to Israel to stand trial for leaking nuclear secrets to the media.

The version of a "honey trap" described by British cyber spies in the 2012 PowerPoint presentation sounds like a version of Internet dating, but includes physical encounters. The target is lured "to go somewhere on the Internet, or a physical location" to be met by "a friendly face." The goal, according to the presentation, is to discredit the target.

A "honey trap," says the presentation, is "very successful when it works." But the documents do not give a specific example of when the British government might have employed a honey trap.

An operation described in the 2010 presentation also involves in-person surveillance. "Royal Concierge" exploits hotel reservations to track the whereabouts of foreign diplomats and send out "daily alerts to analysts working on governmental hard targets." The British government uses the program to try to steer its quarry to "SIGINT friendly" hotels, according to the presentation, where the targets can be monitored electronically - or in person by British operatives.

The existence of the Royal Concierge program was first reported by the German magazine Der Spiegel in 2013, which said that Snowden documents showed that British spies had monitored bookings of at least 350 upscale hotels around the world for more than three years "to target, search and analyze reservations to detect diplomats and government officials."

According to the documents obtained by NBC News, the intelligence agency uses the information to spy on human targets through "close access technical operations," which can include listening in on telephone calls and tapping hotel computers as well as sending intelligence officers to observe the targets in person at the hotels. The documents ask, "Can we influence hotel choice? Can we cancel their visits?"

The 2010 presentation also describes another potential operation that would utilize a technique called "credential harvesting" to select journalists who could be used to spread information. According to intelligence sources, spies considered using electronic snooping to identify non-British journalists who would then be manipulated to feed information to the target of a covert campaign. Apparently, the journalist's job would provide access to the targeted individual, perhaps for an interview. The documents do not specify whether the journalists would be aware or unaware that they were being used to funnel information.

The executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Joel Simon, said that the revelation about "credential harvesting" should serve as a "wake up call" to journalists that intelligence agencies can monitor their communications. Simon also said that governments put all journalists at risk when they use even one for an intelligence operation.

"All journalists generally are then vulnerable to the charge that they work at the behest of an intelligence agency," said Simon.

The journalist operation was never put into action, according to sources, but other techniques described in the documents, like the Ambassadors Reception computer virus and the jamming of phones and computers, have definitely been used to attack adversaries.

In Afghanistan, according to the 2012 presentation, the British used a blizzard of text messages, phone calls and faxes to "significantly disrupt" Taliban communications, with texts and calls programmed to arrive every minute.

In a set of operations that intelligence sources say were designed to stop weapons transactions and nuclear proliferation, JTRIG used negative information to attack private companies, sour business relationships and ruin deals.

The British cyber spies also used blog posts and information spread via blogs in an operation against Iran.

Other effective methods of cyber attack listed in the documents include changing photos on social media sites and emailing and texting colleagues and neighbors unsavory information. The documents do not give examples of when these techniques were used, but intelligence sources say that some of the methods described have been used by British intelligence to help British police agencies catch suspected criminals.

The documents from 2010 note that "Effects" operations, GCHQ's offensive push against Britain's enemies, had become a "major part" of the spy agency's business.

The presentation from 2012 illustrates that two years later GCHQ had continued to shift its workload from defending U.K. cyber networks to going on offense -- targeting specific people or governments. The British government's intelligence apparatus, which also includes MI5 and MI6, had a role in the 2010 Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, according to sources at two intelligence agencies.

GCHQ would not comment on the newly published documents or on JTRIG's "Effects" operations. It would neither confirm nor deny any element of this report, which is the agency's standard policy. In a statement, a GCHQ spokesperson emphasized that the agency operated within the law.

"All of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework," said the statement, "which ensure[s] that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All of our operational processes rigorously support this position."

Journalist Glenn Greenwald was formerly a columnist at Salon and the Guardian. In late 2012 he was contacted by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who later provided him with thousands of sensitive documents, and he was the first to report on Snowden's documents in June 2013 while on the staff of the Guardian. Greenwald has since reported on the documents with multiple media outlets around the world, and has won several journalism awards for his NSA reporting both in the U.S. and abroad. He is now helping launch, and will write for, a new, non-profit media outlet known as First Look Media that will "encourage, support and empower … independent, adversarial journalists."

Exclusive: Snowden Docs Show UK Spies Attacked Anonymous, Hackers

By MARK SCHONE, RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and GLENN GREENWALD, SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

A secret British spy unit created to mount cyber attacks on Britain's enemies has waged war on the hacktivists of Anonymous and LulzSec, according to documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News.

The blunt instrument the spy unit used to target hackers, however, also interrupted the web communications of political dissidents who did not engage in any illegal hacking. It may also have shut down websites with no connection to Anonymous.

According to the documents, a division of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British counterpart of the NSA, shut down communications among Anonymous hacktivists by launching a "denial of service" (DDOS) attack - the same technique hackers use to take down bank, retail and government websites - making the British government the first Western government known to have conducted such an attack.

The documents, from a PowerPoint presentation prepared for a 2012 NSA conference called SIGDEV, show that the unit known as the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, or JTRIG, boasted of using the DDOS attack - which it dubbed Rolling Thunder -- and other techniques to scare away 80 percent of the users of Anonymous internet chat rooms.

The existence of JTRIG has never been previously disclosed publicly.

The documents also show that JTRIG infiltrated chat rooms known as IRCs and identified individual hackers who had taken confidential information from websites. In one case JTRIG helped send a hacktivist to prison for stealing data from PayPal, and in another it helped identify hacktivists who attacked government websites.

In connection with this report, NBC is publishing documents that Edward Snowden took from the NSA before fleeing the U.S. The documents are being published with minimal redactions.

Intelligence sources familiar with the operation say that the British directed the DDOS attack against IRC chat rooms where they believed criminal hackers were concentrated. Other intelligence sources also noted that in 2011, authorities were alarmed by a rash of attacks on government and corporate websites and were scrambling for means to respond.

"While there must of course be limitations," said Michael Leiter, the former head of the U.S. government's National Counterterrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst, "law enforcement and intelligence officials must be able to pursue individuals who are going far beyond speech and into the realm of breaking the law: defacing and stealing private property that happens to be online."

"No one should be targeted for speech or thoughts, but there is no reason law enforcement officials should unilaterally declare law breakers safe in the online environment," said Leiter.

But critics charge the British government with overkill, noting that many of the individuals targeted were teenagers, and that the agency's assault on communications among hacktivists means the agency infringed the free speech of people never charged with any crime.

"Targeting Anonymous and hacktivists amounts to targeting citizens for expressing their political beliefs," said Gabriella Coleman, an anthropology professor at McGill University and author of an upcoming book about Anonymous. "Some have rallied around the name to engage in digital civil disobedience, but nothing remotely resembling terrorism. The majority of those embrace the idea primarily for ordinary political expression." Coleman estimated that the number of "Anons" engaged in illegal activity was in the dozens, out of a community of thousands.

In addition, according to cyber experts, a DDOS attack against the servers hosting Anonymous chat rooms would also have shut down any other websites hosted by the same servers, and any other servers operated by the same Internet Service Provider (ISP), whether or not they had any connection to Anonymous. It is not known whether any of the servers attacked also hosted other websites, or whether other servers were operated by the same ISPs.

In 2011, members of the loose global collective called Anonymous organized an online campaign called "Operation Payback" targeting the pay service PayPal and several credit card companies. Some hacktivists also targeted U.S. and British government websites, including the FBI, CIA and GCHQ sites. The hacktivists were protesting the prosecution of Chelsea Manning, who took thousands of classified documents from U.S. government computers, and punishing companies that refused to process donations to WikiLeaks, the website that published the Manning documents.

