Another Snowden-Style NSA Leaker

The U.S. government believes that a new Edward Snowden–style leaker is giving national security documents to journalists affiliated with Snowden confidante Glenn Greenwald, a suspicion that Greenwald has hinted at confirming. From CNN:

Proof of the newest leak comes from national security documents that formed the basis of a news story published Tuesday by the Intercept, the news site launched by Glenn Greenwald, who also published Snowden’s leaks.

The Intercept article focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration.

The article cites documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013, which is after Snowden flew to Russia to avoid U.S. criminal charges.

(It’s not clear why the government believes there’s “a” new leaker as opposed to multiple new leakers.)

The Intercept‘s report, published today, reveals that:

• Of the 680,000 individuals on the government’s Terrorist Screening Database (a list of “known or suspected terrorists”) in 2013, 280,000 were not listed as having an affiliation with any specific terrorist group.
• A different surveillance list, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, has more than 1 million names on it.
• Of those individuals, 5,000 on the first list and 15,800 on the second list are Americans.
• The no-fly list has grown 1,000 percent since President Obama took office and now includes more than 47,000 names.

Here’s Greenwald’s tweet from last month about the “second leaker” theory: