| ® | 26 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS ever, according to a reply by a CIA public affairs officer to the Times, Snowden had not been fired or accused of attempting to “break into classified computer files to which he did not have authorized access.” A former CIA officer who had also been at the U.S. mission in Geneva explained the discrepancy to me. He said that the spin the CIA put on the story was “necessary containment.” After the Snowden breach occurred in June 2013, the CIA had a problem that could, as he put it, “blow up in its face.” If Snowden had been fired but allowed to keep his security clearance in 2009, the CIA’s incom- petence could be partly blamed for the NSA’s subsequent employ- ment of him. If he had broken into a computer to which he was not authorized, he should have been fired if not arrested. What this spin glossed over, according to this former CIA officer, is the part about Snowden’s behavior that concerned his superior. Technically, Snowden, as a CIA communications officer, was autho- rized to use the computer system. The problem was that Snowden had deliberately misused it by adding code to it. This code could have compromised the security of the CIA’s “live system.” So while what © the CIA public affairs officer quoted in the Times story said was cor- ® rect, it clouded the issue. During his time in Geneva, Snowden had received no promotions or commendations for his work. He was threatened with a punitive investigation unless he agreed to quietly resign from the CIA. “It was not a stellar career” Drumheller, the former CIA station chief, told me in 2014. Snowden blamed his career-ending “derog” on an “e-mail spat” with a superior. From Moscow, he wrote to James Risen of the Times that his superior officer ordered him not “to rock the boat.” Further, he complained that the technical team at the CIA station in Geneva had “brushed him off,” even though he had a legitimate grievance. When he complained about a flaw in the computer system, he