Some of the secret national security documents leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden were allegedly accessed when Snowden assumed the electronic identities of some top officials with the National Security Agency.
NBC News reports that through Snowden's job as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton, he had access to system administrator privileges on the NSA's intranet, and managed to download 20,000 documents.
"Every day, they are learning how brilliant [Snowden] was," said a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case. "This is why you don't hire brilliant people for jobs like this. You hire smart people. Brilliant people get you in trouble."
According to officials, Snowden borrowed someone else's user profile to access some of the secret documents.
While Snowden had a "top secret" security clearance, which allowed him to access many documents, he was able to obtain more sensitive data by impersonating higher level NSA officials.
Snowden is currently residing in Russia, where he was granted temporary asylum.
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