Man on the run: Former CIA spies on what they'd do if they were Snowden
andmagazine.com
andmagazine.com
The one I'll point out is using a dead person's birth certificate to get ID and an SSN. The databases for the death index were cleaned up after 9/11 and if you try this, your attempt will be flagged and you'll likely be visited by law enforcement pretty shortly. You will not get an ID nor an SSN.
The best way to hide is to not leave any (legitimate) money/electronic trails. Practice disinformation. For example, use a credit card to buy a plane ticket to Bangkok on Saturday, then go buy a bus ticket to Mongolia with cash for Friday and similar tactics. It won't stop professionals from eventually finding you, but it will buy you (sometimes significant) time.
All this is pointless because almost certainly the US IC knows exactly where Snowden is already. It's laughable that anyone believes they're still searching for Snowden.
That is pretty clever. I wonder if tickets with less verification could be even more effective (for example, two bus tickets; one with cash and one with credit for a day later.) Might buy you more time, but the lower ticket price might also make it less convincing.
Giving a hobo your old credit card instead of burning it?
Do you work in intelligence?
As a government agency, don't they already have legitimate access to the real ID printing machines?
Sorry, I'm flabbergasted at the legal/illegal discussion over massive spying on non-US citizens.
A careful look at Snowden's tactics is that he is working off an understanding at how to play various groups and people off eachother. He has a keen sense of what everyone's interests are. His goal is not to be invisible but rather to be too hot to handle for anyone.
He almost comes across as too prepared. Occasionally I have wondered if someone was coaching him, but if he has been planning for years, he could have half a million dollars stashed somewhere (or at least a sizeable fraction of that), and he may simply have spotted his opportunity and known it wouldn't come again.
Whilst on the run however he can be "disappeared". How do we tell the difference between a Snowden lying low in some forgotten corner of the world, and a Snowden chained up in some forgotten US prison cell, or a Snowden burned to ashes in a car in Afghanistan? In both cases he is invisible to us. Dangerous, dangerous game. In fact it's so dangerous it's bordering on unbelievable for me.
I'm fully expecting that Snowden has prepared some kind of "insurance file" ala Assange and made sure it's set up and triggered to go in case he's suddenly taken into custody and rendered into parts unknown. He's hinted as much in his initial Guardian interview (e.g. "there's a lot more here but I don't want to hurt anybody personally").
There is a program that he signed for called the 'X-ray' program (18X). It affords the enlistee a pipeline directly to Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS). There is no faster way to go to SFAS than the 18X program.
The 18X program begins with 16 weeks of Infantry training followed by 3 weeks of Airborne school. This is not Special Forces training, however. It isn't even around Special Forces personnel- not even in the same state. Those 19 weeks encapsulate the period of time leading up to his "training accident" that resulted in his separation.
Had he completed Infantry OSUT and Airborne, he would have been sent to a 4 week preparation and conditioning course and then given a slot for SFAS (which is another 3 weeks). At that point, he STILL would have had ZERO Special Forces training. He's only been assessed for toughness and fitness generally speaking. Were he selected, he would begin the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC). During the time he enlisted, had he actually entered the SFQC, he would have begun with a preparation course for Small Unit Tactics (3 weeks). The closest to Special Forces training he'd have at the conclusion of that course would be land navigation and patrolling. No guerrilla warfare. No survival school. Nada.
His tactics are not so novel. He's taken "by, with, and through" from indigenous personnel to state agency.
But still, it's not that hard to find a job in the US doing some kind of manual labor, where they don't ask for any ID, pay cash, don't pay any taxes, and where the crew usually all go back to the bosses house and burn a few joints after work. If you're willing to swing a hammer and can run a mitre-saw and/or rip a piece of plywood on a table-saw, without cutting your hand off, you can probably find a construction job working "under the table". Finding a place to say would be tougher, since most (all?) US states require hotels / motels / etc. to collect ID information. But if you can find somebody friendly to let you crash on their couch, or find a low-paid motel clerk in some hick town, who'll take a small "donation" in order to rent you a room without ID...
Bus around the country, move periodically, and dye your hair a different color, grow a beard, let your hair grow out, and you could probably stay hidden in the US for quite some time.
I think you could totally do it in many cases. But I'm not sure that you could do it in this case. Snowden's face has been plastered all over newspapers, TV, the Internet, etc. Video of him, including his voice, has been all over TV and the internet. He has some distinguishing features that would make it fairly easy to confirm his identity. Also, hawkish conservatives (of which there are many in rural areas) are going to view this man as a traitor and delight in turning him in.
If he did stay here he probably would have many people willing to harbor him and give him food and shelter. But eventually they are going to slip up and he is going to be caught.
He realizes he can't hide. He's taking quite a gambit with Hong Kong but the calculations to do it have been extraordinarily well thought out.
If that doesn't happen then it'll just work its ways though the Hong Kong courts. If he attempts a legal delay and obstruction tactic similar to Assange it could take years. Meanwhile the US demonization will continue and the US/China/Hong Kong politics will wax and wane. But most probably he'd end up in a US jail eventually, with all the political fallout that that will entail.
What would he do? Would he cooperate with the traditional enemy? That might put his motives in question and he would become an easier target to slander. ("aha, he was a traitor all along, a Chinese spy etc etc.")
Equally he could have previously acquired an alternateidentity during his planning, and might even be in South America by now.
I won't be surprised if they already got him.
When they make him disappear the world would scream horror for a week and the week after that nobody will even remember him.
