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"Democratizing information has never been more vital, and @wikileaks has helped," Snowden tweeted. "But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake." | AP Photo Snowden knocks WikiLeaks for handling of DNC leak

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is faulting WikiLeaks for failing to remove sensitive personal information from apparently hacked Democratic National Committee records before releasing them publicly on the internet.

"Democratizing information has never been more vital, and@wikileaks has helped. But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake," Snowden wrote on Twitter Thursday.

Democratizing information has never been more vital, and @Wikileaks has helped. But their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake. — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 28, 2016





The DNC records posted by WikiLeaks over the weekend had a major impact, effectively ousting the party's chairwoman over staffers' bias against Sen. Bernie Sanders in the recent presidential primary race.

However, the files were released in a raw form, containing dates of birth, social security numbers and credit card numbers for DNC donors and guests.

WikiLeaks quickly snapped back at Snowden.

"Opportunism won't earn you a pardon from Clinton & curation is not censorship of ruling party cash flows," the group wrote on Twitter.

@Snowden Opportunism won't earn you a pardon from Clinton & curation is not censorship of ruling party cash flows https://t.co/4FeygfPynk — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 28, 2016





The transparency group's talk of a "pardon" for Snowden was a reference to the fact that the former NSA contractor is in self-imposed exile in Russia, avoiding prosecution on criminal charges he faces in a U.S. court for violating classified information laws and stealing government property.

In a Tweet earlier Thursday, WikiLeaks appeared to defend the practice of releasing raw data.

"Our accuracy policy. We do not tamper with the evidentiary value of important historical archives," the group wrote.

@AJVicens Our accuracy policy. We do not tamper with the evidentiary value of important historical archives. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 28, 2016





Snowden has cooperated with WikiLeaks at times, but after he downloaded millions of records from the National Security Agency in 2013, he chose to provide them to journalists rather than an outlet like WikiLeaks that would release them in raw or near-raw form. The bulk of what he took remains inaccessible to the public.

WikiLeaks has repeatedly faced criticism on privacy grounds. In an early outing in 2010, it released U.S. military records from the Afghanistan war that contained the identities of Afghans who had cooperated with coalition authorities.

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange said at the time the online publisher believes in "harm reduction." In subsequent releases, some such sensitive information was removed from the published records.

In recent days, WikiLeaks has also been faulted for linking to leaked records from Turkey that the group said included emails of political party leaders, but which also provided details on thousands of women who are private Turkish citizens.

WikiLeaks has stressed that it did not publish that data itself. The cache has since been taken down, at least from the place where it was originally leaked.