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34 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS

a retreat that qualified her to be a yoga instructor. She had been liv-
ing on and off with Snowden during the previous two years abroad,
including while he worked at the CIA in Switzerland and the NSA in
Japan, and now she moved in with Snowden again. The twenty-five-
year-old Mills posted on Instagram, “Finally in our first US place
together.” She also put pictures online of him in bed with her, affec-
tionately referring to him in her posts as a “computer crusader.”

He worked on problem solving for corporate clients at Dell head-
quarters in Annapolis. In preparation for his new corporate role,
Snowden shaved off his facial hair and, with Lindsay’s help, bought a
Ralph Lauren suit. His corporate clients were assisting the NSA, the
CIA, and the DIA. Consequently, Snowden dealt with a wide range of
intelligence officers and gave presentations on the vulnerabilities in
computer security at the DIA-sponsored Joint Counterintelligence
seminar. In February 2011, he attended a black tie Valentine’s Day
gala sponsored by corporate members of the Armed Forces Commu-
nication and Electronics Association. The guest speaker was Michael
Hayden, who had headed the CIA when Snowden was abruptly
forced out two years earlier. Nevertheless, Snowden joined the cue
to have his photo taken with the former director, a perk of the char-
ity event.

These dealings in no way mitigated his resentment of the intel-
ligence establishment. What began at the CIA in 2009 as objections
to what he saw as the incompetence of his superiors grew into well-
articulated disapproval of the way the U.S. government conducted
its intelligence. He found NSA surveillance particularly worrisome,
later telling The Guardian, “They [the NSA] are intent on making
every conversation and every form of behavior in the world known
to them.” He claimed after defecting to Moscow that he had voiced
his concerns about what he considered illicit surveillance to ten NSA
officials, “none of whom took any action to address them.” The NSA
can find no record of these complaints, but if Snowden had indeed
complained to these officials while working for Dell, his superiors
at Dell either didn’t notice or didn’t care that they had a very dis-
gruntled employee on their hands.

Snowden also made no secret on the Internet of his anger at the
U.S. government and the corporations that served it. He railed on

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