And it seems most of those spooks interviewed never actually had to run for their life, putting their theories to the test.
NSA doesn't do much field intelligence stuff; it's mainly radio/etc. intercepts on military bases, aircraft, ships, etc. Their regular site security is either military or contracted out to Wackenhut or other private security companies, after all (which is apparently what one of Snowden's early jobs was).
The real tough guys of the signals world are the Army's ISA, who do tactical sigint and killing, all in one. I'm sure ISA and NSA cooperate a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Support_Activity
They're the guys who caught Pablo Escobar. Essentially the most secretive of the tier-1 JSOC units. IMO, the world's most awesome job for a bofh sysadmin -- you get to listen in to enemy communications, and use their improper security procedures to find them, and then punish them (by killing them).
You can fill in that blank with just about any superlative and it fits. My dream job would be to work for the secret army of northern virginia.
It's very common for public officials to get too much money, and not be able to spend it. So they find another agency which wants the money, and organise some kind of joint operation. It keeps their spending nice and robust (so the bean counters don't realise they don't need all that money), and the other side gets the resources they need. It's win-win (for everyone but the taxpayers).
Never underestimate the crimes of the CIA. We will likely never live to see the full extent of their atrocities.
OTOH, as far as I can tell, to call them ineffectual from ~1989 until ~2000s sometime would be excessively kind. So maybe they did also suck before that as well, but I think the end of the Cold War and political turnover after GHWB really gutted them, and it wasn't until they remade themselves as a black site operating, drone killing paramilitary group that they came back.
The cynical view is never fully accurate, sometimes it isn't accurate at all because organisations always include idealist/true believers/patriots. Organisations which don't include idealists tend to weed themselves out pretty quickly and collapse.
It would be interesting to see what a "we are really professional, but generally law abiding" intelligence service could do.
This is by no means advice for Snowden, but it's worth a shot.
When you're on the run, burn your passport. Get rid of your wallet except for cash. If you can, withdraw as much cash as possible and close your bank accounts. Toss your wallet in a fire, taking only cash. Get rid of any physical attributes that could be used to easily find you. If you wear the same type of shirt every day, wear a different one every day. Shave your facial hair, and get a new hairdo.
Be a nomad. Sleep in homeless shelters, and go from place to place, never staying in one location too long. Set false breadcrumbs, like Facebook logins, at strategic locations. Map out a route of where you plan to go, and map out the route where you'll leave linked IPs, logins, property along the way, maybe make a call or two with a prepaid phone and dispose of it.
When your money supply is running low, forge your own identity. Create a new name, with a new ethnicity. Get a job. Live there for a while, never getting too close to anyone. Disappear. Get off the grid permanently. If the United States approves a pardon, then show up only after 4 months, it could be a decoy.
Always stay on the run. And never. Trust. Anyone.
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for added effect, listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7qiosq4m4
Do this early on, preferably before blowing your cover.
Once inside, train travel (usually, though this may have changed a year or so ago) or long distance bus travel requires no identification and there are a huge number of long and porous land borders to cross, particularly in the Southeast Asian direction. Though he'd want to avoid part of the Vietnam one due to the likelihood of leftover land mines.
The Shan, Wa and Kachin armies in northern Burma are known to be extremely hospitable to visitors. Likewise, it's easy to stay off the grid in Laos for decades.
While in China, the lack of a passport could be explained with an easily faked 'receipt' from any semi-local embassy: "they're making me a visa". This would of course gel with one's travel story. (Hint: Between Hong Kong and SEA borders there are international consulates for SEA nations in Nanning and Kunming.)
(Edit: Cambodia has few hills. Vietnam has too high a population density. Laos is a reasonable option. The Shan State Army is perhaps too affiliated with neighbouring powers. The Wa or Kachin would be better destinations, the latter are also near completely Christian due to US missionary activity, and on bad terms with the central Burmese authorities of late so less likely to hand people over. All in all, the Kachin would be a good bet.)
The hippies tend not to stay in the mountains through the winter.
1) Chinese public transport is subject to random stops and searches. Everyone has to show identification.
2) The Chinese borders with Vietnam and Laos are not exactly tourist destinations. The place is rife with ethnic tensions and saturated with military presence, due to opium trafficking, smuggling of goods, and that little war between Vietnam and China.
3) The hill-tribe and minority "armies" (gangs?) are just 2nd-rate heroin traffickers, and that region is one of the most heavily infiltrated by intel, specially Thai. Thailand is one of the closest U.S. allies, right up there with Colombia and Jordan in terms of ass-kissing to State Department.
4) Both China and Vietnam are police states; any whiff of him and they can mobilize undercover cops of an entire city. Hotel and taxi operators are the gov's eyes and ears. Not to mention you're required to register your movement with nearest police station (no one ever does this ;-)
Bangkok would have been a perfect option, since the people are desensitized to white men and no one would notice him.
Bangkok is indeed a good destination, except, as you point out, that Thailand is a major US ally.
China requires a visa for US passport holders regardless of port of entry. Coming from HK is not an exception.
Firstly, before he decided to be a whistle-blower he should have made some plans. If he has not, I would say just go deep into some forest and live there like a hermit for at least a year.
Prerecorded video explicitly stating where he's located? Seems like a ruse.
I am absolutely sure that several people would come up in his support. He can turn himself into a symbol. Any court case around him will be closely followed and analyzed.
"There was a note. Jimmy, have they found the note yet?..."