The division of GCHQ known as JTRIG responded to the surge in hacktivism. In another document taken from the NSA by Snowden and obtained by NBC News, a JTRIG official said the unit's mission included computer network attacks, disruption, "Active Covert Internet Operations," and "Covert Technical Operations." Among the methods listed in the document were jamming phones, computers and email accounts and masquerading as an enemy in a "false flag" operation. The same document said GCHQ was increasing its emphasis on using cyber tools to attack adversaries.

In the presentation on hacktivism that was prepared for the 2012 SIGDEV conference, one official working for JTRIG described the techniques the unit used to disrupt the communications of Anonymous and identify individual hacktivists, including some involved in Operation Payback. Called "Pushing the Boundaries and Action Against Hacktivism," the presentation lists Anonymous, Lulzsec and the Syrian Cyber Army among "Hacktivist Groups," says the hacktivists' targets include corporations and governments, and says their techniques include DDOS and data theft.

Under "Hacktivism: Online Covert Action," the presentation refers to "Effects Operations." According to other Snowden documents obtained by NBC News, "Effects" campaigns are offensive operations intended to "destroy" and "disrupt" adversaries.

The presentation gives detailed examples of "humint" (human intelligence) collection from hacktivists known by the on-line names G-Zero, Topiary and p0ke, as well as a fourth whose name NBC News has redacted to protect the hacker's identity. The hacktivists were contacted by GCHQ agents posing as fellow hackers in internet chat rooms. The presentation includes transcripts of instant message conversations between the agents and the hackers in 2011.

"Anyone here have access to a website with at least 10,000+ unique traffic per day?" asks one hacktivist in a transcript taken from a conversation that began in an Operation Payback chat room. An agent responds and claims to have access to a porn website with 27,000 users per day. "Love it," answers the hacktivist. The hackers ask for access to sites with traffic so they can identify users of the site, secretly take over their computers with malware and then use those computers to mount a DDOS attack against a government or commercial website.

A GCHQ agent then has a second conversation with a hacker known as GZero who claims to "work with" the first hacktivist. GZero sends the agent a series of lines of code that are meant to harvest visitors to the agent's site and make their computers part of a "botnet" operation that will attack other computers.

The "outcome," says the presentation, was "charges, arrest, conviction." GZero is revealed to be a British hacker in his early 20s named Edward Pearson, who was prosecuted and sentenced to 26 months in prison for stealing 8 million identities and information from 200,000 PayPal accounts between Jan. 1, 2010 and Aug. 30, 2011. He and his girlfriend were convicted of using stolen credit card identities to purchase take-out food and hotel stays.

In a transcript taken from a second conversation in an Operation Payback chat room, a hacktivist using the name "p0ke" tells another named "Topiary" that he has a list of emails, phone numbers and names of "700 FBI tards."

An agent then begins a conversation with p0ke, asking him about what sites he's accessed. The hacktivist responds that he was able to defeat the security on a U.S. government website, and pulled up credit card information that's attached to congressional and military email addresses.

The agent then asks whether p0ke has looked at a BBC News web article called "Who loves the hacktivists?" and sends him a link to the story.

"Cool huh?" asks the agent, and pOke responds, "ya."

When p0ke clicked on the link, however, JTRIG was able to pull up the IP address of the VPN (virtual private network) the hacktivist was using. The VPN was supposed to protect his identity, but GCHQ either hacked into the network, asked the VPN for the hacker's personal information, or asked law enforcement in the host nation to request the information.

A representative of the VPN told NBC News the company had not provided GCHQ with the hacker's information, but indicated that in past instances it has cooperated with local law enforcement.

In whatever manner the information was retrieved, GCHQ was able to establish p0ke's real name and address, as shown in the presentation slides. (NBC News has redacted the information).

P0ke was never arrested for accessing the government databases, but Topiary, actually an 18-year-old member of Anonymous and LulzSec spokesman from Scotland named Jake Davis, was arrested in July 2011. Davis was arrested soon after LulzSec mounted hack attacks against Congress, the CIA and British law enforcement.

Two weeks before his arrest, the Guardian published an interview with Davis in which he described himself as "an internet denizen with a passion for change." Davis later pled guilty to two DDOS attacks and was sentenced to 24 months in a youth detention center, but was released in June 2013 after five weeks because he had worn an electronic ankle tag and been confined to his home without computer access for 21 months after his arrest. Davis declined comment to NBC News.

In the concluding portion of the JTRIG presentation, the presenters sum up the unit's "Effects on Hacktivism" as part of "Op[eration] Wealth" in the summer of 2011 and apparently emphasize the unit's success against Anonymous, including the DDOS attack. The listed effects include identifying top targets for law enforcement and "Denial of Service on Key Communications outlets."

A slide headlined "DDOS" refers to "initial trial info" from the operation known as "Rolling Thunder." It then quotes from a transcript of a chat room conversation between hacktivists. "Was there any problem with the IRC [chat room] network?" asks one. "I wasn't able to connect the past 30 hours."

"Yeah," responds another. "We're being hit by a syn flood. I didn't know whether to quit last night, because of the DDOS."

The next slide is titled "Information Operations," and says JTRIG uses Facebook, Twitter, email, instant messenger, and Skype to dissuade hacktivists with the message, "DDOS and hacking is illegal, please cease and desist."

The following slide lists the outcome of the operation as "80% of those messaged where (sic) not in the IRC channels 1 month later."

Gabriella Coleman, the author and expert on Anonymous, said she believed the U.K. government had punished a large number of people for the actions of a few. "It is hard to put a number on Anonymous," she said, "but at the time of those events, there were thousands of supporters and probably a dozen or two individuals who were breaking the law."

Said Coleman, "Punishing thousands of people, who are engaging in their democratic right to protest, because a couple people committed vandalism is … an appalling example of overreacting in order to squash dissent."

Jason Healey, a former top White House cyber security official under George W. Bush, called the British government's DDOS attack on Anonymous "silly," and said it was a tactic that should only be used against another nation-state.

He also questioned the time and energy spent chasing teenage hackers.

"This is a slippery slope," said Healey. "It's not what you should be doing. It justifies [Anonymous]. Giving them this much attention justifies them and is demeaning to our side."

In a statement, a GCHQ spokesperson emphasized that the agency operated within the law.

"All of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework," said the statement, "which ensure[s] that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All of our operational processes rigorously support this position."

Told by NBC News that his on-line alias appeared in the JTRIG presentation, the hacker known as p0ke, a college student in Scandinavia, said he was confused about why he hadn't been confronted by authorities. (NBC News is withholding his name, age and country of residence.)

But p0ke said he had stopped hacking because he'd grown bored with it, and was too busy with his studies. He was never a "hacktivist" anyway, he said. "Politics aren't mah thang," he said in an online interview. "Seriously tho, I had no motive for doing it."

He said that hacking had only satisfied an urge to show off. "Fancy the details for a while," he wrote, "then publish em to enlarge my e-penis."

A British hacktivist known as T-Flow, who was prosecuted for hacking alongside Topiary, told NBC News he had long suspected that the U.K.'s intelligence agencies had used hacker techniques to catch him, since no evidence of how his identity was discovered ever appeared in court documents. T-Flow, whose real name is Mustafa Al-Bassam, pleaded guilty but did not serve time in an adult facility because he was 16 when he was arrested.

"When I was going through the legal process," explained Al-Bassam, "I genuinely felt bad for all those attacks on government organizations I was involved in. But now that I know they partake in the exact same activities, I have no idea what's right and wrong anymore."

Journalist Glenn Greenwald was formerly a columnist at Salon and the Guardian. In late 2012 he was contacted by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who later provided him with thousands of sensitive documents, and he was the first to report on Snowden's documents in June 2013 while on the staff of the Guardian. Greenwald has since reported on the documents with multiple media outlets around the world, and has won several journalism awards for his NSA reporting both in the U.S. and abroad. He is now helping launch, and will write for, a new, non-profit media outlet known as First Look Media that will "encourage, support and empower … independent, adversarial journalists."

