Snowden didn't dupe any of his colleagues to get classified docs, he was given clearance

Dec 16, 2013 15:05 GMT  ·  By

Edward Snowden has largely been a very private person. Aside from a few sightings here and there and messages given to the media on occasion, Snowden has kept out of the limelight, letting the files do all the talking.

He never sought fame, but chose to risk leaking the files out of a sense of duty and morality. Forbes cites an unnamed NSA agent, a former colleague of Snowden, who says that the whistleblower is “a genius among geniuses.”

According to the publication, the source made contact to slam the reports coming from the NSA that Snowden had gained access to top-secret documents by tricking his coworkers to hand over their passwords. Instead, the source says, access was given to him.

“That kid was a genius among geniuses. NSA is full of smart people, but anybody who sat in a meeting with Ed will tell you he was in a class of his own. I’ve never seen anything like it,” the NSA staffer said.

It looks like the whistleblower managed to get access to documents as he impressed various managers in the NSA. Snowden was reportedly given the task to create a new web front-end for one of the agency’s projects, despite its contractor status. This gave him access to full administrator privileges and, along with that, to all NSA data.

Furthermore, he managed to impress his bosses in such a manner that he was even offered a position on the Tailored Access Operations, a famous hacker team that the agency uses frequently. He declined, however, and opted for another job.

Snowden is described as a smart individual, gifted, who held a copy of the constitution on his desk, stood up for colleagues and left them anonymous small gifts. He also wore a famous hoody from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that has the NSA logo adjusted with a series of AT&T cables.