By the time they already knew who it was, much of those document were already in too many hands to hide. If I was Snowden, I’d have some set up on hidden prepaid hosting set to leak automatically if I didn’t keep on cancelling well before anything at all goes public. They wouldn’t just have to hack him, but every journalist who may have made copies, anywhere he may have copied it to, etc.
I don’t think it’s likely that their procedures on spending are that fast. By the time they got approval from whoever needs to approve it, it would be too late to be effective. Most of the damage was already done when Snowden handed over the first batch of documents, and if he suddenly disappeared, media wouldn’t forget about him.
By the time they already knew who it was, much of those document were already in too many hands to hide. If I was Snowden, I’d have some set up on hidden prepaid hosting set to leak automatically if I didn’t keep on cancelling well before anything at all goes public. They wouldn’t just have to hack him, but every journalist who may have made copies, anywhere he may have copied it to, etc.
I don’t think it’s likely that their procedures on spending are that fast. By the time they got approval from whoever needs to approve it, it would be too late to be effective. Most of the damage was already done when Snowden handed over the first batch of documents, and if he suddenly disappeared, media wouldn’t forget about him.