Blurred Lines: How Edward Snowden’s Leak Changed the Game for SIGINT Agencies

In 2013, Edward Snowden, a contractor working for the National Security Agency (NSA), leaked top-secret information revealing that the United States and its allies were collecting a significant portion of the world’s communications. The disclosure caused alarm among intelligence agencies, who warned of dire consequences if enemies found other ways to communicate. However, the impact of Snowden’s revelations was not as severe as feared. While agencies could no longer access all the data they needed, they were still able to obtain a considerable amount of information.

Ciaran Martin, a former senior official at GCHQ, Britain’s signals-intelligence (SIGINT) agency, explained that while agencies could still access “lots” of data, it was enough to provide American SIGINT with a majority of intelligence. Over the past two decades, SIGINT has undergone significant transformation. The internet replaced radio and telephone traffic in the 1990s, and now most internet traffic is encrypted. Data is stored in new locations like the cloud. These changes have blurred the lines between cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks as computer networks that transport data have become intertwined with physical systems like cars, power grids, and military systems. Despite these shifts, SIGINT agencies remain powerful intelligence-gathering entities capable of extracting valuable information from the digital realm.