Russia, China Crack Encrypted Snowden Files (Report)

A leading British newspaper says Russia and China have decrypted top secret files stolen by fugitive U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, forcing British authorities to pull spies from "live operations in hostile countries."

London's Sunday Times said the pullback was ordered after Moscow gained access to more than 1 million encoded files in Snowden's possession when he fled the United States in 2013.

A short while later, he sought the protection of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who granted the American temporary Russian asylum.  He later received a residency permit that allows him to travel freely in Russian territory.

Quoting a Downing Street source, the Times said the decryption "has meant agents have had to be moved and that knowledge of how we operate has stopped us from getting vital information." The official at Prime Minister David Cameron's office also was quoted as saying there is "no evidence of anyone being harmed."

The newspaper, quoting separate government sources, said China also had accessed the documents, which were said to reveal a wide array of Western intelligence techniques.

There was no immediate official comment on the report from London or Washington.

Snowden worked as a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.  At the NSA, he downloaded 1.7 million secret documents that showed the government was secretly intercepting data on hundreds of millions of civilian telephone calls in and from U.S. territory.

He has been both widely praised as a hero and a patriot for releasing troves of classified information, and ridiculed as a traitor for the disclosures.

A U.S. grand jury has charged him with two counts of violating the U.S. Espionage Act and theft of government property.
   voanews.com
13/6/15
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