Hong Kong. This group constituted the intelligence “mission,” as he referred to it. After

[2 Hong Kong. This group constituted the intelligence “mission,” as he referred to it. After Snowden outed himself on the Internet, the mission began tracking Snowden’s movements. Since Snowden, his lawyers and the journalists in his entourage frequently used their cell phones to text one another, it was fairly easy for the mission to follow Snowden’s trail after he left the Mira hotel. Presumably, the Hong Kong Police also knew where he was during this period. My source further suspected that the massive Chinese intelligence contingent in Hong Kong also knew, since it had close relations with the Hong Kong police. If so, Snowden’s whereabouts as he moved every few days from apartment to apartment was no secret anyone but the public from June 10" to June 23™ “Of course we knew,” he said, adding that there were also photographs of Snowden entering the office building that housed the Russian consulate. I mentioned that there was a report in a Russian newspaper that Snowden had visited the Russian consulate in late June in connection with the flight he later took to Moscow. “All we know is he entered the building,” he answered, with a shrug. That visit did not come as a complete surprise to US intelligence. After Snowden left the Mira, his interactions with the Russian and Chinese intelligence services in Hong Kong also had been closely monitored by the “secret means,” as was subsequently confirmed to me a former top intelligence executive in Washington DC. All of Snowden’s stealth in exiting from the Mira hotel, which included wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, was ineffective in hiding him from US intelligence and presumably other intelligence services seeking the treasure trove of documents he had taken from the NSA. Among other things, the Hong Kong lawyers moving him to a safe house were carrying easily traceable cell phones. The mystery that most concerned me was, however, not where Snowden was housed in the interim between when he went public and when he went to Moscow. It was where, and in whose care, Snowden had been before, he had checked into the Mira hotel on June 1*. When I asked him about this period, he said that as far as he knew neither the FBI nor the Hong Kong police could find a trace of him during the period between May 20", when he passed through Hong Kong customs, and June 1“, when he used his credit card and passport to check into the Mira hotel. They could not find any credit card charges, ATM withdrawals, telephone calls, hotel registrations, subway pass purchases or other clues to Snowden’s activities. As far as a paper trail was concerned, Snowden was a ghost during this period. Could an American just vanish in Hong Kong for eleven days, I asked”? “Apparently he did just that,” my source replied. Snowden’s whereabouts during these 11 days was not a mystery I was going to solve on this first trip to Hong Kong. I needed to know more about Snowden’s activities before he flew to Hong Kong. After all, Snowden was not, as he himself pointed out from Moscow, an “angel descending from the heavens.” He had a past working for the US government that extended back seven years. During that period, he had been part of America’s secret intelligence regime, and held a clearance for Sensitive Compartmented Information, or SCI. Such SCI material is considered so sensitive that it must be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020164