Years later Richard Ledgett, who oversaw the NSA’s media-leaks task force and went on to become the agency’s deputy director, told me matter-of-factly to assume that my defenses had been breached. “My take is, whatever you guys had was pretty immediately in the hands of any foreign intelligence service that wanted it,” he said, “whether it was Russians, Chinese, French, the Israelis, the Brits. Between you, Poitras, and Greenwald, pretty sure you guys can’t stand up to a full-fledged nation-state attempt to exploit your IT. To include not just remote stuff, but hands-on, sneak-into-your-house-at-night kind of stuff. That’s my guess.” Because I’d been one of Snowden’s principal interlocutors, Ledgett told me he was sure there was “a nice dossier” on me in both Russia and China.
It comes off to me as fear mongering and an attempt to dissuade any future involvement with such sensitive materials. An understandable approach from someone with the specified role. However, it just sounds so defeatist given how much of the article up to that point had detailed the layers of effort that had gone into avoiding exactly that.
It also means that the NSA is capable of that as well: they've got it before you even realise what it is that you've got.
Any of James Clapper's words must be filtered through his laser-focused tunnel vision; black and white, good and bad, scorched earth for middle ground. ie. discard it, but be aware that's how those people view the world, and therefore that's what you'll be up against if you step into the ring. Zealots. Cattle to be protected by the Dogs from the Wolves, and into those three categories fit all.
I don't like it much, and find it difficult to relate to, but they couldn't do the important stuff that they do if they didn't have that attitude. But that's exactly why "congress", or whoever the appropriate leash-holders are, need to yoink on the leash every now and then, rather than letting it out for two straight decades.