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NSA site where Snowden worked hadn't updated anti-leak software, says report

The National Security Agency facility in Hawaii apparently didn't have enough bandwidth to run the updated "insider threat" monitoring software.

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Detail from a data sheet for a Raytheon "insider threat" software product. Raytheon

The NSA facility where Edward Snowden worked when he walked off with a hoard of secret documents had failed to update its anti-leak software, according to a report.

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The computer network at the National Security Agency site in Hawaii didn't yet have the bandwidth to effectively run the updated program, an unnamed US official told news agency Reuters.

Other US government facilities had begun installing the updated software in accord with a presidential directive made in response to the WikiLeaks-Chelsea Manning document dump. The "insider threat" monitoring software is reportedly made by Raytheon.

An NSA spokeswoman told Reuters the following:

We open our facilities only after we have met all of the necessary regulatory, statutory, and infrastructure requirements. NSA has a very large, diverse, and complex IT infrastructure across our global enterprise, and many features of that infrastructure evolve over time as new capabilities are developed, refined, and deployed.

She added, "NSA and the Intelligence Community at large have been moving forward with IT efficiency initiatives for several years...The unauthorized disclosures have naturally compelled NSA and the rest of the IC to accelerate the timeline."

Reuters said Raytheon had no immediate comment.