The 20% Committee

Meanwhile the Kremlin is not hiding their anger with the situation and isn't relenting in their interference. Russian intelligence agencies have been busy creating and arming their own "Ukrainian Front” as a resistance to the protesters. I'm curious what Russia will do next and if conflict will continue. This is the type of crisis situation intelligence agencies love to exploit. Using citizens for proxy wars to further their interests. http://20committee.com/2014/02/22/kremlin-denounces-independent-ukrain… http://20committee.com/2014/02/03/meet-moscows-new-ukrainian-front/

Yup. Here's an article on issues with contractors and the way the US gov't hires: https://20committee.com/2014/11/24/how-many-snowdens-are-there/

John Schindler's reporting works as a kind of explainer on why Obama/Clinton/Trump are v. unlikely to pardon him: https://20committee.com/2014/05/31/the-xx-committee-snowden-reader/

I based my claims mostly on this: https://20committee.com/2015/08/31/wikileaks-is-a-front-for-russian-in… https://20committee.com/2013/07/06/wikileaks-snowden-and-the-belarus-c… As a former counteritelligence officer this guy seems to know what he's talking about. Unless of course he has his own agenda, but the facts presented are verifiable and pretty convincing.

I've always found the way security/terrorism issues are portrayed in movies or the news, especially in the U.S. to be really "cute". The manicheism of it all made me believe that either every news anchor really has no clue about how it works, or that they're exceptionally good actors. I also found that many times, events tend to be seen as discrete things that live in a vacuum rather than rooted to some previous event (isn't it interesting that these documents are resurfacing during a transition period where the U.S. is turning its back to Saudi Arabia and warming it up with Iran? Small pieces of content and info injected here and there). An interesting piece if you have a few minutes to spare: https://20committee.com/2014/09/25/what-if-everything-you-know-about-t…

The author of this piece (John R. Schindler) is a pretty interesting person: http://20committee.com/about/

http://20committee.com/about/ "John R. Schindler ... spent nearly a decade with the super-secret National Security Agency as an intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer."

> lack of motive It was most likely a mistake. > There is a lack of identity (if it were the Separatists, are they really controlled by Putin to that degree?) Top members of the rebels group, including the leader, are Russian citizens and former members of the FSB. http://20committee.com/2014/07/19/donetsk-rebels-and-russian-intellige… > The murder weapon happens to also be in the hand of the Ukrainian army (19 systems, 3 of them stationed in the range of the crash site) [2] If the Ukrainians were responsible, why are the rebels trying to cover up all the traces and why are they interfering with the international investigation? (Also, the source you quote is from Russian media, which are inherently biased, much more so than the multiple other sources whose evidence points towards Russia-backed rebels)

The "if this conspiracy were real, somebody would have leaked it by now" argument gets repeated all the time, but it's bogus. If correct, it would mean there were no covert ops. And we know that's not so. The reason why "conspiracy theories" sound silly is that the term itself is reserved for possibilities the speaker doesn't believe in [edit: changed that wording to make it more neutral]. Well-documented conspiracies are called "history". http://20committee.com/2013/02/24/what-if-everything-you-know-is-wrong…

It is not an accusation, it is the fact of the matter. He's a defector, he had help before and during his defection, and he is staying in Russia at the pleasure of the FSB (successor to the KGB), who, as we have seen has no problem terminating people for whom they have no use. Here's just the first article that pops up with some of the details: https://warisboring.com/the-defection-of-edward-snowden/ Here's about the third one, from an author who worked at NSA: https://20committee.com/2016/07/02/the-kremlin-admits-snowden-is-a-rus… There are many more, if anyone cares to read them, but this audience remains far too enamored of the 'state surveillance is always evil' mentality (and I formerly had the same attitude, not that it cannot be very evil, but certainly not always so). Snowdon and Putin's efforts to spin the 'hero/whistleblower' yarn, partly through outlest such as Sputnik, RU, Intercept, do not change the facts, and these outlets should be read with extreme skepticism.

>He said: “In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum. There are also newspapers like “Novaya Gazeta”, in which different parts of society in Moscow are permitted to critique each other and it is tolerated, generally, because it isn’t a big TV channel that might have a mass popular effect, its audience is educated people in Moscow. So my interpretation is that in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks.” In addition, he claimed “no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player.” https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/24/julian-assange-donald-tr… On Wikileaks facilitating Snowden's defection: http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-assange-wikileaks-and-russia-20… Oh, and here's him requesting FSB security guards inside the Ecuadorian embassy, because that's totally a normal thing that normal people do: https://archive.is/wEW0o#selection-867.62-867.223 And here's just a decent run-down of the whole shebang: https://20committee.com/2015/08/31/wikileaks-is-a-front-for-russian-in…

Okay, maybe not a spy, but an agent. https://20committee.com/2016/06/11/edward-snowden-is-a-russian-agent/ "The proper espionage term for Edward Snowden is defector, meaning an employee of an intelligence service who takes up residence in another country whose spies are not friends. Since 1917, every single Western intelligence defector to Moscow has cooperated with the Kremlin, on grounds of quid pro quo. There is no known case of a defector not collaborating with the KGB or its successors. If you want sanctuary, you will tell the Russians everything you know. That is how the spy game works. Any Russian intelligence officer who wants sanctuary in the United States will be required to collaborate with American spy services, including extended debriefings by multiple intelligence agencies. Are we really supposed to believe that Vladimir Putin, former KGB colonel, is more charitable?" https://20committee.com/2016/07/02/the-kremlin-admits-snowden-is-a-rus… "Now, the Kremlin has settled the issue once and for all by stating that Edward Snowden is indeed their man. In a remarkable interview this week, Franz Klintsevich, a senior Russian security official, explained the case matter-of-factly: “Let’s be frank. Snowden did share intelligence. This is what security services do. If there’s a possibility to get information, they will get it.”" Trumps daughter pals with Putin's girlfriend. Just saying.