&gt;&gt;&gt; &quot;without having been attributed to Snowden&quot;<p>1) Non-attribution does not mean a different source per se.  Some documents can be verified without any discussion of their source.  (ie the NSA acknowledges their authenticity by demanding their takedown as &quot;classified&quot;).  Powers are building cases against Snowden.  Those releasing documents don&#x27;t want to help that process.<p>2) Attribution to Snowden does is no guarantee that he is the source.  Snowden is not the author, just the delivery means.  And he doesn&#x27;t know personally exactly which documents he handed over.  There were just too many for that to be true.  So to protect another source they may falsely attribute something to Snowden, with or without his permission.  Not good journalism, but very possible.<p>There are so many documents in these agencies that leaks are inevitable.  With tens of thousands, perhaps a hundred thousand people in positions to read them, documents have appeared constantly.  Snowden was simply a massive uptick in an ongoing stream, not the first and no doubt not the last.<p>My disappointment is that with all of these leaks I have to give up the childhood hope that aliens have visited us.  Such secrets could never be kept by these agencies.