MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) - The US government has concluded that national security documents were compromised by a new leaker, CNN reported, citing unnamed US officials.
The new leaking scandal was prompted by an article by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux published by online publication The Intercept on Tuesday. Both Scahill and Devereaux have previously obtained information from the ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, but their latest story is based on documents from the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013 – after Snowden had already arrived in Moscow.
The documents that the new leaker shared with journalists were labeled “Secret” and “NOFORN” (not to be shared with foreign government).
The Intercept’s article examines the US government’s Terrorist Screening Database – a list of “known or suspected terrorists.” According to the publication, 280,000 of the 680,000 people currently on the list have “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.”
Another scandalous finding is that since US President Barack Obama took office, the US no-fly list grew more than 10-fold reaching a record-breaking 47,000 names.
“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” former senior FBI special agent David Gomez told The Intercept.
Another former FBI agent, Michael German, noted that terrorism is like a “winning card” for the government agencies, helping them to acquire more resources. “They know that they can wave that card around and the American public will be very afraid and Congress and the courts will allow them to get away with whatever they’re doing under the national security umbrella,” German explained.
So far, neither the National Counterterrorism Center, nor the White House has released an official comment on the leak.
The predecessor of the current leaker, Snowden is a fugitive NSA whistleblower responsible for the leaks of numerous secret documents. Snowden fled the United States in June 2013 and received temporary asylum in Russia for one year on August 1, 2013. On July 31, he applied for a one-year extension on it.
