Former KGB general: Snowden is cooperating with Russian intelligence

Interesting....Snowden is now working for Russian Intelligence. Wonder if this is just another try at goading the US into a fight.

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden probably never envisioned that he’d someday be working for the Russian federal security service, or FSB.

But according to former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin, he is now, albeit as a consultant or technical advisor.

“These days, the Russians are very pleased with the gifts Edward Snowden has given them. He’s busy doing something. He is not just idling his way through life.”

“The FSB are now his hosts, and they are taking care of him,” Kalugin boldly claimed in an interview with VentureBeat.

And this is a pretty straight forward jab if true...

Back in Russia, according to Kalugin, Snowden is being handled by the FSB, the KGB’s successor. Kalugin claims that Snowden has shared much of his vast trove of secrets about the NSA with his Russian hosts, and in the process, has allegedly handed the FSB one of their biggest intelligence hauls and propaganda coups since the end of the Cold War.

This claim echoes early warnings from congressman Michael McCaul, senator Dianne Feinstein, lieutenant general Michael Flynn, and congressman Mike Rogers, yet no concrete evidence proves that such an exchange took place. Snowden has consistently denied claims that he took security documents with him to Russia.

“Whatever he had access to in his former days at NSA, I believe he shared all of it with the Russians, and they are very grateful,” Kalugin claims.

Source

There is no return from this stop Mr.Snowden.
If you were not criminal number one before you are now.

We could be witnessing the series of events that unfold into a new cold war....if the old one ever ended that is.

Edward Snowden is not important, what is important is that due to technology and abuse of power, we are slowly becoming orwellian society.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I dont believe he has any choice however i dont think hes a treasure trove of information either. He worked for a contractor and his scope of information would have been limited.

If my country turned it's back on me and provided 0 support, I'd have done the same things.

All these congressmen and senators who rail against the NSA spying program, but in the same breath call Snowden a traitor for telling them what they didn't know and weren't going to be told.

What a sham.

~Tenth

a reply to: dragonridr

He worked for the contractor after being a payroll employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency at different points...

It wouldn't be fair to describe him in a way to minimize his adult life spent almost exclusively within the American intelligence community.

I don't know how much he kept when he made the jump from Chinese controlled Hong Kong to Moscow to properly defect, but it would be real weird for the Russians to give him a full ride without something given for value on his part.

Just a few things that I think are worth pointing out.

Oleg Kalugin's career with the KGB ended in the early 90's and he's lived in the States since around 1995. So it seems more likely that he's speculating rather than speaking from direct knowledge.

There's also a lot of bad blood between Kalugin and Putin, who had Kalugin tried and convicted of espionage somewhere around 2001 -2002.

I've read Kalugin's book and I think he's a great source of information, but I think he's a source that has to be handled carefully and with some skepticism.

The way propaganda is created it does need someone who might actually know what the scoop is but he was a agent and didn't have the full picture .I would think that he may have more credibility compared to say a Kerry or Clinton ..Sad eh US .I think what Snowden did was a good thing .I did expose the holes and reveal what most had suspected all along . No wonder Gadafie chose to camp out in a tent when he was in New York .

originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
a reply to: dragonridr

He worked for the contractor after being a payroll employee of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency at different points...

It wouldn't be fair to describe him in a way to minimize his adult life spent almost exclusively within the American intelligence community.

I don't know how much he kept when he made the jump from Chinese controlled Hong Kong to Moscow to properly defect, but it would be real weird for the Russians to give him a full ride without something given for value on his part.

Just the embarrassment factor alone is priceless at this point. Like during the cold war When Russians defected the information was often useless but the PR value was priceless.If he had anything incredibly damning it would have been released by now. As far as spying by the NSA it was always assumed every country does it the real damage he did was detailing the project not what was discovered doing it.

No grounds for my opinion what so ever.... But I thought this was kind of obvious

whats Snowden got--- hundreds of them memory sticks to prove his story....otherwise all his divulging is 'hearsay' not 'evidence'


Snowden ain't a traitor in the same sense that Globalists are not enemies against the Constitution but only 'concerned world citizens'

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I doubt they gave him any choice about it, he is in there hand's now and when he is no longer of use to them then he might be assassinated by alleged western operatives, after all they do not know what he know's that the west knew about them and they do not want that getting out as I doubt he went to that table without a contingancy, I may agree with the release of SOME of the information but not all as he definitly put both soldiers and agent's lives at risk, some of the document's he released could be used to track still operational project's and operatives by the compromised party's and releasing them was wrong, where he was trying to defend the US constitution on the other hand I think he did right IF that is what he was doing though and as a british man I envy the US there constitution even if not all of it and not the current attack's on it.

