Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Not long after the existence of the NSA's massive PRISM surveillance program leaked, Snowden truthers began speculating on the leaker's identity. Was the whistleblower still an NSA agent? Was it all just a false flag operation?
These were more or less reasonable questions, as it was impossible to know at first who the leaker really was. Snowden's very public outing of his identify only added fuel to the fire. From there, the conspiracy theories went into their theoretical paroxyms. That paranoia over Snowden's real modus operandi even managed to infect journalists and writers like Naomi Wolff, Ezra Klein, and Evan Soltas.
Wolff, who in Shock Doctrine theorized a corporate-state economic panic machine, wrote a Facebook post in which she speculated that Snowden is actually still an NSA agent:
I hate to cast any skepticism on what seems to be a great story of a brave spy coming in from the cold in the service of American freedom. And I would never raise such questions in public if I had not been told by a very senior official in the intelligence world that indeed, there are some news stories that they create and drive—even in America (where propagandizing Americans is now legal). But do consider that in Eastern Germany, for instance, it was the fear of a machine of surveillance that people believed watched them at all times—rather than the machine itself—that drove compliance and passivity. From the standpoint of the police state and its interests—why have a giant Big Brother apparatus spying on us at all times—unless we know about it?
Klein and Solta, writing in their daily Washington Post column Wonkbook, even went so far as to suggest that Snowden doesn't actually exist. That he is, more than likely, a NSA creation—a diversionary tactic to get the masses following a narrative, "emotional arc," and thus forget the NSA leaks themselves.
"Aeroflot flight 150, from Moscow to Havana, was packed with dozens of journalists who’d bought tickets to get a glimpse of, and maybe even an interview with, fleeing leaker Edward Snowden," write Klein and Soltas. "But when the doors closed and the plane readied for takeoff, they made an unpleasant discovery: Snowden wasn’t on the plane... There is, of course, only one explanation for Snowden’s absence: He never existed in the first place."
Let's pretend for a second that they aren't being cheeky. (An added editor's note makes clear that it's a joke.) For the Klein and Soltas theory to work, an endlessly fascinating, all encompassing, stem-winding NWO-style conspiracy theory must be explored, in which all of the following would have to be true: Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian and Washington Post were complicit with the NSA; Julian Assange is a NSA agent; WikiLeaks is an ongoing false flag operation and isn't actually with Snowden; and Russia, China, Hong Kong and Ecuador are all in league with the US. Put more simply, America's domestic and international spy operations have completely infiltrated every foreign government, news organization and airport in the world.
We could even get playfully recursive with the theory. Perhaps Klein and Soltas are, in fact, NSA agents spreading disinformation. Maybe I am, too.
Read the rest over at Motherboard.