--- description: NSA Director Keith Alexander revealed last month that former contractor Edward Snowden may have leaked as many as 200,000 documents to the media, but his... title: Edward Snowden May Have Leaked As Many As 200,000 Documents image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Snowden May Have Leaked Up to 200,000 Documents by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Nov 14, 2013 11:23 PM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Nov 14, 2013 11:23 PM CUT NSA Director Keith Alexander revealed last month that former contractor Edward Snowden may have leaked as many as 200,000 documents to the media, but his remarks were not noticed until recently. When asked what steps the NSA was taking to stop Snowden from leaking additional information, Alexander said, “I wish there was a way to prevent it. Snowden has shared somewhere between 50 (thousand) and 200,000 documents with reporters. These will continue to come out.” He said that the information was “being put out in a way that does the maximum damage to NSA and our nation,” according to a transcript of the remarks, Reuters [reports. ](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSBRE9AD19B20131114 "undefined") The figure is admittedly vague as Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who originally broke the Snowden leak story, points out: > [](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/401119166268059648) \[[Reuters](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSBRE9AD19B20131114 "undefined")\] Edward Snowden May Have Leaked As Many As 200,000 Documents ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7162437/snowden-may-have-leaked-up-to-200000-documents/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7162437/snowden-may-have-leaked-up-to-200000-documents/"},"headline":"Snowden May Have Leaked Up to 200,000 Documents","datePublished":"2013-11-14T23:23:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-25T06:08:53.690Z","description":"NSA Director Keith Alexander revealed last month that former contractor Edward Snowden may have leaked as many as 200,000 documents to the media, but his...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7162437/snowden-may-have-leaked-up-to-200000-documents/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7162437/snowden-may-have-leaked-up-to-200000-documents/","name":"Snowden May Have Leaked Up to 200,000 Documents"}}]}] ```