Read that carefully and pretend it was Snowden who leaked this information, instead of nameless Pentagon spokesmen. US officials would be screaming from the rooftops that he leaked extremely timely and sensitive intelligence (it was literally only hours old), that he will cause specific terrorists to change their communications behavior, and most importantly, he put the lives of informants at risk. (Note: none of Snowden’s leaks did any of these things.)

Yet despite the fact that the ISIS raid was discussed on all of the Sunday shows this week, no one brought up anything about this leak. Contrast that with Snowden’s revelations, where government officials will use any situation to say the most outlandish things possible in an attempt to smear his whistleblowing—regardless of their basis in reality. Take former CIA deputy director and torture advocate Mike Morrell, for example, who is currently on a book promotion tour and has been preposterously suggesting that Snowden’s leaks somehow led to the rise of ISIS.

For the sake of hypothetical argument, let’s take Morrell’s claims at face value. Let’s put aside the fact that, despite their “sky is falling” rhetoric, the US government has consistently refused to release specific information showing that terrorists have “changed their behavior” due to the Snowden leaks, and that terrorists were sophisticated users of encryption for more than a decade before anyone heard Snowden’s name. Let’s also ignore that the US government has been caught blatantly exaggerating how leaks have “damaged” national security in the past, and that officials have already admitted their nightmare scenarios in this case have not actually come to pass.

Here is what Morrell told NPR when asked about Edward Snowden and the damage he thinks he caused to national security: