spy games

NSA Figured Out Who’s to Blame for Snowden Leak

At a hearing in December, Senator Patrick Leahy asked NSA Director General Keith Alexander, “Has anybody been disciplined at NSA for dropping the ball so badly?” He got his answer in a memo sent to Congress this week: The NSA forced out a civilian employee as part of its effort to “assign accountability.” The worker’s alleged crime: entering his password on Snowden’s computer terminal. “Unbeknownst to the civilian, Mr. Snowden was able to capture the password, allowing him even greater access to classified information,” the memo says. (Snowden has denied that he stole coworkers’ passwords.) The employee resigned last month after losing his security clearance. Leahy probably wanted to know if any senior officials would be held accountable for the massive security breach, but it appears the only other people disciplined were an active-duty military member and a contractor, who lost their access to NSA information and facilities.