Exclusive: Snowden Docs Reveal UK Spies Snooped on YouTube, Facebook

The British government can tap into the cables carrying the world’s web traffic at will and spy on what people are doing on some of the world’s most popular social media sites, including YouTube, all without the knowledge or consent of the companies.

Documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News detail how British cyber spies demonstrated a pilot program to their U.S. partners in 2012 in which they were able to monitor YouTube in real time and collect addresses from the billions of videos watched daily, as well as some user information, for analysis. At the time the documents were printed, they were also able to spy on Facebook and Twitter.

Called “Psychology A New Kind of SIGDEV" (Signals Development), the presentation includes a section that spells out “Broad real-time monitoring of online activity” of YouTube videos, URLs “liked” on Facebook, and Blogspot/Blogger visits. The monitoring program is called “Squeaky Dolphin.”

Experts told NBC News the documents show the British had to have been either physically able to tap the cables carrying the world’s web traffic or able to use a third party to gain physical access to the massive stream of data, and would be able to extract some key data about specific users as well.

Representatives of Facebook and Google, which owns YouTube, said they hadn’t given the British government permission to access data and were unaware the collection had occurred. A source close to Google who asked not to be identified when discussing company policy said the company was “shocked” to learn the U.K. could have been “grabbing” its data.

One of the people who helped prepare the demonstration was an official from the British signals intelligence agency General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who worked for a division of the agency called GTE, or Global Telecoms Exploitation. GTE has already been shown in other documents released by Snowden to be tapping fiber optic cables around the world.

In 2013, the Guardian reported that Snowden documents showed GCHQ was able to tap fiber optic cables and store huge amounts of data for 30 days, and that the government was placing intercept probes on transatlantic cables when they landed on British territory. Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that another Snowden document indicated major telecom firms, including BT, Verizon and Vodafone, were cooperating.

The British cyber spies sometimes share their intercepted raw data and their analyses with their American counterparts. In October, the Washington Post revealed that a Snowden document dated Jan. 9, 2013, described a joint NSA/GCHQ program called MUSCULAR, in which the U.S. and British agencies shared intercepted data from fiber optic cables and copied “entire data flows” from Yahoo and Google.

According to a source knowledgeable about the agency’s operations, the NSA does analysis of social media similar to that in the GCHQ demonstration.

National security experts say that both the U.S. and British operations are within the scope of their respective national laws. When the Washington Post reported on the MUSCULAR program, the NSA said in a statement that it is “focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only” and that it uses “Attorney General-approved processes to protect the privacy of U.S. persons.”

But privacy experts and former government officials say the lack of disclosure by the intelligence agencies inspires public fear that rights of privacy, free speech and dissent have been infringed.

“Governments have no business knowing which YouTube videos everyone in the world is watching,” said Chris Soghoian, chief technologist for the ACLU. “It’s one thing to spy on a particular person who has done something to warrant a government investigation but governments have no business monitoring the Facebook likes or YouTube views of hundreds of millions of people.”

It might also have a chilling effect on companies like Google. Jason Healey, former White House cyber czar under George W. Bush, says U.S. and British intelligence encroachment on the internet is a threat to everyone, including social media companies.

“We want our security services to be out there and keeping us safe," said Healey, "but we can also look for balance, we can look for limits, especially if we’re putting at risk this most transformative technology since Gutenberg.”

According to the documents obtained by NBC News, intelligence officers from GCHQ gave a demonstration in August 2012 that spelled out to their U.S. colleagues how the agency’s “Squeaky Dolphin” program could collect, analyze and utilize YouTube, Facebook and Blogger data in specific situations in real time.

The demonstration showed that by using tools including a version of commercially available analytic software called Splunk, GCHQ could extract information from the torrent of electronic data that moves across fiber optic cable and display it graphically on a computer dashboard. The presentation showed that analysts could determine which videos were popular among residents of specific cities, but did not provide information on individual social media users.

The presenters gave an example of their real-time monitoring capability, showing the Americans how they pulled trend information from YouTube, Facebook and blog posts on Feb. 13, 2012, in advance of an anti-government protest in Bahrain the following day.

More than a year prior to the demonstration, in a 2012 annual report, members of Parliament had complained that the U.K.’s intelligence agencies had missed the warning signs of the uprisings that became the Arab Spring of 2011, and had expressed the wish to improve “global” intelligence collection.

During the presentation, according to a note on the documents, the presenters noted for their audience that “Squeaky Dolphin” was not intended for spying on specific people and their internet behavior. The note reads, “Not interested in individuals just broad trends!”

But cyber-security experts told NBC News that once the information has been collected, intelligence agencies have the ability to extract some user information as well. In 2010, according to other Snowden documents obtained by NBC News, GCHQ exploited unencrypted data from Twitter to identify specific users around the world and target them with propaganda.

The experts also said that the only way that GCHQ would be able to do real-time analysis of trends would be to tap the cables directly and store the data or use a third party, like a private company, to extract and collect the raw data. As much as 11 percent of global internet bandwidth travels through U.K. internet exchanges, according to Bill Woodcock, president of PCH, a non-profit internet organization that tracks and measures and documents fiber infrastructure around the world.

In the case of the YouTube video information, the surveillance of the unencrypted material was done not only without the knowledge of the public but without the knowledge or permission of Google, the U.S. company that owns the video sharing service.

"We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we have continued to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links,” said a Google spokesperson. “We do not provide any government, including the UK government, with access to our systems. These allegations underscore the urgent need for reform of government surveillance practices."

A source close to Google added that Google was “shocked” because the company had pushed back against British legislation that would have required Google to store its metadata and other information for U.K. government use. The legislation, introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012, was publicly repudiated by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2013 and has never become law. May hopes to reintroduce a modified version this spring.

“It’s extremely surprising,” said the source, “that while they were pushing for the data via the law, they might have simultaneously been using their capability to grab it anyway.”

Encryption would prevent simple collection of the data by an outside entity like the government. Google has not yet encrypted YouTube or Blogger. Facebook and Twitter have now fully encrypted all their data.

Facebook confirmed to NBC News that while its “like” data was unencrypted, the company never gave it to the U.K. government and was unaware that GCHQ might have been siphoning the data. The company assumes the data was taken somewhere outside its networks and data centers.

“Network security is an important part of the way we protect user information,” said Facebook spokesman Jay Nancarrow, “which is why we finished moving our site traffic to HTTPS by default last year, implemented Perfect Forward Secrecy, and continue to strengthen all aspects of our network.”

GCHQ would not confirm or deny the existence of the Squeaky Dolphin program or anything else connected with this report. The agency declined to answer questions about the scope of its data collection or how it accessed the datastream.

In a statement, a GCHQ spokesperson emphasized that that the agency operated within the law.

“All of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework,” said the statement, “which ensure[s] that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All of our operational processes rigorously support this position.”

A spokesperson for the NSA said in a statement that the U.S. agency is not interested in “the communications of people who are not valid foreign intelligence targets.”

“Any implication that NSA's foreign intelligence collection is focused on the social media communications of everyday Americans is not true,” said the statement. “We collect only those communications that we are authorized by law to collect for valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes – regardless of the technical means used by the targets. Because some data of U.S. persons may at times be incidentally collected in NSA’s lawful foreign intelligence mission, privacy protections for U.S. persons exist across the entire process concerning the use, handling, retention, and dissemination of data.”

The spokesperson also said that working with foreign intelligence services “strengthens the national security of both nations,” but that NSA can’t “use those relationships to circumvent U.S. legal restrictions.”

Both U.S. and British officials assert that while their passive collection of electronic communications might have great breadth, the actual use of the data collected is very targeted, and is dictated by specific missions. Sources familiar with GCHQ operations state firmly that this is the case in each of the agency’s operations.

