Deb Riechmann at apnews.com
offers a piece on the continuing damage of the Edward Snowden leaks of classified information.
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Whistleblower or traitor, leaker or public hero?
National Security Agency
contractor Edward Snowden blew the lid off U.S. government surveillance methods
five years ago, but intelligence chiefs complain that revelations from the
trove of classified documents he disclosed are still trickling out.
That includes recent
reporting on a mass surveillance program run by close U.S. ally Japan and on
how the NSA targeted bitcoin users to gather intelligence to support
counterterrorism and to combat narcotics and money laundering. The Intercept,
an investigative publication with access to Snowden documents, published
stories on both subjects.
The top U.S.
counterintelligence official said journalists have released only about 1
percent taken by the 34-year-old American, now living in exile in Russia, “so
we don’t see this issue ending anytime soon.”
“This past year, we had more
international, Snowden-related documents and breaches than ever,” Bill Evanina,
who directs the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at a
recent conference. “Since 2013, when Snowden left, there have been thousands of
articles around the world with really sensitive stuff that’s been leaked.”
On June 5, 2013, The Guardian
in Britain published the first story based on Snowden’s disclosures. It
revealed that a secret court order was allowing the U.S. government to get
Verizon to share the phone records of millions of Americans. Later stories,
including those in The Washington Post, disclosed other snooping and how U.S.
and British spy agencies had accessed information from cables carrying the
world’s telephone and internet traffic.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
You can also read my Washington Times piece on Snowden - traitor, thief, scoundrel, spy- via the below link:
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