How a single IT tech could spy on the world

Inside the NSA's secret, separate internet

Spy
(Image credit: Thinkstock)

One of NSA contractor Edward Snowden's more stunning claims is that a single individual has the ability to eavesdrop on anyone in the world, and that he could access and download information about all of the C.I.A's station chiefs and undercover case officers.

If true, it means that the system the NSA has built to connect analysts with the data it collects and distributes is both extremely powerful, well beyond what is publicly known, and also, at the same quite, brittle, if it can truly be subject to single-point failures.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.