Snowden's Access to NSA's Deepest Secrets Disputed

The National Security Agency’s new operations center on the Hawaiian island of Oahu sits on a high plateau between two volcanoes, 40 minutes from Waikiki Beach. The $358 million compound, which opened in 2012, supplements the electronics-stuffed underground bunker nearby that was the NSA’s first Hawaiian location. The facility is the primary U.S. outpost for spying on China and the rest of Asia—and was the workplace of ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Snowden, who leaked a PowerPoint deck on the NSA’s secret Prism spying program and a trove of other classified information that he stole from the agency, has depicted himself as a highly skilled mole who exposed the NSA’s deepest secrets to the world. News coverage of the leaks has helped promote this storyline. Yet current and former intelligence officials familiar with his role within the agency present a different picture—one of a 30-year-old outsider with a talent for self-promotion, whose junior position kept him at a distance from the NSA’s most sensitive spy operations. “I think he was overbilling by telling people he had access to the dark inner secrets,” says James Lewis, a fellow in cybersecurity at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “He did what contractors do—he padded his résumé.”