Edward Snowden opened a proverbial can of worms when he started leaking top-secret US government documents and information. And while his revelations were incredibly important, they have to be seen not as a one off but as part of a proud tradition of whistleblowing that stretches back to the dawn of newspapers themselves.

According to CNN, the US government has determined that there is a new person leaking sensitive information and exposing national security documents.

The news of another leaker stems from an article published by The Intercept, which was created by author, journalist and activist Glen Greenwald. The basis of its ‘Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers’ article references classified government documents “obtained by The Intercept… from a source in the intelligence community.”

“Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group,” it states in the opening paragraph, citing the classified documents.

The bulk of the cited documents pertain to the US government’s classification and tracking of terrorist movements, even if the people on the watch list don’t have any affiliation to known terror groups.

“The classified documents were prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, the lead agency for tracking individuals with suspected links to international terrorism. Stamped “SECRET” and “NOFORN” (indicating they are not to be shared with foreign governments), they offer the most complete numerical picture of the watchlisting system to date,” it wrote.

The article also highlights a previously unknown program, code-named Hydra, used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to “secretly access databases maintained by foreign countries and extract data to add to the watchlists.”

In February Greenwald said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Snowden’s actions inspired many more people to come forward with government secrets.

“I definitely think it’s fair to say that there are people who have been inspired by Edward Snowden’s courage and by the great good and virtue that it has achieved. I have no doubt there will be other sources inside the government who see extreme wrongdoing who are inspired by Edward Snowden.”

The classified ‘Directorate of Terrorist Identities (DTI) Strategic Accomplishments 2013’ document can be read here.

[Source – The Intercept, Image – CC by 2.0/Michelangelo Carrieri]