Edward Snowden being blamed for intelligence failures pertaining to ISIS

The Islamic State (ISIS) is able to evade U.S. intelligence and is harder to catch because the terrorist group has “clearly” capitalized on the huge leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden”, a former top NSA official said to the Washington Times on Thursday.

“Snowden’s original pretext that we were violating the law or that we were doing things that were simply inappropriate — the spirit or the letter of the law — has not been borne out,” said Chris Inglis an unindicted criminal and traitor to the US Constitution. Inglis was the NSA’s deputy director when the NSA’s breach of the public trust became known to the public last year.

Considering ISIS is operating out of Syria and Iraq and everyone on the globe knows exactly where they are, it is Inglis’s comments that are not supported by any evidence. It would be interesting to know how Inglis has come by the information that ISIS agents are “harder to catch“. Is the former NSA deputy director getting inside information from someone leaking information from inside the agency?

Inglis went on to say,

“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.”

What Inglis is referring to is the massive sweeps of personal data of nearly everyone who has an email account or uses the internet to communicate with others including the communications of foreign governments considered to be US allies. Just because someone knows how to post videos to the Internet, publish a blog or issues messages in 140 characters of less on Twitter is not evidence of high intelligence or some kind of technology expert, as just about any grade school student knows how to do the same.

According to another unindicted criminal conspirator, former NSA and FBI Director Michael Hayden,

“The changed communications practices and patterns of terrorist groups following the Snowden revelations have impacted our ability to track and monitor these groups,”

Again, considering that Hayden like Inglis, are former employees of the NSA, how do they know so much about what the NSA is currently able to track and not track? Who or whom are their sources for what appears to be classified information or information that should be classified.

Before ISIS and before the Snowden came forward as a whistleblower, the Boston Marathon attacks occurred or were allowed to happen, as some would say, so what good is the intelligence gathering operations of the NSA. It would be appropriate to remember that Russian authorities directly phoned in a tip about the alleged Boston Marathon bombers. We should also note that Boston police being in possession of militarized weapons and equipment did nothing to stop the attack either.

Perhaps the real problem is the NSA being distracted with providing local police agencies and the DEA information on minor street level drug dealers obtain by the same illegal methods.