CIA Contractors Angry Over Job Loss May Be Behind Intel Leaks, Probe On

Washington: US authorities probing the recent leak of secret materials are focusing on past CIA contractors who may have been upset over job losses, the Wall Street Journal said on Sunday.

WikiLeaks had said earlier they got access to the trove via a circle of private contractors, and the group's founder Julian Assange chided the spy agency as careless to have lost the materials.

The CIA's sister spy body, the National Security Agency, was rocked in 2013 when contractor Edward Snowden released documents showing how it secretly raked up data from Americans' telecommunications and spied on US allies.

And in late 2016, the NSA discovered that another contractor, Harold Martin, had removed to his home an estimated 50 terabytes worth of data and documents, including reportedly sensitive hacking tools.