He didn't want to end up like Manning.
"Edward Snowden may have bypassed electronic logs" by Adam Goldman and Kimberly Dozier | Associated Press, August 25, 2013
WASHINGTON — The US government’s efforts to determine which highly classified materials 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 data 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 tripwires and internal burglar alarms, how many other employees or contractors could do the same?
I don't know how it could undermine something that didn't exist.
Related: Obomber Defended NSA Spying on Stop in Sweden
I don't think they or anyone else is assured by anything he says.
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 said 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.’’
Clapper, Cole, liars all!
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 US government networks.
Snowden, a former US intelligence contractor, was employed by Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii before leaking classified documents to the Guardian and The Washington Post. As a system administrator, Snowden had the ability to move around data and had access to thumb drives that would have allowed him to transfer information to computers outside the NSA’s secure system, Alexander has said.
Officials have said Snowden had access to many documents but didn’t know necessarily how the programs functioned. He dipped into files as systems administrator and took what he wanted.
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