Report: New Government Leaker Confirmed
Allegedly Exposed Information on Terrorist Tracking SystemU.S. officials have confirmed the existence of a new leaker exposing national security documents, CNN reports. The leak apparently involves documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center.
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The alleged new leak comes in the aftermath of the widespread breach and disclosure of sensitive information at the National Security Agency by former contractor Edward Snowden.
CNN reports that proof of the new leaker comes from documents that were cited in a news story published Aug. 5 by The Intercept, a news publication launched by journalist Glenn Greenwald, who also published the leaks by Snowden.
The Intercept article provides details into President Obama's supposed secret terrorist tracking system. The article says documents used for the story, which were obtained from a source in the intelligence community, "reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system."
The leaked documents cited in the article by The Intercept were allegedly prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, the publication says. According to CNN, the documents were dated August 2013, which is the timeframe after Snowden headed to Russia to avoid U.S. criminal charges.
The National Counterterrorism Center declined to comment on the alleged leaks.
In June 2013, Snowden leaked information on a classified NSA program known as Prism, which allows the government to tap into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies and collect the metadata - not the content itself - of audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs (see: NSA's Prism: Balancing Security, Privacy).
The Snowden case led many public and private sector organizations to revisit their policies and procedures for addressing the insider threat and preventing data leakage.