The U.S. government's efforts to determine which highly
classified materials leaker Edward Snowden took from the National Security
Agency have been frustrated by Snowden's sophisticated efforts to
cover his digital trail by deleting or bypassing electronic logs, government
officials told The Associated Press. Such logs would have showed what
information Snowden viewed or downloaded.
The government's forensic investigation is wrestling
with Snowden's apparent ability to defeat safeguards established to monitor and
deter people looking at information without proper permission, said the
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized
to discuss the sensitive developments publicly.
The disclosure undermines
the Obama administration's assurances to Congress and the public that
the NSA surveillance programs can't be abused because its spying systems are so
aggressively monitored and audited for oversight purposes: If Snowden could
defeat the NSA's own tripwires and internal burglar alarms, how many other
employees or contractors could do the same?
In July, nearly two months after Snowden's earliest
disclosures, NSA
Director Keith Alexander declined to say whether he had a good idea of
what Snowden had downloaded or how many NSA files Snowden had taken with him,
noting an ongoing criminal investigation.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told the AP that
Alexander "had a sense of what documents and information had been
taken," but "he did not say the comprehensive investigation had been
completed." Vines would not say whether Snowden had found a way to view
and download the documents he took without the NSA knowing.
In defending
the NSA surveillance programs that Snowden revealed, Deputy Attorney
General James Cole told Congress last month that the administration effectively
monitors the activities of employees using them.
"This program goes under careful audit,"
Cole said. "Everything that is done under it is documented and reviewed
before the decision is made and reviewed again after these decisions are made
to make sure that nobody has done the things that you're concerned about
happening."
The disclosure of Snowden's hacking prowess inside
the NSA also could dramatically increase the perceived value of his knowledge
to foreign governments, which would presumably be eager to learn any
counter-detection techniques that could be exploited against U.S. government
networks. Read more:
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