| ® | Lb 2 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS nections. Making the task even more risky, according to my Booz Allen source, there were closed-circuit cameras. The only way he could mitigate the risk of detection was by having someone help him build this network. Even if Snowden had managed to obtain all the necessary pass- words from colleagues, he would have had to transfer the files to an external storage device. This was not a matter of simply attaching a thumb drive or other external device to a port, because, unlike in movies such as Mission: Impossible, the ports on the computers at the NSA were ordinarily sealed shut. This measure was taken spe- cifically to prevent any unauthorized downloading by NSA workers. The only people at the center who had the authorization, and the means, to open these ports and transfer data were system admin- istrators, according to the former Booz Allen executive. System administrators needed to have this privilege to deal with glitches in the computers. Snowden was no longer a system administrator and had no such privileges. So again, he would have needed help. He would have needed to either borrow a system administrator’s © credential or forge his own. ® The credential he would need is called a public key infrastructure, or PKI, card with its authentication code embedded in a magnetic strip. When I asked the former Booz Allen executive if Snowden possessed the skill set to forge such a card, he said that he strongly doubted any NSA employee would be capable of such a forgery without special equipment. Just asking such a favor could “set off alarms,” my source said. The unwitting accomplice scenario had another stumbling block: time. We know from Poitras that Snowden told her in early April 2013 that he planned to deliver documents to her in six to eight weeks (which he in fact did). But he had not yet started working for Booz Allen at the center until that same month. It does not seem plausible that in making such a commitment h