Edward Snowden’s Revelations Have ‘Clearly Helped The ISIS’, Claims Former NSA Official

Chris Inglis is a former top official at the National Security Agency (NSA) who retired earlier this year. Inglis, who has now taken up a position with a private equity firm, made explosive allegations against NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

In the interview with Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times, the former NSA official blamed Snowden for indirectly “helping” the ISIS by helping them avoid detection by the American Intelligence apparatuses. According to the report by the Washington Times, Snowden apparently revealed several protocols used by U.S. Intelligence agencies — thereby compromising their activities. Simply put, if we are to believe Inglis, ISIS killers are now harder to find thanks to Snowden’s leaks.

“Mr. Snowden went way beyond disclosing things that bore on privacy concerns. Sources and methods’ is what we say inside the intelligence community — the means and methods we use to hold our adversaries at risk, and ISIL/ISIS is clearly one of those.”

To be more specific about Inglis’ allegation against Snowden, the reporter asked a direct question. He asked, “Has the Islamic State has studied Mr. Snowden’s documents and taken action?” to which, Mr. Inglis answered, “Clearly.”

“Having disclosed all of those methods, or at least some degree of those methods, it would be impossible to imagine that, as intelligent as they are in the use of technology, in the employment of communications for their own purposes, it’s impossible to imagine that they wouldn’t understand how they might be at risk to intelligence services around the world, not the least of which is the U.S. And they necessarily do what they think is in their best interest to defend themselves.”

Chris Inglis served as the deputy director at the NSA before he retired in January 2014. He was at the position in 2013 — the same time Snowden disclosed how the NSA eavesdrops on the internet. Back then, his revelations resulted in a huge outcry on and off the internet.

This is not the first time Edward Snowden has been blamed for indirectly helping out America’s enemies. In his bimonthly column for The Times, Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who was the chief of the NSA in 2001 during the time of the September 11 attacks, said that Snowden’s revelations had “impacted our ability to track and monitor these groups.”

Other security experts also concur with the observations of these senior NSA officials. According to Mathew G. Olsen, who heads the National Counterterrorism Center, following the leak of the NSA documents, terrorists have changed the way they communicate in order to avoid surveillance. While many of them have moved on to encrypted communications, others have simply stopped using electronic communication methods.

Do you really think Edward Snowden’s revelations last year has badly affected the advantages that the U.S. Intelligence Agencies once held?

[Image Via Dailytech]