Edward Snowden warns CIA ‘never destroys something by mistake’

Former NSA contractor responds to reports inspector general's office destroyed their only copy of a 6,700 page report on 'enhanced' interrogation techniques

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (Reuters)

Edward Snowden has responded to reports the CIA inspector general’s office “mistakenly” destroyed its only copy of a comprehensive Senate 'torture report' with a stinging rebuttal: “When the CIA destroys something, it's never a mistake.”

An intelligence agency was quoted by Yahoo News as saying CIA inspector general officials deleted an uploaded computer file containing the report, before "inadvertently" destroying a disk with the document on it.

The 6,700 page report detailed controversial “enhanced” interrogation methods deployed by the CIA at overseas prison sites. These included waterboarding and sleep deprivation. Another copy exists elsewhere at the CIA but the destruction of the copy at the inspector general’s office was never confirmed to the public, according to Yahoo's report.

The fugitive National Security Agency whistleblower responded to the allegations on Twitter, telling his millions of followers: “I worked @CIA. I wrote the Emergency Destruction Plan for Geneva. When CIA destroys something, it's never a mistake.”

Snowden continues to seek asylum in Russia after being charged under the Espionage Act for leaking classified details of mass surveillance by the US Government. He began working for the CIA within its global communications division after leaving university before moving to computer systems and operations, eventually transferring to the NSA.

The full report is still classified and may never be published in full. A 500 page summary was published by Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in 2014 and made available to the public.

Last week, a US Court of Appeals ruling concluded the full report is not subject to the Freedom of Information act.