British authorities said that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was carrying 58,000 documents, nearly at least three times as many highly sensitive documents as previously said by media outlets, NBC News reported.
At a court hearing in London theBritish government told a judge that David Miranda, who is the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, was carrying 58,000 documents related to British intelligence on electronic devices before being stopped and searched by authorities at Heathrow airport two weeks ago.The government said it believed the documents had been "stolen" from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
The British government was able to decrypt some of the files using a code found on a piece of paper carried by Miranda. The government is struggling to decrypt the rest of it, news reports said.
"The remainder is encrypted," said the statement, using a form of encryption known as True Crypt, "which renders the material extremely difficult to access. ... [O]fficers are working with experts from other agencies to try and obtain access to that material."
Last week, British authorities detained Miranda when he was stopped at Heathrow Airport while traveling from Berlin back to Rio de Janeiro, the place where he lives with Greenwald. Miranda had been detained and questioned for eight hours under Schedule 7 of the U.K's Terrorism Act, NBC News reported.
Snowden a Honolulu-based employee of Booz Allen Hamilton, gave him system administrator privileges on the NSA's intranet, which he used to download the documents. Snowden impersonated higher level officials in order to access the most sensitive documents.
The NSA has already identified several instances where Snowden borrowed someone else's user profile to access documents, said the official.
The expose of the documents detail the extent of the U.S. government's collection of data, which one former intelligence officail rated the damage "on a scale of 1 to 10, is a 12." Snowden has since been charged with theft and violations of the Espionage Act, but has been granted temporary asylum in Russia.
