Report On Harm Caused By Edward Snowden Blows Up British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Snowden had done a huge amount of damage to the Wests ability to protect its citizens. As to the specific allegations this morning, we never comment on operational intelligence matters so Im not going to talk about what we have or havent done in order to mitigate the effect of the Snowden revelations, but nobody should be in any doubt that Edward Snowden has caused immense damage, he told Sky News. Across the pond, on Sunday, June 14, the Britain Sunday Times published a blockbuster report available by subscription that claimed Great Britains MI6 was forced to pull spies and operatives out of the field for their protection. On the surface, the claim seems plausible. Every report on the encrypted files that Edward Snowden had on the laptop he stole says that the theft caused immense damage and irreparable harm to intelligence operations conducted by western powers. The problem in Great Britain as of this writing is that the reporters who have been following the story are calling foul and the story itself is being rewritten without retractions. A number of falsehoods that have been reported over the last two years and later retracted without widespread publicity were repeated in the story. The two specific things mentioned are that the American National Security Agency cannot confirm that 1.7 million files were downloaded, and that Glenn Greenwalds boyfriend did not visit Snowden at any time and bring 58,000 documents to London. Both are listed as facts in the Sunday Times piece. To put it mildly, its a journalism nightmare. American news wire service Reuters picked up the story, as did several others. The concept that the information leaked to whoever Snowden handed it to caused intelligence operations to cease hit headlines and started to trend globally on social media. And yet, the initial stories on the debacle are being amended on a rolling basis, and other reporters are busy pointing out contradictions. [Glenn] Greenwald, one ofthe journalists who first broke news ofthe files and was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on Snowdens NSA revelations, said the Times article was filled with falsehoods. Greenwald wrote on the The Intercept, the news website he co-founded,that the article gives voice to banal but inflammatory accusationsthat are made about every whistleblower from Daniel Ellsberg to Chelsea Manning. It offers zero evidence or confirmation for any of its claims, he writes. The journalistswho wrote itneither questioned any of the official assertions nor even quoted anyone who denies them. Its pure stenography of the worst kind. The thrust of Greenwalds piece and thus the other journalistic criticism is that the Sunday Times piece offered no evidence on the word of anonymous sources to make their claim. That does not mean that it is not true, just that Greenwald and other journalists see such reports as being propaganda of sorts, and to an extent a smear campaign against Edward Snowden. Doubt is thrown on the thought that Russia and China could crack the code on American encryption when American government servers have been hacked by the Chinese twice in the last month. Especially since all the reporters claim that the laptop was handed over to REPORTERS in Hong Kong, not any government. None offered any information on where it is now other than saying Snowden claims he destroyed his copy of the files. (Waitthere was a copy? Just one?) As the British Home Office put it, Vladimir Putin didnt grant Edward Snowden asylum for nothing. It wasnt simply that his American passport had been revoked. That source did claim that assets on the ground were targeted, but again no names and no evidence. Almost as if this entire exercise was a black hole covert operation. Imagine that. The thing is, Britain is having a debate on surveillance just as the United States is and legislation is pending, and the timing of the report is awfully convenient. No matter where one stands on Edward Snowdens actions hero or traitor, narcissist or whistleblower there is no doubt that secrets and covert operational details made it to the hands of western adversaries in addition to information on metadata spying programs. That fact is inevitable, and every western intelligence official interviewed has said so in no uncertain terms. However, there is no evidence of anyone being harmed. At least none that is presented. That seems to be the point the critics of the Sunday Times report. The only thing that can be said, is that in the race for headlines and becoming the next Woodward and Bernstein, a lot of corners are being cut. Journalism is the rough draft of history. It takes a while for the real story to shake out. What that is in this case may not be any of the above. 