Report: Secret Budget Cited 4,000 NSA Leaks

Secret intelligence budget files provided by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden show that the surveillance agency warned in 2012 that it planned to investigate up to 4,000 reports of possible internal security breaches, according to a new disclosure published Thursday.

The Washington Post, citing documents it said were provided by Snowden, said the NSA’s concerns about insider threats were aimed at “anomalous behavior” of agency employees with access to top secret data. The account cited NSA concerns about “trusted insiders who seek to exploit their authorized access to sensitive information to harm U.S. interests.”

The NSA concerns were outlined in top-secret documents provided to the Senate and House intelligence committees in February 2012, well before Snowden emerged this summer as the sole source of massive new disclosures about the agency’s surveillance operations. The Post released only 17 pages of the entire 178-page budget document, citing conversations with Obama administration officials who voiced alarms about disclosures that could compromise intelligence sources and methods.

Shawn Turner, director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who has taken the lead in responding to the Snowden disclosures, did not immediately respond to a request to discuss the budget figures.

It was not clear from the Post’s reporting how many of the 4,000 potential insider threats were ultimately investigated or how many posed serious breaches of security.

This article appeared in print on page 2 of the August 31st, 2013 edition of Hamodia.