Move over Edward Snowden, CNN is reporting that there’s a new leaker who is supplying members of the media with classified documents. The Intercept published a story on Tuesday based on disclosures supplied by an unnamed source concerning the U.S. government’s use of watchlists to monitor known and suspected terrorists. The document leaked is dated August 2013, weeks after Edward Snowden identified himself as the source of the National Security Agency leaks and had already arrived in Moscow. [icopyright one button toolbar]

Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux write in The Intercept, “An August 2013 slide from the National Counterterrorism Center called ‘TIDE By The Numbers’ lays out the scope of the Obama administration’s watchlisting system, and those it is targeting.” “The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system.”

Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.

Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000—surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush.

“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.” Source: The Intercept

Here we go again…another day, another leak. How can we maintain the integrity of our national security when classified documents are constantly being leaked? This is playing right into the hands of the terrorists. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, the government overreaches at times, but when will we ever get beyond the classified document dumps?

This was cross-posted from The Hinterland Gazette.