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I'm actually surprised he has any access to his money at all. I assumed all of his assets would have been frozen under some sort of murky fugitive/terrorist/or

by IvyMike 13y ago

I'm actually surprised he has any access to his money at all. I assumed all of his assets would have been frozen under some sort of murky fugitive/terrorist/organized crime laws. Or maybe he took proactive steps to keep this from happening?

ekianjo 13y ago
Well he could have withdrawn some significant amount of cash before leaving, or put it in banks not controlled by US interests.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  > or put it in banks not controlled by US interests. That would probably be tough for him to have done.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    Why is that? After all, he knew that he was blowing out some serious secrets, and he did take the necessary steps to protect himself from direct retaliation at the time, and was advised on how to do so as well. It would not make much sense that he would have somehow "forgot" about protecting his financial assets.
    - pyre 13y ago
      The US has even bent the Swiss banks to their will. I think that "not under US influence" isn't a synonym for "outside of the US." Withdrawing large amounts of cash, or transferring money to (e.g.) the Bank Melli Iran would have presumably raised red flags.
      - blackoil 13y ago
        depending on the amount HSBC/Citibank can be considered not under US influence.
        digitalengineer 13y ago
        Everything that uses the SWIFT banking system is under the US control. So that's basically everything and everybody. That's wht some of the BRIC's are setting up their own SWIFT payment system...
        sangnoir 13y ago
        I think you are overstating the amount of control the US has. The US is spying on SWIFT transactions, that's a world of a difference from actually controlling SWIFT.
        digitalengineer 13y ago
        Did I really? WallStreetJournal :"Both houses of the U.S. Congress have drafted legislation threatening to penalize Swift's board and owners if they didn't ban the suspect Iranian entities from using its network." http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204795304577223900530203704 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020479530...
        tzakrajs 13y ago
        Again, this quote says nothing of the US having control over the Swift network itself.
        Shivetya 13y ago
        Denial works as well as control. Deny access through,to, or from, it pretty much sufficient. As the quote from Dune goes, He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.
        rgbrenner 13y ago
        I think he was referring to this: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge-approves-1-9b-drug-money-laundering-accord.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge-approves... http://nypost.com/2012/04/05/us-regulator-cites-citibank-for-violating-money-laundering-law/ http://nypost.com/2012/04/05/us-regulator-cites-citibank-for...
    - mseebach 13y ago
      I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the financial dealings of Top Secret personnel is under some level of surveillance. It's not about where to move it to, but moving it in the first place.
      - officemonkey 13y ago
        OTOH, it would not be hard to play the "paycheck-to-paycheck game" and withdraw all his cash, spend very little of it, and launder it through his trusted friends who could very well have imported it to Hong Kong (at $9,999 per flight) before he flew the coop.
        mseebach 13y ago
        I'd say that's exactly the kind of behaviour that gets flagged. Why did you shift from spending on your credit card and saving in your account to taking out almost all your money in cash every month? The guy made $100k+, that's a lot of money. Drug problem, trying to pay a blackmailer off? Also, I wouldn't overestimate how many of his friends he could successfully enlist in what technically (if not morally) was a conspiracy to commit treason. For something like this to be successful, it needs to come out of the blue.
        pwnna 13y ago
        Reading through this comment chain and seeing all the plausible speculations about how these guys' banking info are monitored for red flags.. a) Why are we not mad about that kinda thing? b) Doesn't the law of large numbers say that even if someone does something that looks weird, it might just be for random fluctuations? Or is the financial system too.. regular?
        officemonkey 13y ago
        I think you're overestimating the capacity of the security apparatus to monitor the security apparatus. They have so much work that they have to hire contractors to do it. They rely on the clearance process to weed out the untrustworthy. Re-investigations are typically at 5 year intervals. It would not surprise me that any person they have watching the store is someone who is being chided for not doing "real" work. Basically "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Nobody, apparently.
  - khuey 13y ago
    Indeed. As Iran has found out, essentially the entire global financial system (via SWIFT, etc) will be closed off to you if the US is after you.
    - gahahaha 13y ago
      Another example: Wikileaks.
Theodores 13y ago
If you blow the whistle on something then all of your resources are put into getting to the whistleblowing stage. The dedication is entirely devoted to the act, not the aftermath. All that is expected of the aftermath is a bumpy ride, the possibility of being universally despised, ostracised from society and so on. Money and the means to get by is not perceived to be such a big problem when one is fully prepared to end up in Guantanamo Bay. To some extent that is the end goal, in that respect Chelsea Manning succeeded. Snowden did pretty well getting to Russia, getting some hangers on to provide support and getting a job. The fact that he is broke is mere mortal stuff, he is waiting for his pay check to come through. As any ex-cat-1 prisoner can tell you, life on the run is the most expensive way to live. With Snowden he has had many agencies after him, all with their different approaches. Obviously the U.S. have been on his case, they tend to be good at the sigint stuff but not so good at actual spy trade craft. I would not be at all surprised if there was a British team on his case too, better able to watch him pop to the shops for a pint of milk. Then the Russians will be monitoring everything, on their home turf and able to keep watch on who is keeping watch. Not all watchers will be hostile to him, after all we are all human (Tony Blair excepted), however, none of the many folks observing him will be able to assist him. They will watch him starve rather than intervene. Presumably he is not as on-the-run as he has had to be, however, the practical implications of being completely on-the-run are more than you might think. Imagine he wants to be able to do things like sleep without being observed. That means he has to move every day, and at extremely short notice so anyone watching him does not get a head start, e.g. to bug a hotel room before he gets in there. He also has to pay cash up front just on the off chance he has lost his tail. Then the same again the next day and the day after that. Eventually he will realise that trying to escape his watchers is a fruitless task and decide it is better to take a disinformation approach. At this stage he could try to convince those behind the bugs that he has gone mad. Claiming to be the messiah, pretending to have narrowly avoided being poisoned, hearing voices - standard lunatic stuff. He might also want to go the extra mile on proving that he is no longer an existential threat to the American Way of Life, taking up a pastime such as computer gaming, putting in marathon Playstation sessions and completely ignoring the news. After a year or so of doing this he will be able to convince himself that he has his privacy back and live the normal life. Snowden probably also has had the problem of living off a good pay cheque and then having to adapt to a normal pay check, or no money at all. If you are used to paying thousands a month on accommodation, buying nice food and doing things like driving a car then it can take a while to adapt to barely having enough money to afford groceries for the next day. A mental attitude has to change, from being generous with tips to actually living off what that tip would be. That change does not happen so easily, even if circumstance forces that change to be necessary. Anyway... This talk of sending the guy a few bitcoins is far off from the reality of his situation. Sounds to me that he actually does have everything that he needs to live, i.e. a job and a few close friends. He has sorted himself out. He does not need to be beholden to charity handouts.
mathattack 13y ago
He wasn't making that much money, and some of it had to be in hard to reach places. (401Ks?) So even if he had 100K, how long will it last when you're travelling internationally and staying in expensive hotels? Being a whistleblower doesn't excuse you from having to work for a living. I hope he's able to get decent employment.
- strickjb9 13y ago
  And cashing out your 401k while holding a Top Secret clearance sounds like a major red flag. If he did cash it out, I wonder if he stuck around to pay the tax penalties for doing so?
  - 300bps 13y ago
    401k administrators are required to discount any 401k payout by an estimate of the amount of tax you would owe including the 10% penalty. So if you cashed out $100,000 you'd likely only received a check for about $60,000. The rest would go directly to the IRS and if that made you pay too much you could get your refund the following year. The IRS always get paid.
    - gryz 13y ago
      he could also take a loan from his 401k
      - iribe 13y ago
        They don't allow you to loan out >50% of your 401k.

