The 32-year-old’s Twitter account is the first vehicle Snowden has had to engage directly with both his supporters and critics since he who went on the run after leaking classified Government documents in 2013.
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GCHQ has dubbed these capabilities the “Smurf Suite”, named after the mushroom-shaped-house dwelling cartoon characters.
Edward Snowden is willing to serve time behind bars as part of a deal with the U.S. government that would see him able to return to the country, the National Security Agency whistleblower reportedly said in a new interview.
He fled to Hong Kong where he met journalists to co-ordinate a series of articles that exposed mass surveillance programmes such as the NSA’s Prism and GCHQ’s Tempora, which involve “hoovering up” vast volumes of private communications. “Dreamy Smurf” would allow the GCHQ to switch phones on and off remotely, Snowden said, and “Tracker Smurf” allowed spies to follow the phones’ owners.
Nosey Smurf turns on the microphone inside a smartphone.
He said the encrypted text message used to access a phone can enter a person’s phone without them noticing.
Before leaving office earlier this year, former US Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department might consider a plea deal, but Snowden told the BBC that he and his lawyers had waited for USA officials “to call us back”.
“When it arrives at your cellphone it is concealed from you. You paid for it however whoever controls the software program owns the telephone”, he added.
Another tool, Paranoid Smurf, is actually a defensive mechanism, Snowden explained.
Our work is always done in accordance with all the strict legislative policies and the legal framework, which ensures that the GCHQ’s activities are necessary and proportionately carried out. “All our operational processes rigorously support this position”.
“They say, and in many cases this is true, that they’re not going to read your email, for example, but they can and if they did you would never know”, he said.
The United Kingdom government declined to comment on all that, says Panorama.
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The government believes Mr Snowden has caused great damage to the intelligence agencies’ ability to counter threats to national security. However, Snowden has resisted because trials under the Espionage Act do not permit the accused to mount a public interest or whistleblower defense in court.
