This is everything Edward Snowden revealed in one year of unprecedented top-secret leaks

Sandy, I worked at NSA for 18 years at the time most of the programs Snowden leaked were purportedly being run (I can neither confirm nor deny anything in the leaked material).I retired in 2010. I can tell you that the leaked material contained a great deal of information on sources and methods of entirely legal and normal operations that most Americans would expect our intelligence agencies to be doing, were they to think long and hard about our missions. Yes, a few of the programs were controversial when brought into the public light, but those had been debated internally at length and externally with many officials and finally at the FISA Court, and all had eventually granted permission for those programs.

Snowden, on the other hand, had a high-school education, somehow slipped through the security clearance process and got a menial job with a government contractor to work at the CIA and then NSA doing minor network maintenance tasks. I will mention at this point that I've only seen a couple clips from the movie - not the entire thing. Snowden never met with Chris Inglis. I know this because Chris told a group of us today in a group I belong to. He also told this to NPR on Saturday http://postlink.http://www.listbox.com/2207594/b1e405f3529c01bd89a072759c1e7ff6/138560/f6bd0d17?uri=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ucHIub3JnLzIwMTYvMDkvMTcvNDk0MzU2Mjk3L2EtZm9ybWVyLW5zYS1kZXB1dHktZGlyZWN0b3Itd2VpZ2hzLWluLW9uLXRoZS1lZHdhcmQtc25vd2Rlbi1tb3ZpZQ after watching the movie. It's also absolutely ridiculous to think the Deputy Director of NSA would reach all the way down to a low-level contractor and task him with an "undercover" mission to Hawaii. So the movie is full of Snowden trying to make himself look more important and knowledgeable than he was, and Oliver Stone playing t all up to make the movie pull in more money. From Snowden's positions at CIA and NSA, he had almost no knowledge of anything about the intelligence business, the intelligence community, intelligence operations, or anything about the material he would later steal from NSA's most protected networks.

He wormed his way into an assignment to Hawaii with his contractor, doing the same minor job, and had only been there a short time when he tricked his supervisor into giving Snowden his private password to an exclusive system where all the stolen documents resided. Over the next couple of months, Snowden began methodically downloading and storing his massive compilation of documents, without even knowing what it was he had. Snowden talks now like he is an expert on computer security and intelligence operations, but he knows next to nothing about either of these topics. He parrots what many others say about the documents and what others say about the topics, but he has nothing new to add, and it's clear from questions and his answers he doesn't understand most of the topics to any depth at all.

The sensational documents comprise about 5% of everything leaked so far. Of what has been leaked so far, about 85% has been information of significant intelligence value that has put lives at risk, or has damaged U.S. or allied operations or intelligence programs to a significant extent. That's just my estimate from looking through the materials. Snowden is a liar, a thief, and a traitor. He violated his oath without doing everything he could to resolve his perception of a problem within channels. He should return to the U.S. and stand up like a man for his principles, or else he has none and this has all just been a game for him.

Debrief, certainly. We need to know who set this putz in motion. It's clear he was manipulated, he had a detailed "out" path to follow.

Some very puzzling events in Snowden's backstory -
When there are holes in the backstory, especially in a case like this they are punched there on purpose. I don't buy it that a CIA officer is so upset by the events regarding a Swiss banker being used sets them in motion to leak classified information. As well then somehow land in Russia's FSB hands. This is the same guy who enlisted in the Army as a Special Forces Recruit (18X) on 7 May 2004 but was discharged 28 September 2004. While the Army says he did not complete any training or receive any awards they did not release Snowden's entire service record, or DD-214. So someone who signed up to kill people for a living had issues with turning a banker into an asset and then went to Russia - on a stopover to Ecuador - because he wanted to safeguard privacy, liberty. Sure Hawaii, Hong Kong, Russia on to Ecuador. I get it he had to use up those miles or he'd lose them.

Somethings not right here. I'm not sure what it, maybe a CIA mole with an incredible backstory or maybe just incredibly lucky misfit who actually believed doing so would safeguard privacy, liberty. Obama did restrict the Patriot Act as a result.