maintenance work. Even though Snowden was no longer a system

80 | HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETS maintenance work. Even though Snowden was no longer a system administrator, he could still perhaps befriend a system administrator or even steal or borrow a service computer. Whatever the NSA’s and Booz Allen’s security measures, Snowden succeeded in getting the files. In a matter of a few weeks, he man- aged to download hundreds of thousands of Level 3 documents to an unsealed computer. He also took some less sensitive documents from the administrative file (which contained mainly Level 1 documents) at the end of April. These later acquisitions included an order from the FISA court issued on April 25, 2013. He had completed the operation by May 17, the last day he would ever enter the NSA facility. He transferred the data he had amassed on the service computer, including the lists of the computers in Rus- sia and China that the NSA had succeeded in penetrating, onto stor- age devices, which he later said were thumb drives. Then he coolly walked past the security guards at the exit, who only seldom per- formed random checks on NSA employees. He carried out the entire operation with such brilliant stealth that © he left few if any clues behind as to how he obtained his colleagues’ ® passwords to multiple compartments, moved the data from many different supposedly sealed computers to an opened service machine, or downloaded these documents to multiple thumb drives without arousing suspicion. The NSA would not discover the theft for fifteen days. His departure from Hawaii was also well prepared. Lindsay Mills had departed that morning for a planned two-week visit to the outer islands. This trip allowed him to pack his belongings without saying anything to her that might be difficult for her to later explain. He simply left a note that she could show to authorities saying that he was away ona “business trip.” He informed Bay that he would have to go in for epilepsy tests on the following Monday and Tuesday. If the results weren’t good, he might have to be out even longer. | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.z.indd 80 ® 9/29/16 5:51 Pa | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019568