14 DAY TRIAL // It seems like the NSA is letting out a breath of relief as Edward Snowden has apparently not gained access to the “crown jewels” of the agency’s programs.
Ever since the saga began close to two months ago, the Obama administration and intelligence agency officials have been struggling to figure out what documents Snowden has in his position so they could assess the damage.
According to the CNN, the investigation indicates the NSA whistleblower didn’t get access to what is called ECI or “extremely compartmentalized information.”
So far, Edward Snowden has made several revelations that the United States has considered to be damaging to national security, as he unveiled the surveillance programs the NSA uses to spy on citizens from all over the world.
The officials of the intelligence community are saying they’re not downplaying anything that Snowden has done and that the information he has can indeed damage national security. However, now they have a pretty good idea of what materials he has downloaded.
According to Glenn Greenwald, Snowden has already passed on to him thousands of documents that contain information he’ll use to write many stories just as revealing as those published so far, but also some more delicate ones.
As the journalist says, Snowden also has a bunch of other documents in his possession, things that will never reach the media since they can do a lot of damage to the United States and that’s not the NSA whistleblower’s intention.
The documents, however, could end up in the media if anything happens to Snowden as he has set a “dead-man’s switch” weeks ago when the United States began its hunt for him.
NSA officials do not dispute that Snowden has critical information about the NSA programs and how they work, but they’re not very concerned. “Just because you have the blueprints doesn’t mean you have the manual,” an official quoted by the CNN said.
What this tells us, however, is that there are indeed worse things happening in the NSA headquarters than what has been published so far.