US official: Snowden leaks lead pentagon to costly changes

A top US military intelligence official said Tuesday that the Pentagon will have to make costly changes to programs and personnel because of leaks by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden. Defense Intelligence Agency Chief Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told the House Intelligence Committee that his agency has to assume that Snowden took every document he accessed, and that much of it concerned Pentagon programs, Voice of Russia reported. "We assume the worst case in how we are reviewing all of the Defense Department's actions... events, exercises around the world," said Flynn, whose agency produced a classified report assessing the fallout of the Snowden leaks. He said he believes there will likely have to be changes in all branches of the US military because investigators have to assume the information is compromised. "What he potentially made off with ... transcends" the NSA's telephone and Internet collection programs, said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, speaking before the committee's annual threat assessment hearing. "Less than 10 percent has to do with domestic surveillance programs," he said. Clapper has called on Snowden and anyone who is helping him to return the remaining documents that have not yet been published. Documents released over the past year by Snowden have revealed that the NSA sweeps up millions of Americans' phone and Internet records. Revelations about the NSA's spy programs were first published in the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers in June, based on some of the thousands of documents Snowden handed over to Barton Gellman of the Post, Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, a US filmmaker. The subsequent controversy has led President Barack Obama to ask agencies and Congress to consider some reforms. Officials have said Snowden downloaded some 1.7 million documents. US intelligence officials have said some of those documents include the identities of undercover operatives. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case. In describing the effect of Snowden's leaks, Clapper appeared to carefully retreat from his contention last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the disclosures were "the most massive and most damaging theft of intelligence information in our history".