by IvyMike 13y ago

ekianjo 13y ago

Well he could have withdrawn some significant amount of cash before leaving, or put it in banks not controlled by US interests.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
> or put it in banks not controlled by US interests. That would probably be tough for him to have done.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  Why is that? After all, he knew that he was blowing out some serious secrets, and he did take the necessary steps to protect himself from direct retaliation at the time, and was advised on how to do so as well. It would not make much sense that he would have somehow "forgot" about protecting his financial assets.
  - pyre 13y ago
    The US has even bent the Swiss banks to their will. I think that "not under US influence" isn't a synonym for "outside of the US." Withdrawing large amounts of cash, or transferring money to (e.g.) the Bank Melli Iran would have presumably raised red flags.
    - blackoil 13y ago
      depending on the amount HSBC/Citibank can be considered not under US influence.
      - digitalengineer 13y ago
        Everything that uses the SWIFT banking system is under the US control. So that's basically everything and everybody. That's wht some of the BRIC's are setting up their own SWIFT payment system...
        sangnoir 13y ago
        I think you are overstating the amount of control the US has. The US is spying on SWIFT transactions, that's a world of a difference from actually controlling SWIFT.
        digitalengineer 13y ago
        Did I really? WallStreetJournal :"Both houses of the U.S. Congress have drafted legislation threatening to penalize Swift's board and owners if they didn't ban the suspect Iranian entities from using its network." http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204795304577223900530203704 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020479530...
        tzakrajs 13y ago
        Again, this quote says nothing of the US having control over the Swift network itself.
        Shivetya 13y ago
        Denial works as well as control. Deny access through,to, or from, it pretty much sufficient. As the quote from Dune goes, He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing.
        rgbrenner 13y ago
        I think he was referring to this: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge-approves-1-9b-drug-money-laundering-accord.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/hsbc-judge-approves... http://nypost.com/2012/04/05/us-regulator-cites-citibank-for-violating-money-laundering-law/ http://nypost.com/2012/04/05/us-regulator-cites-citibank-for...
  - mseebach 13y ago
    I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the financial dealings of Top Secret personnel is under some level of surveillance. It's not about where to move it to, but moving it in the first place.
    - officemonkey 13y ago
      OTOH, it would not be hard to play the "paycheck-to-paycheck game" and withdraw all his cash, spend very little of it, and launder it through his trusted friends who could very well have imported it to Hong Kong (at $9,999 per flight) before he flew the coop.
      - mseebach 13y ago
        I'd say that's exactly the kind of behaviour that gets flagged. Why did you shift from spending on your credit card and saving in your account to taking out almost all your money in cash every month? The guy made $100k+, that's a lot of money. Drug problem, trying to pay a blackmailer off? Also, I wouldn't overestimate how many of his friends he could successfully enlist in what technically (if not morally) was a conspiracy to commit treason. For something like this to be successful, it needs to come out of the blue.
        pwnna 13y ago
        Reading through this comment chain and seeing all the plausible speculations about how these guys' banking info are monitored for red flags.. a) Why are we not mad about that kinda thing? b) Doesn't the law of large numbers say that even if someone does something that looks weird, it might just be for random fluctuations? Or is the financial system too.. regular?
        officemonkey 13y ago
        I think you're overestimating the capacity of the security apparatus to monitor the security apparatus. They have so much work that they have to hire contractors to do it. They rely on the clearance process to weed out the untrustworthy. Re-investigations are typically at 5 year intervals. It would not surprise me that any person they have watching the store is someone who is being chided for not doing "real" work. Basically "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Nobody, apparently.
- khuey 13y ago
  Indeed. As Iran has found out, essentially the entire global financial system (via SWIFT, etc) will be closed off to you if the US is after you.
  - gahahaha 13y ago
    Another example: Wikileaks.

