Officials: Edward Snowden’s Leaks Were Masked By Job Duties

More than three months after Edward Snowden revealed details of NSA secret surveillance activities, intelligence officials are still assessing the fallout from the former contractor’s disclosures. But they already know how the leaks happened.

“We have an extremely good idea of exactly what data he got access to and how exactly he got access to it,” says the NSA’s chief technology officer, Lonny Anderson.

In interviews with NPR, two government officials shared that part of the Snowden story in one of the most detailed discussions of the episode to date.

According to the officials, the documents Snowden leaked — the memoranda, PowerPoint slides, agency reports, court orders and opinions — had all been stored in a file-sharing location on the NSA’s intranet site. The documents were put there so NSA analysts and officials could read them online and discuss them.

SOURCE: npr.org