Documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden show that individuals with connections to Al Qaeda and other extremist outfits have repeatedly sought to infiltrate the US intelligence community by applying for jobs in the agencies.
This development has forced the agencies to reinvestigate thousands of employees to deal with the threat of compromise of intelligence, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing a classified budget document provided by Snowden.
The CIA found that among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds raised questions, roughly one out of every five had “significant terrorist and hostile intelligence connections,” the paper reported noting that besides Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the groups cited most often were Hamas and Hezbollah.
“So sharp is the fear of threats from within that last year the NSA planned to launch at least 4,000 probes of potentially suspicious or abnormal staff activity after scrutinizing trillions of employee keystrokes at work,” The Post said, adding the anomalous behaviour that sent up red flags could include staffers downloading multiple documents or accessing classified databases they do not normally use for their work.