National Security Agency bans flash drives, but Edward Snowden used one to smuggle data
Spy agency embroiled in the US surveillance scandal bans flash drives. But Edward Snowden seems to have used one, to devastating effect
Former National Security Agency contract employee Edward Snowden used a computer thumb drive - a device supposedly banned inside the spying agency - to smuggle highly classified documents out of an NSA facility in Hawaii, according to US officials.
That accusation comes as two senior US lawmakers said terrorists were already changing the way they use the internet after the US's data gathering programmes were made public.
[Investigators] know how many documents he downloaded and what server he took them from
News of the thumb drive, also known as a USB flash drive, solves the mystery of how Snowden, who worked for only three months at the NSA outpost, removed so much classified material from a spy agency famous for strict security and hyper-secrecy.
The allegation also raises new questions about the NSA's failure to protect its classified networks three years after Private Bradley Manning, an army intelligence analyst in Iraq, moved hundreds of thousands of documents onto flash drives and computer disks and transferred the data to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
"[Investigators] know how many documents he downloaded and what server he took them from," said an official who would not be identified.
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Congressman Mike Rogers said changes in "terrorists'" behaviour were part of the damage from the disclosures of the NSA programmes, which collect millions of phone records and track foreign internet activity on US networks.
There are people who need to use thumb drives ... but when you use one, people always look at you funny