Posted on 06/24/2013 4:08:31 PM PDT by NCjim
As the U.S. intelligence community struggles to complete a damage assessment over the secret information allegedly stolen by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, sources told ABC News there is a growing consensus within the top circles of the U.S. government that the 30-year-old contractor could deal a potentially devastating blow to U.S. national security.
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Before he fled Hawaii for Hong Kong in late May, Snowden allegedly downloaded significant amounts of information about some of the country’s most sensitive secrets — specifically how the U.S. government does surveillance abroad. One source told ABC NEWS that as an information specialist with security clearance “he understood the framework of how the whole U.S. surveillance network works.”
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Beyond technical systems, U.S. officials are deeply concerned that Snowden used his sensitive position to read about U.S. human assets, for example spies and informants overseas as well as safe houses and key spying centers.
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They worry this recent quote from Snowden was not an exaggeration: ” I had access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all over the world. The locations of every station, we have what their missions are, and so forth.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Pee-freaking-are.
... these officials are out of line with Obama’s general agenda. Why should they be concerned while Obama is seeking to marginalize if not destroy America and its hard worked for advantages?
He sure has put a bug up Obama's .....
The idea that ONE PERSON can bundle all the info is ridiculous. I can see a slice....but the whole apple??? That tells me the system is not secure....and our system is NOT secure.
Those same “officials” are doing more damage to America could in snowden’s wildest dreams.
Damage assessment?
Last week they were deciding to claim the assertions were wrong.
If the program doesn’t exist zero damage is possible.
Does every raving paranoid assertion “damage” the intelligence comunity?
Perhaps this administration should be locking up all thos Occupy Wallstreet loons then.
Or they are busted and nothing they could protect the citizenry from is as bad as what they have been doing.
Thank you ABC for distracting us from the real issues and damage being done to the U.S vis-a-vis Obama/DOJ/NSA/IRS.
They’ll play this story until the cows come home as long as they can avoid covering the real crimes.
Seems to me that the NSA constitution shredding machine is doing far more damage.
The idea that ONE PERSON can bundle all the info is ridiculous. I can see a slice....but the whole apple??? That tells me the system is not secure....and our system is NOT secure.
And who is responsible for this outrage? No wonder they want to silence him. No way he’ll make it to a court alive.
Compare with
How Obama HAS hurt the US.
“...there is a growing consensus within the top circles of the U.S. government that the 30-year-old contractor could deal a potentially devastating blow to U.S. national security.”
Nothing is more devastating than any typical day in the Obama administration. And I find it interesting that nothing like this was blurted out from “media” circles when Clinton handed over huge amounts of missile delivery technology to the Chinese in exchange for a $100,000 donation to the DNC.
I would suspect he’s already give a truckload of TS information to the Ruskies.
But, but, but, he is a high school drop out and barely literate. With much sarcasm.
Yeah Right.
The marxist, muslim, foreigner squatting in the White House has done more damage.
I really think NSA is now a foreign entity. The muslim brotherhood is probably in charge.
There is no America anymore. After a long sickness, it officially died in 2008.
I want to know if the U.S. intelligence community was targeting conservatives. If Edward Snowden has that information he needs to share it...
So all the reports after 9/11 found that it was ridiculous that one person COULDN'T get "the whole apple." People were obsessed with not being able to "connect the dots" so everyone frantically tried to make classified data as networked and sharable as possible.
Then we had Manning and then, Snowden.
Snowden is different in that he's a sysadmin. You can't have a sysadmin that can do his job effectively without far more access than everyone else.
If you restrict access and create lots of little firewalls, you greatly impair the ability of legitimate analysts to do their work which can result in bad decisions and in extreme cases, terror attacks happen that could have been prevented if one person had enough access to "connect dots." But if you network and share info, then bad apples like Manning and Snowden have access to VAST amounts of information. You can't win either way.
The only thing he’ll “hurt” is Obama and his evil administration.
That’s my point.
Obama and crew are out to destroy America. Hell, open the borders..... what crap!
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