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House Committee: Edward Snowden's Leaks Did 'Tremendous Damage' (nbcnews.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The U.S. House intelligence committee on Thursday unanimously approved a blistering report on the activities of Edward Snowden, saying his disclosures of top-secret documents and programs did "tremendous damage" to national security. "The public narrative popularized by Snowden and his allies is rife with falsehoods, exaggerations, and crucial omissions," said the report by staff members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Contrary to Snowden's statements that he intended to reveal programs that intruded on the privacy of Americans, the House report concluded that the vast majority of the 1.5 million documents he stole "have nothing to do with programs impacting individual privacy interests. They instead pertain to military, defense, and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries." The report said Snowden did not, as he claimed, try to express his concerns about potentially illegal intelligence gathering in a way that would qualify him as a whistleblower. The report was disputed by Snowden's ACLU-provided attorney. "This is a dishonest report that attempts to discredit a genuine American hero," said Wizner. "But after years of 'investigation,' the committee still can't point to any remotely credible evidence that Snowden's disclosures caused harm. The truth is that Edward Snowden and the journalists with whom he worked did the job that the House Intelligence Committee was supposed to do: bring meaningful oversight to the U.S. Intelligence community. They did so responsibly and carefully, and their efforts have led to historic reforms."

2 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That was WAY too long. I'm not going to read that.

    The article title was MUCH shorter. It said "House Committee: Edward Snowden's Leaks Did 'Tremendous Damage'

    That pretty much clears it up. Our government, for whom we voted and who serves us, just gave us the straight dope. I will be able to sleep easy tonight knowing that our governors were the good guys all along.

  2. Re:Former CIA Officer: President Obama Should Pard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Unfortunately, the US gov't now considers and treats the American people as "the enemy".

    Nonsense. The American people are the ones enabling the life style of the U.S. government in the first place. They aren't considered and treated as enemies but as cattle. Only those consistently resisting to be reined in will be sent to the slaughterhouse early. The others are looking forward to being milked for what they are worth.