SurveillanceU.S., U.K. intelligence worried about Snowden’s “insurance policy” cache
Edward Snowden has so far released about 500 of the classified documents he secretly downloaded while working for an NSA contractor. Source familiar with the case say he had downloaded between 50,000 and 200,000 classified NSA and British government documents. Those close to him suggest that in addition to continuing a steady release of secret documents over the next two to three years, the potentially most damaging information he obtained, information which includes the names of thousands of intelligence agents and informers employed by the United States and its allies, is kept in a secret cache as an insurance policy against arrest or physical harm.
American and British intelligence officials are worried about the possibility that highly classified information obtained by Edward Snowden would be released to the public.
Seven current and former U.S. officials told Reuters that Snowden may have access to documents containing names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel. The cache of unpublished materials may be considered by Snowden as his “insurance policy” against arrest or physical harm.
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who was among the first to report on the leaked documents, said Snowden had “taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.” In a June 2013 interview with the Daily Beast, Greenwald said “If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.” Greenwald added: “I don’t know for sure whether (Snowden) has more documents than the ones he has given me… I believe he does.”
RT reports that U.S. officials believe only a small amount of classified information secretly copied by Snowden has been published. Snowden is expected to have downloaded enough material to fuel two or more years of news stories.
“The worst is yet to come,” said one former U.S. official who follows the investigation closely.
Snowden is believed to have downloaded between 50,000 and 200,000 classified NSA and British government documents. Under temporary asylum in Russia after fleeing the United States for Hong Kong, Snowden has been charged in the United States under the Espionage Act. Snowden has so far released an estimated 500 documents, according to Cryptome, a Web site dedicated to leaking secret documents.
U.S. and British authorities are now more focused on dealing with the consequences of Snowden’s revelations than they are on apprehending him. RT notes that the U.S., British, Russian, or Chinese authorities have not confirmed the whereabouts of the devices which hold the classified documents obtained by Snowden.
One former senior U.S. official told RT that the Chinese and Russian intelligence services have cryptographers skilled enough to unlock the cache storing the documents if they find it, regardless of how many layers of encryption Snowden may have used.
Snowden has been quoted as saying he did not take classified materials to Russia.
In addition to obtaining information about the NSA’s classified surveillance of phone, e-mail, and social media communications, Snowden also has documents containing names and resumes of individuals working for British intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Sources familiar with the matter claim Snowden began to download the materials from a classified GCHQ Web site, known as GC-Wiki, when he was employed by Dell and assigned to the NSA in 2012. Snowden is believed to have made a decision to move from his position at Dell to another NSA contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, because he would have more access to NSA data.
Sources familiar with the materials obtained by Snowden say the cache of documents contain information about CIA personnel names as well as names of individuals working for other spy agencies such as the National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
