During the s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance [ 1 ] of both foreign and domestic nationals. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U. These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. On June 14, , United States prosecutors charged Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.
In late July , he was granted a one-year temporary asylum by the Russian government, [ 13 ] contributing to a deterioration of RussiaโUnited States relations. The extent to which the media reports responsibly informed the public is disputed. In January , Obama said that "the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light" [ 19 ] and critics such as Sean Wilentz have noted that many of the Snowden documents do not concern domestic surveillance.
In its first assessment of these disclosures, the Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest "theft" of U. Snowden obtained the documents while working for Booz Allen Hamilton , one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States. Barton Gellman , a Pulitzer Prize โwinning journalist who led The Washington Post ' s coverage of Snowden's disclosures, summarized the leaks as follows:. Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept.
Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations. The disclosure revealed specific details of the NSA's close cooperation with U. Snowden, [ 40 ] who obtained the trove while working for Booz Allen Hamilton. George Brandis , the Attorney-General of Australia , asserted that Snowden's disclosure is the "most serious setback for Western intelligence since the Second World War.
As of December [ update ] , global surveillance programs include:. The real identities of the companies behind these code names were not included in the Snowden document dump because they were protected as Exceptionally Controlled Information which prevents wide circulation even to those like Snowden who otherwise have the necessary security clearance. Although the exact size of Snowden's disclosure remains unknown, the following estimates have been put up by various government officials:.
