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Whistle-blower | 93 truthful in describing himself. He said that he had been a senior adviser to the CIA, when he had been just a telecommunications sup- port officer. He also said he had been a senior adviser at the Defense Intelligence Agency, even though, according to that intelligence service, he was never employed there. (He did speak at an inter- agency counterintelligence course the DIA had sponsored.) He said he had a $200,000-a-year salary from Booz Allen when, according to Booz Allen, it was $133,000. It is understandable that he wanted to impress these Guardian journalists in light of his young age and boyish appearance, even to the extent of meretriciously claiming in the video that he had been personally given the “authority” at the NSA to intercept President Obama’s private communications, which, according to an NSA spokeswoman, was not true. No NSA employee, and certainly no civilian contract worker, was given the authority to spy on the president of the United States, she insisted. Such career enhancements reinforced the fact that Snowden altered reality when it suited his purpose with journalists. Snowden had greatly exaggerated or misrepresented the posi- ) tions he held with the CIA and the DIA, but no effort was made by © the team of journalists to verify the information. Instead, MacAskill wrote to Janine Gibson in New York, “The Guinness is good.” It was a prearranged code by which MacAskill certified Snowden’s cred- ibility for The Guardian. Gibson told Greenwald to proceed with the story. Snowden had already provided Poitras and Greenwald with thumb drives on which he had loaded the documents he wanted them to use. Greenwald wrote his first story about NSA transgressions based almost entirely on the FISA warrant involving Verizon’s coopera- tion that Snowden had copied from the administrative file. Before the story could be published, however, the Guardian policy required relevant American government officials be given the opportunity to respond. Gibson made the requisite call to the White House national security spokesperson, Caitlin Hayden, who arranged a conference call with the FBI’s deputy director, Sean Joyce, the NSA’s deputy director, Chris Inglis, and Robert Litt, the legal officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. After duly taking into account | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 93 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019581