Theodores 13y ago

If you blow the whistle on something then all of your resources are put into getting to the whistleblowing stage. The dedication is entirely devoted to the act, not the aftermath. All that is expected of the aftermath is a bumpy ride, the possibility of being universally despised, ostracised from society and so on. Money and the means to get by is not perceived to be such a big problem when one is fully prepared to end up in Guantanamo Bay. To some extent that is the end goal, in that respect Chelsea Manning succeeded. Snowden did pretty well getting to Russia, getting some hangers on to provide support and getting a job. The fact that he is broke is mere mortal stuff, he is waiting for his pay check to come through. As any ex-cat-1 prisoner can tell you, life on the run is the most expensive way to live. With Snowden he has had many agencies after him, all with their different approaches. Obviously the U.S. have been on his case, they tend to be good at the sigint stuff but not so good at actual spy trade craft. I would not be at all surprised if there was a British team on his case too, better able to watch him pop to the shops for a pint of milk. Then the Russians will be monitoring everything, on their home turf and able to keep watch on who is keeping watch. Not all watchers will be hostile to him, after all we are all human (Tony Blair excepted), however, none of the many folks observing him will be able to assist him. They will watch him starve rather than intervene. Presumably he is not as on-the-run as he has had to be, however, the practical implications of being completely on-the-run are more than you might think. Imagine he wants to be able to do things like sleep without being observed. That means he has to move every day, and at extremely short notice so anyone watching him does not get a head start, e.g. to bug a hotel room before he gets in there. He also has to pay cash up front just on the off chance he has lost his tail. Then the same again the next day and the day after that. Eventually he will realise that trying to escape his watchers is a fruitless task and decide it is better to take a disinformation approach. At this stage he could try to convince those behind the bugs that he has gone mad. Claiming to be the messiah, pretending to have narrowly avoided being poisoned, hearing voices - standard lunatic stuff. He might also want to go the extra mile on proving that he is no longer an existential threat to the American Way of Life, taking up a pastime such as computer gaming, putting in marathon Playstation sessions and completely ignoring the news. After a year or so of doing this he will be able to convince himself that he has his privacy back and live the normal life. Snowden probably also has had the problem of living off a good pay cheque and then having to adapt to a normal pay check, or no money at all. If you are used to paying thousands a month on accommodation, buying nice food and doing things like driving a car then it can take a while to adapt to barely having enough money to afford groceries for the next day. A mental attitude has to change, from being generous with tips to actually living off what that tip would be. That change does not happen so easily, even if circumstance forces that change to be necessary. Anyway... This talk of sending the guy a few bitcoins is far off from the reality of his situation. Sounds to me that he actually does have everything that he needs to live, i.e. a job and a few close friends. He has sorted himself out. He does not need to be beholden to charity handouts.

mathattack 13y ago

He wasn't making that much money, and some of it had to be in hard to reach places. (401Ks?) So even if he had 100K, how long will it last when you're travelling internationally and staying in expensive hotels? Being a whistleblower doesn't excuse you from having to work for a living. I hope he's able to get decent employment.

strickjb9 13y ago
And cashing out your 401k while holding a Top Secret clearance sounds like a major red flag. If he did cash it out, I wonder if he stuck around to pay the tax penalties for doing so?
- 300bps 13y ago
  401k administrators are required to discount any 401k payout by an estimate of the amount of tax you would owe including the 10% penalty. So if you cashed out $100,000 you'd likely only received a check for about $60,000. The rest would go directly to the IRS and if that made you pay too much you could get your refund the following year. The IRS always get paid.
  - gryz 13y ago
    he could also take a loan from his 401k
    - iribe 13y ago
      They don't allow you to loan out >50% of your 401k.