NSA chief says Edward Snowden has shared up to 200,000 classified documents with media and that leaks increase the probability of a terrorist attack



Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked as many as 200,000 classified documents to the media, according to little-noticed public remarks by the eavesdropping agency's chief late last month.



NSA Director General Keith Alexander was asked what steps U.S. authorities were taking to stop Snowden from leaking additional information to journalists at a Q&A session in Baltimore October 31.



'I wish there was a way to prevent it. Snowden has shared somewhere between 50 (thousand) and 200,000 documents with reporters. These will continue to come out,' Alexander said. He also warned that these leaks made a terrorist attack more likely.



Whistleblower: Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden during a meeting with a German Green Party MP (not pictured) regarding being a witness for a possible investigation into NSA spying in Germany, on October 31. The NSA claim Snowden has leaked up to 200,000 classified documents

Alexander added that the documents were 'being put out in a way that does the maximum damage to NSA and our nation,' according to a transcript of his talk made available by NSA on Thursday.

The agency chief claimed it is 'very hard' for the NSA to prevent such leaks. 'But I'll tell you, this increases the probability that a terrorist attack will get through,' he said.

'I think it's absolutely wrong. When we look back on this, people are going to see that and understand that and say what they did was wrong.



'Until then, we're at their mercy. They're putting them out, one or two a week, to cause the maximum problem. They get it wrong.'



Concerns: NSA Director General Keith Alexander claimed it is 'very hard' for the NSA to prevent such leaks. 'But I'll tell you, this increases the probability that a terrorist attack will get through,' he said

Officials briefed on investigations into Snowden's activities have said privately for months that internal government assessments indicate that the number of classified documents to which Snowden got access as a systems operator at NSA installations ran into the hundreds of thousands.



Officials said that while investigators now believe they know the range of documents that Snowden accessed, they remain unsure which documents he downloaded for leaking to the media.



By comparison, the number of Pentagon and State Department documents leaked to WikiLeaks by a disgruntled U.S. Army private was much larger.



The anti-secrecy group obtained around 400,000 Pentagon reports on the Iraq war, as well as 250,000 State Department cables and tens of thousands of documents on U.S. operations in Afghanistan.



None of the WikiLeaks material was classified higher than 'Secret' but many NSA documents leaked by Snowden were marked 'Top Secret' or with an even more restrictive 'Special Intelligence' stamp.



The material includes highly technical details on U.S. and allied eavesdropping activities.

Row: A supporter of the Anonymous group wearing a Guy Fawkes mask holds up a placard featuring a photo of US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden in Berlin. There has been uproar in Germany over reports of NSA spying in Europe

Snowden's revelations, which first surfaced in June, are still causing a headache for the government of President Barack Obama, particularly in its dealing with allies.

For example, Germany was outraged by reports that the NSA monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone.

Alexander also spoke about the report that the NSA had gained access to the phone records of over 70 million French citizens over a 30-day period.

The NSA chief said that was aimed at gathering data to support NATO-related activities, adding 'none of that information was collected in France, on French people or European citizens.'

'Yet the uproar in Europe over this is huge,' Alexander said. 'And it's interesting. It's almost like ‘the War of the Worlds.'



Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said Snowden's leaks were 'extremely damaging.'

'There is no doubt that those disclosures have made our job harder. We've seen that terrorists or adversaries are seeking to learn about the ways that we collect intelligence and seeking to adapt and change the ways that they communicate,' he told a congressional hearing on Thursday.



More to come: Glenn Greenwald (right) has written a series of stories based on material leaked by Edward Snowden. His partner David Miranda (left), a 28-year-old university student, was held and questioned at Heathrow for nearly nine hours in August under terrorism legislation. The NSA believes reporters have many more documents leaked by Snowden

In the past few days, U.S. officials say, a panel of former officials and experts set up by Obama to review NSA operations in the wake of Snowden's disclosures has privately reported interim conclusions to the White House.



The group's final report is due on December 15. The report, along with the White House's own review, is likely to lead to policy changes to be announced by year's end.



These are expected to include some constraints on the NSA's wide-ranging eavesdropping.



Also included in documents leaked by Snowden are at least 58,000 classified documents generated by Government Communications Headquarters, the NSA's British counterpart, according to UK authorities.