Exclusive: How the SEAL raid on Somalia went bad

By MATTHEW COLE AND JIM MIKLASZEWSKI

The team of less than two dozen Navy SEALs from Seal Team 6 huddled in one fast boat and headed toward the Somali shoreline under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Three more small boats with additional SEALs flanked the assault team’s craft, to provide back-up and assist with the planned extraction of an al Shabaab warlord named Ikrima.

According to multiple U.S. military sources, the lead boat landed, and the assault team hit the beach near the Southern Somali town of Barawe, headed for the fortified seaside compound of their target. U.S. intelligence had determined that Ikrima, one of two terror suspects targeted by the military in simultaneous raids thousands of miles apart this weekend, planned the terror group’s operations outside of Somalia. 

The SEALs entered the compound and took the positions they had selected based on the intelligence collected in advance of the raid.

Then a lone al Shabaab fighter walked out into plain view, smoked a cigarette, and went back inside, one source familiar with the details of the raid said. The fighter played it cool, and gave no indication that he had spotted the SEALs. But he came back out shooting, firing rounds from an AK-47 assault rifle.

Soon the American commandos were under siege from the warlord’s well-armed fighters. Gunfire swept toward their positions and grenades began to rain down, multiple military sources said.

Several of the SEALs could see Ikrima through the windows of the compound, but couldn’t get to him. The SEALs continued to take fire while trying to find a way to get closer to their target.

And then the children came into the pictures on their scopes.

The suspect was barricaded and heavily protected by armed men, and now children were intermingled among the fighters and in danger of dying. Then the whole town of Barawe began to erupt and more armed fighters were seen heading for Ikrima’s compound. Soon there would be fewer than two dozen Americans against hundreds of Somalis.

The SEALs opted to withdraw.

U.S. military sources said they did so in stages, making their way down the beach, asking and waiting for further orders. The team, sources said, was still considering the option of returning to fight some more.

As air support was called in, the SEALs headed back to the beach and to their boat. A command decision had been made that the prize was not worth the risk of casualties to civilians and SEALs.

The SEALs escaped from Barawe without any deaths or injuries, according to sources and officials. And the target they sought to capture is still at large.

The SEALs were members of the same unit that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011, killing the al Qaeda leader.

“After the past few years and the bin Laden raid, everyone thinks these operations are easy – they’re not,” said a senior military official familiar with the operation. “The area doesn’t have the same support network for us as Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The SEALs were “amazed” no one was hurt in the Somalia operation, said the official.

In a statement, Pentagon press secretary George Little said that U.S. military personnel had conducted a targeted operation against Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, a Kenyan of Somali origin. The statement referred to him as a close associate of al Qaeda operatives involved in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya and the 2002 attacks in Mombasa that killed Kenyans and Israelis.

“While the operation did not result in Ikrima’s capture,” said the statement, “U.S. military personnel conducted the operation with unparalleled precision and demonstrated that the United States can put direct pressure on al Shabaab leadership at any time of our choosing.”

In a simultaneous operation 3,000 miles away, U.S. special forces whisked al Qaeda suspect Abu Anas al-Libi off the streets of the Libyan capital of Tripoli. He will be taken to the United States to stand trial for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the officials said.

How much did Snowden take? At least three times number reported

By MATTHEW COLE AND ROBERT WINDREM

British authorities revealed Friday that NSA leaker Edward Snowden took at least three times as many highly sensitive documents as previously reported, and possibly far more.

At a court hearing in London the government told a judge that David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was carrying 58,000 documents related to British intelligence on electronic devices when he was stopped and searched at Heathrow airport on August 18. The government also said it believed the documents had been “stolen” from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British counterpart of the NSA.

Greenwald, who has been helping Snowden disseminate the documents he took from U.S. government computers, had previously said that Snowden had downloaded 20,000 documents. As previously reported by NBC News, the U.S. government has not yet been able to determine the scope of what Snowden took.

In a signed statement revealed at Friday’s hearing, a detective superintendent with the Counter-Terrorism branch of the Metropolitan Police said that the material on an “external hard drive” seized from him “discloses approximately 58,000 UK documents of the highest level of classification.”

The government was able to decrypt some of the files using a code found on a piece of paper carried by Miranda, but is struggling to decrypt the rest.

“So far only 75 documents have been reconstructed” into a legible format, said the statement. “This represents only a tiny fraction of what was seized.”

The statement, dated Tuesday, said that the drive contains approximately 60 gigabytes of data, of which only 20 gigabytes have been so far been “accessed.”

“The remainder is encrypted,” said the statement, using a form of encryption known as True Crypt, “which renders the material extremely difficult to access. … [O]fficers are working with experts from other agencies to try and obtain access to that material.”

In a separate statement to the court, Oliver Robbins, Britain's deputy national security advisor for intelligence, chided Miranda for carrying a password on a piece of paper. "The fact that ... claimant was carrying on his person a handwritten piece of paper containing the password for one of the encrypted files," said Robbins, "is a sign of very poor information security practice."

Robbins also said that the information seized from Miranda was "highly likely to describe techniques which have been crucial in life-saving counter-terrorist operations, and other intelligence activities vital to UK national security."

A former U.S. official familiar with the case said "significant amounts" of intelligence documents from U.S. allies -- particularly the UK and Australia -- were taken by Snowden from the NSA.

Miranda had challenged the right of British authorities to retain the material seized from him, but at Friday’s hearing the judge agreed to let the government continue examining the files. Scotland Yard has launched a criminal investigation of Miranda.

Miranda’s lawyers said they considered it a partial victory that the judge said the government has seven days to establish there is a threat to national security.

British authorities detained Miranda when he stopped in Heathrow while traveling from Berlin back to Rio de Janeiro, where he and Greenwald live. Miranda had been in Berlin visiting filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has been working with Greenwald to publicize Snowden’s leaked documents. Miranda was delivering documents to Poitras and retrieving documents for Greenwald, according to Greenwald.

Miranda was detained and questioned for eight hours under Section 7 of the U.K.’s Terrorism Act. British authorities seized multiple electronic devices from Miranda.

Iran Indicts 15 in Alleged US-Israeli Spy Ring

By Matthew Cole, Lee Ferran and Rym Momtaz

An Iranian prosecutor announced today his government has indicted 15 people who allegedly spied on the Islamic republic for the U.S. and Israel.

"The accused in the case were individuals who committed acts of espionage against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said Tuesday, according to several Iranian news reports.

Dolatabadi did not name the alleged spies, who are suspected of having ties to the American CIA and Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. Iran's intelligence minister, Heidar Moleshi, announced in May the alleged discovery of a CIA-directed spy network in Iran of more than 30 people, according to Iran's Fars News Agency. In November, Moleshi said another 12 spies had been uncovered.

The CIA informants had gathered information from Iranian universities and research centers about Iran's nuclear, aerospace and defense industries, according to a statement by the Iranian intelligence ministry.

"Who is to say if this tale from Iran is fiction or not? They make charges with few, if any, details and expect the media to spread them at face value," a U.S. intelligence official told ABC News of the espionage claims. "[This] looks like typical propaganda to me."

American officials admitted last month they had suffered an intelligence blow after a network of spies was uncovered in Iran, as first reported by ABC News.

"Collecting sensitive information on adversaries who are aggressively trying to uncover spies in their midst will always be fraught with risk," a U.S. official briefed on the spy ring bust said then.

The indictment announcement comes just days after the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah revealed what it said were the names of American CIA officers uncovered during a similar spy ring bust in the that country. Hezbollah, considered by the U.S. government to be a terrorist organization, aired a video Saturday through its media arm in which it listed the names of suspected undercover CIA officers along with a detailed description of how the agency allegedly set up a widespread espionage network in Beirut.

Other current and former U.S. officials said the discovery of the two U.S. spy rings occurred separately, but amounted to a setback of significant proportions in efforts to track the activities of the Iranian nuclear program and the intentions of Hezbollah against Israel.

