The NY Times has an interesting report, claiming that investigators looking back through Ed Snowden's history, discovered that he was written up back in 2009, while working for the CIA, in Geneva, for "trying to break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to have access." It was for this reason that he was sent home, and moved on to a new job, as a contractor for the NSA. The report notes that the writeup -- known as a "derogatory report" -- was considered somewhat minor, and wasn't shared with folks at the NSA.
What's interesting about this is that it at least suggests that Snowden has been considering all of this for quite a long time. Back in June, he had told Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras that his time in the CIA "disillusioned" him, and a colleague of his in Geneva apparently said recently that Snowden "was already experiencing a crisis of conscience of sorts" when she knew him back then. This seems interesting on a variety of levels, as it further highlights that Snowden didn't take the decision he made to be a whistleblower lightly. Plus, he had a long time to think things through, which supports the claims that Barton Gellman recently made, concerning Snowden's larger view of what he was doing.
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