Speaking on ABC’s This Week, National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander blasted NSA leaker Edward Snowden while admitting that US security had failed to stop him from leaving the country. “It’s clearly an individual who’s betrayed the trust and confidence we had in him,” Alexander said. ‘This is an individual who is not acting, in my opinion, with noble intent.”
Alexander admitted the “system didn’t work” in stopping Snowden from fleeing the country with highly classified information. “Well, this is a key issue that we’ve got to work our way through,” he explained. “Clearly the system did not work as it should have. He betrayed the trust and confidence we had in him. This is an individual with top secret clearance whose duty it was to administer these networks. He betrayed that confidence and stole some of our secrets.”
Alexander also admitted that no matter what, the system would always rely on good people not misusing information: “We’ve changed the passwords. But at the end of the day, we have to trust that our people are going to do the right thing. This is an extremely important mission defending our country.”
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).
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