On Hezbollah's claims, the CIA told The Associated Press such assertions are suspect.

"The agency does not, as a rule, address spurious claims from terrorist groups," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood told the AP. "I think it's worth remembering that Hezbollah is a dangerous organization, with al-Manar [broadcast network] as its propaganda arm. That fact alone should cast some doubt on the credibility of the group's claims."

Hezbollah Names Alleged CIA Officers in Lebanon

By Matthew Cole, Rym Momtaz and Lee Ferran

Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based group considered by the U.S. government to be a terrorist organization, revealed what it said were the details of the CIA's extensive operations in Beirut, from high-value recruitment targets to clandestine meeting locations and even the identities of several CIA officers, in a video over the weekend.

At least two of the names belong to CIA officers who have served in Beirut, two former intelligence officials told ABC News. Neither is currently stationed in Lebanon.

Saturday's broadcast came after an admission by U.S. officials last month that a large CIA espionage network in Beirut had been "rolled up" by Hezbollah. According to current and former U.S. officials, two Hezbollah double agents managed to penetrate the network by pretending to go to work for the CIA.

Hezbollah then learned of the restaurant where multiple CIA officers were meeting with several agents, according to the four current and former officials briefed on the case. The CIA used the codeword "PIZZA" when discussing where to meet with the agents, according to U.S. officials. Two former officials describe the location as a Beirut Pizza Hut. A current US official denied that CIA officers met their agents at Pizza Hut.

From there, Hezbollah's internal security arm identified at least a dozen informants, and the identities of several CIA case officers.

In the video released by Al Manar, Hezbollah's media arm, the group used computer-generated models to show such meetings taking place in Pizza Hut and McDonald's. It also claimed to know who the CIA attempted to recruit -- from government employees to politicians and religious figures -- and how often the CIA officers had clandestine meetings with their agents. The video said the agency had constructed a large network of informants from across all segments of society.

A CIA spokesperson said Hezbollah's claims were suspect, but did not elaborate on which specific claims the agency doubted.

"The agency does not, as a rule, address spurious claims from terrorist groups," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood told The Associated Press. "I think it's worth remembering that Hezbollah is a dangerous organization, with al-Manar as its propaganda arm. That fact alone should cast some doubt on the credibility of the group's claims."

But last month one U.S. official, speaking for the record but without attribution, gave grudging credit to the efforts of Iran and Hezbollah to detect and expose U.S. and Israeli espionage.

"Collecting sensitive information on adversaries who are aggressively trying to uncover spies in their midst will always be fraught with risk," the U.S. official briefed on the spy ring bust said then.

But others inside the American intelligence community say sloppy "tradecraft" -- the method of covert operations -- by the CIA is also to blame for the disruption of the vital spy networks.

One former senior intelligence official told ABC News that CIA officers ignored warnings that the operation could be compromised by using the same location for meetings with multiple assets.

"We were lazy and the CIA is now flying blind against Hezbollah," the former official said.

FBI Agent Held Hostage in Iran

Missing FBI Agent from Matthew Cole on Vimeo.

Story of Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent believed to be held somewhere inside Iran. Report aired on World News Tonight 12.09.2011

CIA Spies Caught, Fear Execution in Middle East →

By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross Nov. 21, 2011

In a significant failure for the United States in the Mideast, more than a dozen spies working for the CIA in Iran and Lebanon have been caught and the U.S. government fears they will be or have been executed, according to four current and former U.S. officials with connections to the intelligence community.

The spies were paid informants recruited by the CIA for two distinct espionage rings targeting Iran and the Beirut-based Hezbollah organization, considered by the U.S. to be a terror group backed by Iran.

"Espionage is a risky business," a U.S. official briefed on the developments told ABC News, confirming the loss of the unspecified number of spies over the last six months.

"Many risks lead to wins, but some result in occasional setbacks," the official said.

Robert Baer, a former senior CIA officer who worked against Hezbollah while stationed in Beirut in the 1980's, said Hezbollah typically executes individuals suspected of or caught spying.

"If they were genuine spies, spying against Hezbollah, I don't think we'll ever see them again," he said. "These guys are very, very vicious and unforgiving."

Other current and former officials said the discovery of the two U.S. spy rings occurred separately, but amounted to a setback of significant proportions in efforts to track the activities of the Iranian nuclear program and the intentions of Hezbollah against Israel.

"Remember, this group was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before 9/11," said a U.S. official. Attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 killed more than 300 people, including almost 260 Americans.

The U.S. official, speaking for the record but without attribution, gave grudging credit to the efforts of Iran and Hezbollah to detect and expose U.S. and Israeli espionage.

"Collecting sensitive information on adversaries who are aggressively trying to uncover spies in their midst will always be fraught with risk," said the U.S. official briefed on the spy ring bust.

But others inside the American intelligence community say sloppy "tradecraft" -- the method of covert operations -- by the CIA is also to blame for the disruption of the vital spy networks.

In Beirut, two Hezbollah double agents pretended to go to work for the CIA. Hezbollah then learned of the restaurant where multiple CIA officers were meeting with several agents, according to the four current and former officials briefed on the case. The CIA used the codeword "PIZZA" when discussing where to meet with the agents, according to U.S. officials. Two former officials describe the location as a Beirut Pizza Hut. A current US official denied that CIA officers met their agents at Pizza Hut.

From there, Hezbollah's internal security arm identified at least a dozen informants, and the identities of several CIA case officers.

Hezbollah then began to "roll up" much of the CIA's network against the terror group, the officials said.

One former senior intelligence official told ABC News that CIA officers ignored warnings that the operation could be compromised by using the same location for meetings with multiple assets.

"We were lazy and the CIA is now flying blind against Hezbollah," the former official said.

CIA Spies Caught in Iran

At about the same time that Hezbollah was identifying the CIA network in Lebanon, Iranian intelligence agents discovered a secret internet communication method used by CIA-paid assets in Iran.

The CIA has yet to determine precisely how many of its assets were compromised in Iran, but the number could be in the dozens, according to one current and one former U.S. intelligence official.

The exposure of the two spy networks was first announced in widely ignored televised statements by Iranian and Hezbollah leaders. U.S. officials tell ABC News that much of what was broadcast was, in fact, true.

Hezbollah's leader, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, announced in June of this year that two high-ranking members of Hezbollah had been exposed as CIA spies, leading U.S. officials to conclude that the entire network inside Hezbollah had been compromised.

In Iran, intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi announced in May that more than 30 U.S. and Israeli spies had been discovered and an Iranian television program, which acts as a front for Iran's government, showed images of internet sites used by the U.S. for secret communication with the spies.

U.S. officials said the Iranian television program showed pictures of people who were not U.S. assets, but the program's video of the websites used by the CIA was accurate.

Some former U.S. intelligence officials say the developments are the result of a lack of professionalism in the U.S. intelligence community.

"We've lost the tradition of espionage," said one former official who still consults for the U.S. intelligence community. "Officers take short cuts and no one is held accountable," he said.

But at the CIA, officials say such risks come with the territory.

"Hezbollah is an extremely complicated enemy," said a U.S. official. "It's a determined terrorist group, a powerful political player, a mighty military and an accomplished intelligence operation, formidable and ruthless. No one underestimates its capabilities."

"If you lose an asset, one source, that's normally a setback in espionage," said Robert Baer, who was considered an expert on Hezbollah.

"But when you lose your entire station, either in Tehran or Beirut, that's a catastrophe, that just shouldn't be. And the only way that ever happens is when you're mishandling sources."

Reports: One Cain Accuser Got $45K, Other Got $35K →

By Brian Ross, Matthew Mosk and Matthew Cole

One of the women who GOP frontrunner Herman Cain said made a false accusation of sexual harassment against him has decided not to go public.

