Snowden leaked up to 200,000 secret documents: NSA

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:34PM GMT

NSA Director General Keith Alexander says American whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked as many as 200,000 classified US documents to the media.

"Snowden has shared somewhere between 50 (thousand) and 200,000 documents with reporters. These will continue to come out,' Alexander said during a speech to a foreign affairs group in Baltimore on October 31.

When asked what Washington is doing to stop the former NSA contractor from releasing more information, the NSA chief said 'I wish there was a way to prevent it."

The documents were 'being put out in a way that does the maximum damage to NSA and our nation,' he was quoted as saying by Reuters on Thursday.

Snowden's revelation of US spying programs began in summer and he leaked the documents that were marked 'Top Secret' or with an even more restrictive 'Special Intelligence' stamp.

The whistleblower revealed that millions of people around the globe were targeted by the NSA spying operations that monitored their telephone records and Internet data.

American officials, however, defended the top-secret telephone and Internet spying programs claiming that they are essential to fight terrorism.

Snowden is currently in Russia after Moscow in August granted him asylum for one year.

He believes that the international community can persuade the US government to drop spying charges against him. He said he wants to testify before Congress about the NSA's spying activities.

The whistleblower said that the US government 'continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense.'

AGB/AGB