Whom Does Edward Snowden Work For?

Political writer Naomi Wolf has raised some disturbing and unpopular questions about the possible motivations of NSA whistle-blower and source to The Guardian newspaper, Edward Snowden.

Wolf has angered a lot of people by daring to consider that Snowden might still be working for a national intelligence establishment that wants to cultivate fear in the populace by “leaking” detailed information conveying the nature and scope of its surveillance operations. Hundreds of people have cried “conspiracy theory,” but of course it could be true.

“What do we think spies do abroad?” Wolf asked in a piece published on her Facebook profile June 15. “They create false identities, build fake companies, influence real media with fake stories, create distractions or demonizations in the local news that advance US policies, bug (technologically) and harass the opposition, disrupt and infiltrate the meetings and communications of factions that the US does not wish to see in power. It is not ‘tin hat theorizing’ to acknowledge this, when it is done elsewhere.”

It is in the police state’s interest to let the public know it is being watched, Wolf continues, and especially to make a demonstration of the terrible things that can be done to people who dare to challenge it.

Among other reasons, Wolf finds Snowden’s story suspicious because his message is clearly composed and effortlessly delivered. He hammers home scary reminders of what can be done to journalists and people like him for disclosing classified information. And legal representation, which someone as deliberate and well informed as Snowden would be likely to seek out, is nowhere in sight in his media appearances. Add to the mix a media-friendly pole-dancing girlfriend and Wolf’s eyebrows are raised.

Wolf “would never raise such questions in public if I had not been told by a very senior official in the intelligence world that indeed, there are some news stories that they create and drive—even in America (where propagandizing Americans is now legal),” she wrote in another piece published to her Facebook profile June 14. “But do consider that in Eastern Germany, for instance, it was the fear of a machine of surveillance that people believed watched them at all times—rather than the machine itself—that drove compliance and passivity. From the standpoint of the police state and its interests—why have a giant Big Brother apparatus spying on us at all times—unless we know about it?”

Conspiracy theories are generally easy to dismiss because of the sheer improbability that large numbers of people would be able to keep the same secret when financial and other rewards for sharing that secret are so high. In the case of Snowden’s story, skepticism of all aspects continues to be the best of all possible attitudes, and barring the appearance of hard evidence in the direction of Wolf’s concerns, her questions remain squarely in the realm of interesting, responsible and necessary speculation.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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