Some of the intelligence was old but the spying on every phone call and metadata has gone on for decade's without harming any one though indeed there are crime's which could have been solved if shall we say certain information the agency's involved where in possession of had made it's way to the correct echelon of law enforcement and the fact that it did not should show that these agency were single minded in there use of it protect there nation and it's interests and allies which is commendable.

Though what they did was not moral but neither was what snowdon did.

To some a hero to others a traitor but in truth whistleblower and he should have been protected as such by law and worst of all the very act of hunting him down actually drove his trove of data into potential enemy hands where otherwise the leak could have been contained and he could have gone on with his life as a former employee and loved/hated celebrity safe where they could then pull his string's.

It is sad to see that his IQ was higher than the man making the decision to hunt him down as it is better to control a leak than lose control of it to the enemy and interesting to see how that leak is now being used to fuel the neo soviet putinesk intelligence agency.

As for Putin he is rebuilding a block of power with China and Iran, his megolomania is a genuine threat not because he is worse than our leaders but because it is an arguement of power that can only lead to eventual war.

a reply to: LABTECH767

everything you said and rationalized sounded like a paid Apologist for the USA powers-that-are-in-control

nice reply post

Too bad for the US government. Perhaps whistleblower protection would have been better than declaring him a criminal.

If war was going to be inevitable then maybe what he did actually moves if further into the future .It may have actually caused the plans to do so been completely averted .With China making some moves over there may just be readjusting the board to negate a plan that with some info in the files provided to see .No war is always a good thing and a great defense will always thwart a secret plan .. a reply to: LABTECH767

a reply to: dragonridr

Would it? How many defections have resulted in the public airing of the information which the defector carried with them to the other side? Now there aren't many Americans to have actually defected to the 'East', even in the bad old days...but there were a handful. Was anything they knew announced?

In fact, hasn't Putin made it an openly stated condition of Snowden's stay in Russia that his direct participation in public release of new material would cease? (it's part of what was in the public record when the defection happened).

I appreciate the fact you figure he's a nobody....and of course, the whole Ukraine thing had nothing to do with little 'ol America ..but we do disagree. Strongly so. In this case, Snowden was not just an Officer or Employee of the NSA and CIA before going to the contract work ..he was in the position of network administration work. That defines his special and unique position of access and why his defection was not the run of the mill American running for the other side.

It's why even USG officials stated he took A LOT with him ...and what is still being released by what those in Europe were left with is fascinating stuff, now moving into what I won't even post here anymore for the specifics in some of the last week's documents. Fascinating but very damaging now to my nation's ability to maintain defense, and that...by definition of source..makes the boy a traitor to that same nation. All but the 2 witnesses are present..and I'm SURE that won't be too much trouble if ever he can by physically captured without war with Russia to get him.

a reply to: Elton

Perhaps he should have sought whistle blower status instead of vanishing like a thief in the night to hide within the Chinese Communist controlled Hong Kong administrative zone, then defect outright to Moscow.

What he did, where he ran and HOW he ran are precisely why I and many others have been somewhat undecided...but are fast losing any doubts as to what to call this person. Indeed...He's defined his own title, to be frank about it. In deed and word. He's defined himself, and I'll take him at that.

The KGB interloper is a chancer, the cop-out is here in these words,

"Whatever he had access to in his former days at NSA, I believe he shared all of it with the Russians,"
You don't say that if you know all.

a reply to: St Udio

God I wish I was, If you only knew how broke I am, Seriously though I spoke from my heart and though I care about america I am british and a civilian, My grandfather was however a intelligence operative, actually a spy master but that is as close I come he worked for the british army with operative inside the IRA, someone he saved of great importance in Liverpool then blew his cover by having him called a hero in the paper's and they then wanted to present him with a medal but he was so angry he refused the medal then changed his name from William Hallworth (His birth name not his operative name) to John Fegan and took a position of administration in the royal canadian mounted police as with his cover blown his family were in danger and the IRA members whom worked for him and by default British intelligence were essentially dead men.
So it is not only the Yanks whom make mistakes as far as keeping it under there hat is concerned.
I never met the guy but he was family, my grandfather so If I was an intel operative myself why would I disclose that.
There is an interesting thread on Schill's as you call them though and I am more interested in Lunar anomoly's and martian anomoly's than this subject, if you read my statement you will see that I actually think the authority's made a ball's up of how they dealt whith him and instead of operating a damage limitation they sought to make an example which is a symptomatic example of power gone to someone's head and of them being truly out of control.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

I believe he did what he felt was correct at the time. It is my understanding that he did try and inform superiors but was discounted so he chose to go public with the information in an attempt to create a national discussion of the apparent overreach of the US intelligence community.

Now he is probably just trying to live with the consequences of that act.