Lawyer Joel Bennett said the Maryland woman, who now works for the federal government, has decided not to make a public statement to challenge Cain's version of what happened when they worked together at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s.

Politico reported Thursday that the woman received a $45,000 payment from the trade group as part of a settlement that also included a promise of confidentiality.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the other accuser had accepted a settlement from the NRA that was worth a full year's pay, $35,000.

Said employment lawyer David Scher, "When you pay someone a year of salary to resolve a case, that means the company probably thought there was some merit to it."

Cain Accuser: I Don't Want to Be Anita Hill

Joel Bennett said that while the Maryland woman wants to restore her reputation, she does not want to become another Anita Hill and let the controversy take over her life. Hill's accusations of inappropriate sexual statements by now Supreme Court Clarence Thomas surfaced in 1991 as Congress was preparing to confirm his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Bennett has said, however, that he wants to make a statement on behalf of the woman that will contest Cain's version of events, and that he will ask the National Restaurant Association for permission. The woman had received a financial payout from the trade group in return for confidentiality.

"I will be emailing the attorney for the National Restaurant Association a draft public statement for their review," Bennett told ABC News. "I will have no further statements until I hear back from the National Restaurant Association."

The National Restaurant Association said Thursday afternoon that Bennett had provided a statement. "Our outside counsel was contacted by Mr. Bennett today and was asked to provide a response to a proposed statement by tomorrow afternoon," said Sue Hensley, the NRA's senior vp for public affairs communications. "We are currently reviewing the document, and we plan to respond tomorrow."

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that a third woman considered filing a workplace complaint against Cain at the NRA over what was termed aggressive and unwanted behavior, with invitations to his corporate apartment.

The woman told the AP she didn't file a complaint because she began having less contact with him, and because she learned that a co-worker, one of the two accusers who received a settlement, had already done so. Cain's actions "were inappropriate, and it made me feel uncomfortable," she told the AP. She said that in addition to an invitation to his corporate apartment in Washington, he had confided to colleagues how attractive he found her. She also disputed Cain's assertion that there were misunderstandings about his behavior because of his "sense of humor."

The AP said that the woman is not politically active or currently a registered member of either party, but she had been a registered Democrat at one point.

Cain has already denounced the two previous allegations of sexual harassment against him as false, and suggested at least one of the women was a poor worker whose job performance was "not up to par." But an ABC News investigation found that both of the women who received settlements from the NRA are highly respected professionals who have gone on to successful careers in and around government.

The woman in Maryland represented by Bennett has worked for years as a public spokesperson for various agencies of the federal government.

Her case appears to be the one Cain has described in his round of interviews, saying she was a writer working in the trade group's communications department.

Cain has said that all he could recall was making an innocuous gesture to this woman while she was in his office with the door open and his secretary just outside. "I referenced this lady's height and I was standing near her, and I did this saying, you're the same height of my wife, because my wife is five feet tall and she comes up to my chin," Cain explained. "This lady's five feet tall and she came up to my chin. So obviously she thought that that was too close for comfort. It showed up in the actual allegation."

Joel Bennett later called CNN to dispute Cain's version of events. "To the extent he's made statements that he never sexually harassed anyone," said Bennett, "and there was no validity to these complaints, that's certainly not true with respect to my client's complaints."

Accuser Works as Registered Lobbyist in New Jersey

The other woman who complained about Cain is described by former colleagues as now working as a registered lobbyist in New Jersey.

Cain says he recalls going out for drinks with her and other employees of the Restaurant Association after work. "She was in some of those group activities where we went out together, but it was never, she and I alone or anything like that," said Cain.

But the incident that prompted the woman's complaint, which took place at a restaurant in Crystal City, Virginia, according to a former pollster for the NRA, was much more serious.

Oklahoma political consultant Chris Wilson talked about it on KTOK radio Wednesday.

"She was a very lower level staffer I think she was maybe two years out of college and this all occurred at a restaurant in Crystal City and everybody was very aware of it," said Wilson. " I don't want to be drawn into it specifically, but if she comes out and talks about it, it's like I said, it'll probably be the end of his campaign." Wilson currently works for a Rick Perry political action committee.

Cain's recollection of the reported financial settlements has changed through the week. At first he said he was unaware of any settlement, then said an accuser had been paid three months salary, then upped that to three to six months salary.

Cain campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon Wednesday dismissed reports of a third accuser as part of an attempt to smear the candidate.

"Mr. Cain has said over the past two days at public events that we could see other baseless allegations made against him as this appalling smear campaign continues," said Gordon. "Since his critics have not been successful in attacking his ideas, they are resorting to bitter personal attacks. Mr. Cain deserves better."

The new tack also involved trying to shift attention to who might have leaked the story to the media, with accusations from Cain and his chief of staff that the story was planted by the campaign of Texas governor Rick Perry.

The candidate told a Tea Party town hall meeting, via phone, that the Perry campaign was behind the original Politico story about the harassment charges. "We now know, and have been able to trace [the story] back to the Perry campaign that stirred this up, in order to discredit me and slow us down," said Cain. "The fingerprints are all over the Rick Perry campaign, based upon our sources."

In an interview with Forbes, Cain said that he had told GOP consultant Curt Anderson, who worked on his 2004 U.S. Senate bid, about a settlement of harassment charges from his time at NRA. Anderson now works for the Rick Perry campaign.

Mark Block, Cain's chief of staff, said, "I think the Perry campaign owes Herman Cain and America an apology."

Ricky Perry issued a blanket denial. "There's not anybody in my campaign that knew anything about this," said the Texas governor. Perry's campaign issued a statement saying that no one in the campaign was involved in spreading the sexual harassment story "in any way," and that the campaign first learned of the charges from the original Politico story. Ray Sullivan, Perry's communications director, called Block's charge "reckless and false."

Anderson also denied leaking the harassment story to Politico, and said he learned of the settlement by reading about it in Politico. In an interview with CNN, he said that he didn't recall any conversation with Cain about sexual harassment accusations while working for Cain, but stopped short of saying Cain was lying, instead suggesting that Cain was coming "unraveled" in a "firestorm." In a statement released Wednesday, he said he had "great respect for Herman and his character and I would never speak ill of him."

CIA Punishment? Go Work with NYPD

By Matthew Cole

A senior CIA officer whose operational misjudgment contributed to one of the deadliest days in CIA history was recently assigned to a post with the New York City police department as a result of his mistakes, according to current and former officials.

According to two former officials, the posting marks the most significant sanction handed out for the December 2009 suicide bombing by an al Qaeda double agent at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees, and acts as an unofficial punishment for the officer's role in the operation. The CIA officer had been one of several high-ranking officials who approved the meeting at which the double agent detonated his bomb.

"The agency sent him to New York for Khost as punishment," said a former senior official briefed on the assignment.

The officer's assignment also comes despite previous statements that the agency found no individual at fault for the attack. Two CIA officers and a Jordanian spy directly involved in working with the double agent were killed. The officer transferred to New York is the lowest ranking of the officers involved in the planning and supervision of the operation.

The CIA official declined a request for an interview. ABC News is withholding his name at the request of the CIA, because his identity is classified as he remains undercover.

The NYPD did not respond to several requests for comment. The CIA refused to comment on the record.

The move highlights how the CIA acts to discipline its most experienced employees for operational mistakes by sidelining them, denying them further foreign postings or senior headquarters slots. The move is seen by many intelligence veterans as punishment because in the CIA foreign postings are considered plum assignments, as are positions within management at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The officer had been the CIA station chief in Jordan, where the double agent was first recruited by Jordanian intelligence. He had also served previously as the CIA's station chief in Pakistan and Poland, and as chief of the Counter Proliferation Division, the CIA arm that focuses on thwarting nuclear weapons.

