Here are more specifics from the Brits:
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Snowden leaks 'put spies at risk': May says traitor has damaged intelligence agencies across the world including MI5 and MI6
....Last night, it emerged vital safe houses had also been lost. Security officials have had to abandon buildings used to house top-secret sources for fear they have been compromised – at huge cost to the British taxpayer.
In evidence to MPs, Home Secretary Mrs May said: ‘I assess and so does the director general of MI5 that the Snowden leaks did cause damage.
‘It has had an impact on the ability of our agencies to do the work they need to do. It would be fair to say it has had an impact not just on agencies in the UK.
‘If work has been done to try to mitigate the impact, that uses resources’.
Tory MP Michael Ellis, a member of the home affairs select committee, said: ‘It is clear to me the damage Snowden has done is monumental.
‘Not only has he jeopardised national security by his leaks, but he has also put people at risk and it is clear that he has also caused considerable financial loss.’...
Security officials say IS has seized on the Snowden leaks and has passed on information to its operatives – making it harder to track them down.
Al Qaeda is also known to have pounced on the leaks.
The terror group’s senior operatives have changed the way they communicate to avoid detection.
They have also produced a video tape handed to extremists, passing on tips.
The chilling seven-and-a-half minute video – which includes news footage of Snowden’s massive security breach – provides detailed graphics on how extremists can avoid being trapped by ‘FBI Secret Spying technology’ when communicating.
It also claims to identify technology companies who are co-operating with the UK and other countries so they can be avoided.
There is a list of software packages which can be used to try to thwart GCHQ and the intelligence agencies.
At the same time, GCHQ has lost track of some of Britain’s most dangerous criminals because of the way the fugitive exposed its operations.
Intelligence officials had to stop monitoring drug gangs, paedophiles, human traffickers and money launderers.
Up to a quarter of crime gangs are believed to be going undetected, sources have said.
In other cases, GCHQ has toned down or abandoned surveillance amid fears that the tactics are too easy to spot and could force criminals to ‘go dark’ and fall off the radar completely.
Among the gangs left able to operate unhindered was a drug-smuggling ring which had continued to bring Class A narcotics into Britain.
Ex-MI5 boss Jonathan Evans said the Snowden revelations have left Britain less able to protect itself at a time when the terrorist threat from Islamist fanatics is surging.
Former security minister Lord West said: ‘Since the revelations of the traitor Snowden, terrorist groups – in particular Isil (Islamic State) – have changed their methods of communications and shifted to other ways of talking to each other.
‘Consequently there are people dying who actually would now be alive.’
GCHQ has also warned that some companies had begun advertising internet products that were supposedly ‘Snowden compliant’..."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... 5-MI6.html
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