Did any of you actually read the linked VICE article? I did. It was hella-long. I have to admit, I have a lot more respect for VICE's reportage than I had before this article. A couple of things:

1. ) I will remind you with words from Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rummsfeld, "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." In other words, the NSA could have simply deleted emails from Snowden, told others he spoke with to say he didn't. It's their credibility versus his. Who has a long history of telling lies (15pgs of NSA lies, NSA/CIA/Police/Politician Pedo files, Confirmed conspiracies are 75% CIA) and who has a history of informing the public of their activities?

2) On the CIA's Track Record on Honesty. (or lack thereof) I will remind you also that the intelligence community is desperate to make the appearance that they are in control of everything, even to the extent that they are spying on everything you do. Why? Because most people are OK with it. Most people are conventional establishmentarians, authoritarians who trust their government to do right by them. That's why they say, "well they can look through my sock drawer, I'm not a criminal, I have nothing to hide". As despicable and shortsighted and naive as this attitude may seem, many people hold it. They think whisleblowing is a crime of treason, again because they are authoritarians who justify institutional hierarchies over the individual. So if the CIA claims that Snowden is one of theirs--a limited hangout of sorts--this *could very well just be another power-move to appropriate kontrol over a situation that makes them look like keystone cops in a kangaroo court with their pants down (and on fire). The CIA has been outed as lying to the public about the drug war (they are the world's largest illicit drug traffickers), as well as manufacturing the means to embroil us in many wars (see sidebar 'list of proven conspiracies). Why should we trust ANYTHING they say?

1. ) It turns out Snowden did send NSA emails on both the extent of executive orders (the slide from analyst training materials in maryland, originally sent to sigint ogc) and raised issues of surveillance. So Snowden was truthful:

Litt disagreed. "I'm not sure that releasing the email will necessarily prove him a liar," Litt wrote to Caitlin Hayden, then the White House National Security Council spokesperson, along with De and other officials. "It is, I could argue, technically true that [Snowden's] email... 'rais[ed] concerns about the NSA's interpretation of its legal authorities.' As I recall, the email essentially questions a document that Snowden interpreted as claiming that Executive Orders were on a par with statutes. Within two hours, however, Litt reversed his position, and later that day, the email was released, accompanied by comment from NSA spokesperson Marci Green Miller: "The email did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse."

Five days later, another email was sent — this one addressed to NSA director Mike Rogers and copied to 31 other people and one listserv. In it, a senior NSA official apologized to Rogers for not providing him and others with all the details about Snowden's communications with NSA officials regarding his concerns over surveillance. The NSA, it seemed, had not told the public the whole story about Snowden's contacts with oversight authorities before he became the most celebrated and vilified whistleblower in US history.

1. ) Therefore the NSA is caught officially lying to itself, again. As well as the public AND the media.

Hundreds of internal NSA documents, declassified and released to VICE News in response to our long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, reveal now for the first time that not only was the truth about the "single email" more complex and nuanced than the NSA disclosed to the public, but that Snowden had a face-to-face interaction with one of the people involved in responding to that email. The documents, made up of emails, talking points, and various records — many of them heavily redacted — contain insight into the NSA's interaction with the media, new details about Snowden's work, and an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the efforts by the NSA, the White House, and US Senator Dianne Feinstein to discredit Snowden.

1. ) According to unredacted documents, the intelligence community uses 'wordpad', which means they use Windows, which means they are dumb, wasteful (windows licenses cost taxpayer money when linux is free/better), their agents are unskillful with computers, and don't care about security really.
2. ) The NSA forges email metadata, instead of giving unaltered originals along with an explanation. This is a RED FLAG because it's fraud:

Friday morning following inquiries we made about discrepancies in some of the emails turned over to us, Justice Department attorney Brigham Bowen said, "Due to a technical flaw in an operating system, some timestamps in email headers were unavoidably altered. Another artifact from this technical flaw is that the organizational designators for records from that system have been unavoidably altered to show the current organizations for the individuals in the To/From/CC lines of the header for the overall email, instead of the organizational designators correct at the time the email was sent."

1. ) Snowden challenged the idea that NSA said he didn't raise concerns

"The NSA... not only knows I raised complaints, but that there is evidence that I made my concerns known to the NSA's lawyers, because I did some of it through e-mail," he said. "I directly challenge the NSA to deny that I contacted NSA oversight and compliance bodies directly via e-mail and that I specifically expressed concerns about their suspect interpretation of the law."

1. ) NSA waffling and DOJ waiting -- NSA's Office of Legislative Affairs, Media Leaks Task Force main mission would be to take "more proactive actions to undermine future and recurring false narratives" by Snowden, as one NSA official wrote. To go forward with this plan, the NSA needed two things: Absolute certainty that Snowden had not communicated his concerns, and approval from the DOJ to release the email. The NSA appeared to have neither. Emails show that the DOJ preferred that Snowden's email not be publicly released. In addition, some in the NSA believed that additional investigations were necessary to ensure Snowden had not raised concerns.

2. ) Mealy-mouthed, unsubstantiated adhominem and imaginal attack on Snowden planted in the VICE story. This NSA coward couldn't even be named, if he/she even exists. -- Fabricating things is just the kind of thing a rapist murderer would do. (see what I just did?)

...an NSA official, whose name was redacted, wrote in response to De, "...Given [sic] Snowden's track record for truth telling (???) we should be prepared that he could produce falsified e-mails and claim he sent them. The burden then falls to us to prove he didn't (you know how that will end).""

At this point in the story, given the NSA's own track record on truthfulness, they have no leg to stand upon. In fact, the burden is now on THEM to prove to the public the truthfulness of Snowden with actual verifiable proof, not to paint the falsehood of Snowden with a lack of evidence.

1. ) NSA controlled the media on this issue

An NSA official offered up several options for dealing with NBC News, only one of which was left unredacted: "Option 1 – Engage NBC in dialog before their program airs about our factual understanding (a single outreach [from Snowden] noted, barely relevant to his claims." That's the option Rogers chose.On Tuesday, May 27, a day before NBC aired the first part of its interview, Cole emailed Vines and asked her to respond to seven very specific questions about Snowden and his work, though none touched on whether Snowden raised concerns at the agency. Vines forwarded the email to officials but didn't respond to Cole's queries. It appears that during the weeklong exchange between officials at the NSA, DOJ, ODNI, and White House, someone went above Cole's head and reached out to executives at NBC

1. ) The VICE article highlights this portion of their article as a quote, completely out of flow and context...it has nothing to do with the text around it:

The NSA's release of a 2013 email to employees marks the first official confirmation that Snowden had also worked with the CIA.

I suppose VICE is expecting you to just 'not read the article' (because it's fucking super long--do they think they are rolling stone or something?) but instead to skim it, and since this font is bigger and italicized

***It looks larger than the rest of the page and therefore must be some big point that I just made. HA HA.

But seriously, NO. Nothing this article has said to this point indicates--in any small measure--that Snowden also worked for the CIA. It's assuming that the kerfuffle of intelligence communities acting with Snowden's emails like a cackle of bridesmaids trying to get grape juice out of a dress is indication of Snowden's "obvious" ties to CIA. That because stuff is redacted about Snowden implies he's CIA. That's actually retarded. Because if that were the case, then Obama and Hillary are CIA also. OK? Seriously now folks you HAVE TO GET THIS OR all is lost on logic and reason. >>>>

I'm stopping here and making a full page response to this post.