The bombing took place on December 30, 2009 at a CIA base called Camp Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. To meet with the CIA handlers, the Jordanian double agent was allowed through three layers of base security without being searched. He hid a suicide vest under his clothing, which he detonated after more than a dozen CIA officers and security personnel assembled inside the base. In addition to the seven CIA employees and the double agent, a Jordanian intelligence officer and an Afghan driver were killed.

According to the current and former officials, the officer was reassigned to New York for a year rather than given any formal administrative punishment.

"This senior officer's assignment is part of a program that gives him an opportunity to observe the best practices, leadership lessons, and management methodology of a large organization also involved in the fight against terrorism," said a U.S. official familiar with the assignment. "Let's face it, this assignment provides a senior officer a unique management experience that fits his background. And, it's in New York City. Trying to call this great opportunity a punishment is completely missing the point."

The posting came after former CIA director and now defense secretary Leon Panetta announced in October 2010 that an internal agency review had found that "responsibility cannot be assigned to any particular individual" for the deadly attack.

A U.S. official described the officer's role in New York as "management training." The intelligence officer already has a civilian rank equivalent to a two-star general and has managed two large stations and a division that employs hundreds.

"It's a non-job," said another former senior official who consults with the NYPD. "It was a job created for him. He was trying to get a senior assignment and they wouldn't give it to him. It was a punishment for not passing the warnings about Balawi back to [CIA] headquarters."

CIA's Role at NYPD

The role of the officer within NYPD has come under scrutiny in recent months. The CIA announced last month that its Inspector General was conducting an inquiry into the relationship between the CIA and the NYPD's Intelligence Division, which was created in response to the 9/11 attacks. The IG investigation was announced after a series of AP articles revealed that the Intelligence Division had developed several programs to gather intelligence about Muslim communities in New York.

The unit is led by a former senior CIA official, David Cohen, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for intelligence. According to two former intelligence officials, Cohen has privately acknowledged that the CIA official was sent to New York as a punitive assignment because of the disaster in Afghanistan.

The senior official penalized for the Khost bombing is the second CIA official to embed with the NYPD. In the years after 9/11, CIA veteran Lawrence Sanchez worked as a liaison between the CIA and the NYPD. However, Sanchez had the title of assistant commissioner for intelligence and oversaw significant portions of the division's operations. The current post has no supervisory authority, according to a former intelligence official.

New York City lawmakers recently pressed police commissioner Raymond Kelly about the CIA officer's role at the NYPD, concerned the CIA might be too active in police investigations. Kelly told council members that the officer did not have access to "any of our investigative files," but that he did supply "technical information" to police officers.

In fact, officials have failed to agree on what exactly the senior CIA officer does for the NYPD. Historically, the CIA station chief in New York has been the liaison between the intelligence agency and the police department. The current station chief in New York is a veteran of counter-terrorism operations.

Double Agent Kills 7 CIA Employees

The officer stands out among his new colleagues in New York because of his long overseas and counter-terrorism experience. But in his most recent position prior to New York, station chief in Jordan, he made the deadly mistake of approving a meeting with a supposed al Qaeda "mole" who turned out to be an al Qaeda double agent.

The agent, a Jordanian doctor named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, had been recruited by Jordan's intelligence agency. He told the Jordanians he was willing to work for the CIA as a mole in al Qaeda. In 2009 Balawi traveled to Pakistan, where he claimed to have had a meeting with al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.

According to several former intelligence officials, the officer twice overruled a junior officer who warned that Balawi might be working for al Qaeda and needed more assessment before he could be allowed to meet with CIA officers. The CIA station chief told others that the chance to catch Zawahiri was worth taking the risk, and pushed for the Balawi operation to continue. Most critically, the officer failed to report the warnings to CIA superiors at headquarters. CIA supervisors later agreed to Balawi coming to a CIA base for a meeting.

On the day of Balawi's meeting, he traveled from Pakistan to a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan, where he was let through three layers of security without being searched. When the CIA brought a welcoming party out to greet him, he exited a car and detonated a suicide vest. The blast killed seven Americans, a Jordanian, an Afghan, and severely wounded several other CIA employees. It was the single worst day for the CIA since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, in which eight CIA operatives were among the 64 people who died.

The assignment to New York is not the first time in the officer's career that a scandal affected his choice of assignments. After his turn in Pakistan, the officer was the leading candidate to be chief in Italy, one of the agency's biggest stations. But top CIA officials blocked the move because his brother had been involved in the extraordinary rendition of an Egyptian cleric from Milan in 2003.

The brother, who worked as a surveillance operative, used a traceable cellphone to call his mother in the U.S., according to telephone records and former CIA officials familiar with the operation. An Italian prosecutor later tried and convicted -- in absentia -- several CIA operatives for the rendition. The officer's brother was among those eventually convicted, under the fake name he used while undercover in Italy. Top CIA officials worried that the Italian government would be offended if it discovered that the new station chief was the brother of one of those charged.

Alleged 'Thrill Kill' Ringleader Goes on Trial

By Matthew Cole

Opening statements are expected today in the trial of a U.S. soldier charged with being the ringleader of a plot to murder Afghan civilians for sport.

Sgt. Calvin Gibbs of Billings, Montana is among five soldiers from the Army's Joint Base Lewis-McChord charged with taking part in three thrill kills in Afghanistan in 2010 in a case that includes allegations of widespread drug use, the collection of body parts and photos of the U.S. soldiers holding the Afghan bodies like hunter's trophies.

Three soldiers have already pled guilty. Gibbs, the squad leader, is accused of masterminding the murders, in which the soldiers allegedly set up scenarios to kill unarmed civilians and then planted weapons to make the deaths appear justified. He could face life in prison if convicted. Jury selection in the trial, which is being held in a military courtroom south of Seattle, began Friday.

In a confession taped in May 2010 and obtained by ABC News, one of the soldiers admitted the team's role in the murders, but told Army investigators that Gibbs, his unit's "crazy" sergeant, had hatched the plan.

"He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these people," Jeremy Morlock told military investigators during an interview videotaped at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan as he laid out the scenario he said the sergeant used to make it seem the civilians were killed in action.

"And so we identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?" Morlock said." And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude."

Morlock said that killing people came "too easy" to Gibbs.

The corporal said Gibbs gave orders to open fire on the civilian at the same time Gibbs threw a hand grenade at the victim.

"He pulled out one of his grenades, an American grenade, you know, popped it, throws it, tells me where to go to whack this guy, kill this guy, kill this guy," Morlock told the investigators.

Morlock said Sergeant Gibbs carried a Russian grenade to throw next to the body of the dead Afghan, to make it seem he was about to attack the American soldiers.

The corporal said he opened fire as directed, fearful of not following Gibbs' orders.

"It's definitely not the right thing to do," Morlock told the investigators. "But I mean, when you got a squad leader bringing you into that, that type of real, that mindset, and he believes that you're on board with that, there's definitely no way you wanted him to think otherwise."

The investigator asked Morlock, "Because you felt maybe the next shot might be coming your way?"

"You never know. Exactly," answered Morlock. "I mean Gibbs talked about how easy it is, people disappear on the battlefield all the time."

A lawyer for Gibbs declined to comment. In March, Morlock pled to three counts of premeditated murder and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

Holmes Kept Finger Bone from Victim

In September, Pfc. Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho pled guilty to the unpremeditated murder of the first victim, as well as to drug use and to keeping a finger bone from the victim as a souvenir. Holmes had also posed for a photo, later leaked to the media, in which he held up the head of the dead victim.

Holmes, 21, admitted to the judge that he had fired his machine gun at the victim, that he knew the man was probably innocent , and that he believed he had caused the man's death.

Spc. Adam Winfield, who warned his parents that soldiers in his unit were executing innocent Afghan civilians, pled guilty in August to reduced charges and was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the third killing, which took place in May 2010. He had been charged with premeditated murder, which carries a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Both Morlock and Winfield are expected to testify against Gibbs. Both have told Army investigators that Gibbs developed and rehearsed the murder of unarmed Afghans and later ordered his men to help him carry them out.

