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58 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS

CryptoParty, Tor station, and other anti-NSA activities could go unremarked upon. After all, ten or so NSA workers attended the first party, and it is not unlikely that many of them recognized him as their co-worker. If so, they knew (as did Sandvik and Mills) that the Tor advocate "Cincinnatus" was Snowden. He had also not been shy in contacting notable enemies of the NSA via e-mail, such as Jacob Appelbaum, Parker Higgins, and Asher Wolf. If anyone, including the security staff of the NSA, had been on the lookout for dissident intelligence workers, this well-advertised gathering and its organizer might have been of interest.

In 2014, I asked a former top NSA executive whether such activities on behalf of Tor by an NSA employee would arouse the attention of the NSA's own "Q" counterespionage unit. He answered, "Snowden was not an NSA employee." Because Snowden was a contract employee of Dell's residing in the United States, the NSA could not legally monitor his private activities or intercept his communication. To do so would require a court-approved FBI request. So Snowden/Cincinnatus was free to operate openly in recruiting NSA workers, hacktivists, and computer buffs for his events. Ironically, adversary intelligence services searching for disgruntled intelligence workers had no such constraints.

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