DNC leak

Edward Snowden weighs in on DNC leak

By Caroline Kelly

Edward Snowden knows a thing or two about leaks.

The former CIA employee and government contractor weighed in on WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of emails by Democratic National Committee staffers, calling for greater transparency of government intelligence capabilities.

“To summarize: the US Intel Community should modernize their position on disclosure. Defensive capabilities should be aggressively public,” he tweeted as one of a seven-tweet series earlier Monday morning.

Snowden, who now lives in asylum in Russia — which has been widely accused of hacking the DNC’s servers — said more disclosure could give the U.S. government a greater ability to attribute blame for the DNC hack.

“If Russia hacked the #DNC, they should be condemned for it,” Snowden tweeted, citing the way the FBI presented its findings related to the Sony hack in November 2014, which the agency attributed to North Korea. “Evidence that could publicly attribute responsibility for the DNC hack certainly exists at #NSA, but DNI traditionally objects to sharing,” he later added.

The widespread knowledge of the formerly secret NSA data analysis program XKeyscore, which Snowed revealed in 2013, “makes following exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops,” he tweeted. Snowden criticized the NSA’s penchant for secrecy, adding, “The aversion to sharing #NSA evidence is fear of revealing ‘sources and methods’ of intel collection, but #XKEYSCORE is now publicly known.”

Snowden argued that publicizing the consequences of insidious data hacking clear is the best national defense. “Without a credible threat that USG can and will use #NSA capabilities to publicly attribute responsibility, such hacks will become common,” he tweeted, adding, “This is the only case in which mass surveillance has actually proven effective. Though I oppose in principle, it is a mistake to ignore.”