Spc. Michael S. Wagnon II, who is still awaiting trial, has pled not guilty. Wagnon is charged with participating in a cover-up of the second killing, which occurred in February 2010, as well as conspiracy and possessing a human skull fragment.

Lawyers for Gibbs and Wagnon have previously assailed Morlock's testimony against their clients, noting he requested investigative documents prior to testimony.

In addition to murder, the Army's charging documents allege rampant drug use in Morlock's unit, as well as the dismemberment of dead Afghan civilians.

Cpl. Morlock described in the Army investigators' video how Sergeant Gibbs allegedly collected the fingers of some of his Afghan victims.

"It's his thing now," said Morlock. "I don't know, his crazy stuff. War trophies, whatever."

Morlock said Gibbs boasted of carrying out similar murders in Iraq but was never caught and threatened the men in his unit with harm if they refused to participate or revealed what was happening.

"If Gibbs knew that I was sitting in front of this camera right now, there's no doubt in my mind that he'd f---ing take me out if he had to," Morlock told the Army investigators.

Winfield Told Parents About Thrill Kill

When Winfield told his parents in February 2010 about one of the incidents via Facebook, he also told them, "I want to do something about it. The only problem is that I don't feel safe here telling anyone."

He said there was a rumor that he was going to talk and "the threats are already coming my way."

In Afghanistan, according to other soldiers, Gibbs was becoming suspicious of Winfield.

An Army investigator asked Cpl. Morlock during his taped confession if he thought Gibbs was serious about maybe having to "take out" Winfield.

"Oh, f___ yeah, for sure, definitely," answered Morlock.

"So you didn't take that as a joke," said the investigator, "or like maybe it was just bull____."

"[Gibbs] doesn't bulls____," said Morlock. "He doesn't need to."

Adam Winfield's parents claimed in an interview with ABC News that in February they warned the Army by phone that soldiers in their son's unit were thrill killing civilians. One of the murders with which Winfield and the other soldiers were charged took place after the calls.

After an internal investigation, the Army has issued a statement saying that the parents of a soldier charged with murdering unarmed Afghans never called the Army's inspector general. The Army acknowledges that Christopher and Emma Winfield did call several numbers at their son's Army base in the U.S., and had an extended conversation with someone at the base's command center, but says the Winfields failed to leave a message with the criminal investigations unit at the base.

"The Army takes very seriously recent media reporting in which the father of Spc. Adam Winfield said he alerted the Army to allegations of crimes by Soldiers deployed to Afghanistan," said the Army's statement. "We have not yet found any evidence to indicate Mr. Winfield called the office of the Army's Inspector General."

"We examined the phone records of the Winfield family, with their consent. Based on this examination we have determined that another federal agency's Inspector General was called by mistake."

New Video Shows More Unguarded Surface-to-Air Missiles

By Brian Ross and Matthew Cole

A month after U.S. officials told ABC News they were moving quickly to secure unguarded weapons in Libya, human rights investigators have found a huge cache of unprotected weapons, including bombs, tank shells and dozens of surface-to-air missiles, in the city of Sirte.

"Anybody want a surface-to-air missile?" asks Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, in a video shot Sunday in near where Moammar Gadhafi and his son Mutassim made their last stand. Though the U.S. is rushing more and more specialists to Libya in a race to find the massive stores of weapons that have gone missing since the start of the Libyan uprising, Bouckaert beat them to Sirte.

Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro told ABC News that there was "obviously" a race to find the weapons before they fall into the hands of terrorists, "and that's why we're deploying people as quickly as we possibly can." Shapiro said the U.S. plans to increase its presence on the ground from 10 teams of weapons specialists, or less than 35 people total, to 50 teams.

"We believe that based on our examination of the numerous sites that thousands of missiles were actually destroyed during the NATO bombing campaign," said Shapiro, "and [that another] thousand missiles have been disabled or damaged."

But Shapiro also said the U.S. still doesn't know how many of the 20,000 surface-to-air missiles once held by the Gadhafi regime are unaccounted for. "We're in the process of visiting sites and putting together the information about the scope of the problem," said Shapiro.

Libyans alerted by the U.S. reached the Sirte site found by Human Rights Watch on Thursday, according to Shapiro, and moved the missiles there "to a more secure location." Shapiro denied that the Libyans had gone to the site because ABC News planned to report on it, but said the U.S. had "immediately acted" on information provided by Human Rights Watch. He said it would have been difficult to get to Sirte earlier because there was still fighting in the city last week.

In September, Shapiro said the U.S. was "making great progress" in accounting for the Gadhafi regime's missing munitions, but that the U.S. did not have a clear picture of how many missiles it was attempting to track down. Just last week, during a visit to Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "I am pleased to announce that we are going to put even more money into helping Libya secure and destroy dangerous stockpiles of weapons." In the past month, some of the Gadhafi regime's Russian-made surface-to-air missiles have turned up in Egypt and at the Israeli border. Egyptian authorities say they have arrested weapons smugglers brining the weapons east from Libya toward Israel. According to the Washington Post, so many of the weapons were being sold in Egyptian black markets that the price had dropped from $10,000 to $4,000 per weapon.

It would take only one of the shoulder-fired, heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, which have a range of two miles, to bring down a commercial aircraft. On Sunday, Bouckaert found dozens of Russian SA-7 missiles scattered across the ground in Sirte, along with empty crates.

Bouckaert found unsecured weapons both in a warehouse on the outskirts of Sirte, and in a complex of 70 warehouses south of Sirte.

"These facilities are still uncontrolled," said Bouckaert. "We could literally have come here with a convoy of 18 wheeler trucks and wheeled away whatever we wanted without even being noticed."

Bouckaert says despite his warnings to the U.S. State Department and the CIA since February, real progress in securing the weapons has been slow.

He also said that on Thursday morning, U.S. weapons specialists told him they'd been instructed to take action on the SAMs in Sirte as soon as possible so that Assistant Secretary Shapiro would be able to say so in his interview with ABC News.

Read original here

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A Nightline investigation from 10.20.2011

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U.S. Expands Search for Weapons in Libya

By Brian Ross, Matthew Cole and Lee Ferran

The U.S. government has expanded its search for thousands of dangerous, unaccounted for weapons in Libya to the tune of several million dollars and new search teams, a State Department spokesperson said.

"I'm frankly not in a position to speak to the sort of volume and scope of their success at the moment, but we are very, very committed to this effort," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters.

Nuland said there are a total of nine Libyan search teams currently active in the war-torn nation, all with a single American representative. The U.S. government had initially put forward $3 million to assist in the effort to track down the weapons -- which could include thousands of shoulder-fired surface-to-air rocket launchers -- but has now increased its investment to $10 million.

Last month, White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters the U.S. had a single government official, as well as five contractors, on the ground to deal with the weapons crisis.

Though Libya had an estimated 20,000 man-portable surface-to-air missiles before the popular uprising began in February, Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro told ABC News in September the government does not have a clear picture of how many missiles they're trying to track down.

U.S. government officials and security experts have for weeks been concerned some of the thousands of heat-seeking missiles, along with smaller arms, could easily end up in the hands of al Qaeda or other terror groups.

"Matching up a terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile, that's our worst nightmare," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-California, a member of the Senate's Commerce, Energy and Transportation Committee, said in September.

The missiles, four to six-feet long and Russian-made, can weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They lock on to the heat generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a combatant's shoulder, and are accurate and deadly at a range of more than two miles.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya more than six months ago. He took pictures of pickup truckloads of the missiles being carted off during another trip just a few weeks ago.

"I myself could have removed several hundred if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want," said Bouckaert, HRW's emergencies director. "Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles."

Nuland said Friday it's too early to tell if the U.S. will expand the search beyond the nine teams in the future.