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The Question of When | 163

just research him,” he replied. As we know now, he pointed out, Rus-
sia and China probably had access to the 127-page standard form in
his personnel file that he updated in 2011. They also had the capa-
bility to track his air travel to Hong Kong. “Could someone have
steered him to Hong Kong?” I asked. He answered, with a shrug,
“That depends on whether Snowden had a confidante who could
have influenced him.”
Whenever adversaries became aware of Snowden in this scenario,
it was not until after he copied the NSA secrets and took them with
him to Hong Kong that Russian intelligence officers offered him a
deal. So from the Russian point of view, Snowden had already burned
his bridges. Because he had used other people’s passwords and access
privileges to get into computers that he was not authorized to use,
illegally moved documents, and given a false reason for his medi-
cal leave, it was only a matter of time, as he told Greenwald in his
interview in Hong Kong, before NSA investigators would identify
him as a possible spy. He could be of no further use at the NSA to an
adversary. His intelligence value now lay in the documents he had
taken with him or stored in the cloud as well as his ability to help
clarify them in debriefing sessions. He could also inflict damage on
the morale and public standing of the NSA by denouncing its spying
in the media.
Once Snowden was in Hong Kong, the Russians would have no
reason to restrain him from holding a press event or releasing a
video. In fact, the KGB had organized press conferences for all the
previous NSA defectors to Moscow. Hong Kong was a perfect venue
for a well-staged media event because all the major newspapers in
the world had bureaus there. Snowden’s disclosures about NSA spy-
ing could serve to weaken the NSA’s relations with its allies.
It is also possible that Russian or Chinese intelligence did not
become aware of Snowden until after he went public in June by
having The Guardian release his video. The video would have con-
vinced the Russians or the Chinese of how dissatisfied Snowden was
with the NSA. Because dissatisfaction is one of the classic means of
recruitment in the intelligence business, he would certainly become
a prime target for recruitment after he went public.
The CIA also considered the possibility that Snowden might

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