How Did NSA Leaker Edward Snowden Get Access To Classified Data

How Did Edward Snowden, a Contractor, Get Access to Classified Data? -- Laura Colarusso, The Daily Beast

Edward Snowden, a Booz Allen Hamilton employee, says he leaked top-secret NSA intel. But how did a person who wasn’t directly employed by the government get such info? Laura Colarusso explains.

News that the National Security Agency was working with leading tech companies like Verizon, Google, Apple, and Facebook to collect sweeping amounts of telephone and Internet usage data rankled the halls of power in Washington, D.C. Unhappy its secret program became public knowledge, government officials vowed to find the person who leaked the information and asked criminal prosecutors to investigate.

But Edward Snowden beat them to it. The 29-year-old, who once worked as a technical assistant at the Central Intelligence Agency and more recently as an analyst at the NSA, came forward Sunday to acknowledge that he was behind the leak. (The companies implicated in the surveillance dragnet have mostly denied any involvement.) Snowden wasn’t employed directly by the government but instead worked for private companies such as Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, which supply personnel to federal intelligence agencies. So how did a contractor have access to top-secret documents in the first place?

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My Comment: Even NSA Director Alexander cannot answer that question (see above video).

Update: It appears that much of Edward Snowden is still a mystery.