Snowden's leaks damage US intelligence operations - Top-secret Pentagon report
23 May 2014, 09:39 -- A top-secret Pentagon report to assess the damage to national security from the leak of classified National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden concluded that 'the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering'. Report contains one sensational line: 'The scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering.'
The Guardian has obtained a copy of the Defense Intelligence Agency's classified damage assessment in response to a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) lawsuit filed against the Defense Department earlier this year. The heavily redacted 39-page report was prepared in December and is titled 'DoD Information Review Task Force-2: Initial Assessment, Impacts Resulting from the Compromise of Classified Material by a Former NSA Contractor.'
Having extensively covered the military trial of Chelsea Manning, the contents of this "damage" report seem very similar to the claims about 'damage' being made by the government in that trial.
Two days after Snowden revealed himself on June 9, 2013 to be the source of those documents, the US Defense Intelligence Agency's Information Review Task Force-2 (IRTF-2) was assembled to assess the true scope of the compromise. Nearly a year later, however, those documents are still being used regularly as source material in an ongoing stream of national security stories.
'This report presents the Information Review Task Force-2's (IRTF-2s') initial assessment of impact to the Department of Defense (DoD) from the compromise of [redacted] classified files by a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor,' the report's executive summary states.
The December report from the Pentagon is absent specific details about how Snowden's compromise affected the NSA or other agencies of the US intelligence community, but nevertheless concludes that a staggering amount of information was taken by Snowden which are thought to impact national defense.
Much of the latest assessment obtained by Leopold for the Guardian is heavily redacted — almost all, in fact — but the journalist acknowledged that its contents have been cited by high-ranking lawmakers within the US intelligence community more than once since its release late last year.
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