Ex-CIA employee behind NSA leak identified

Edward Snowden, an ex-CIA employee working as a contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), said he was the man who had leaked details of a top secret U.S. surveillance programme.

Holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong, 29-year-old Snowden said he had thought long and hard before publicising details of an NSA programme codenamed PRISM, saying he had done so because he felt his country was building an unaccountable and secret espionage machine that spied on every American.

“When you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis, and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses. And when you talk to people about them, in a place like this where this is the normal state of business, people tend not to take them very seriously and you know, move on from them. But over time, that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel compelled to talk about it. And the more you talk about it,  the more you’re ignored, the more you’re told it’s not a problem, until eventually you realise that these things need to be determined by the public, not by somebody who’s simply hired by the government,” he told the Guardian, which published a video interview with him on its website.

The Guardian published revelations this week that U.S. security services monitored data about phone calls from Verizon and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook.

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to wire-tap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if I had a personal email,” said Snowden.

The exposure of the secret programmes has triggered widespread debate within the United States and abroad about the vast reach of the NSA, which has expanded its surveillance programmes dramatically in the last decade.

U.S. officials say the agency operates within the law.

Snowden’s decision to reveal his identity and whereabouts lifts the lid on one of the biggest security leaks in U.S. history and escalates a story that has embarrassed the administration of President Barack Obama.

“I think that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who made these disclosures that are outside of the democratic model. When you’re subverting the power of the government, that’s a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy,” said Snowden.

“The public needs to decide whether these programmes and policies are right or wrong. And I’m willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say, I didn’t change this. I didn’t modify the story. This is the truth, this is what’s happening, you should decide whether we need to be doing this,” said the whistleblower.

Snowden, who said he had left his girlfriend in Hawaii without telling her where he was going, said he knew the risk he was taking, but thought the publicity his revelations had garnered in the past few days had made it worth it.

“We’ve got a CIA station just up the road at the consulate here in Hong Kong. I’m sure they’re gonna be very busy for the next week. And that’s a fear I’ll live under for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be,” he said.

Snowden spoke of his willingness to give up a comfortable life in Hawaii, where he earned about $200,000 a year.

“You can’t come forward against the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk, because they’re such powerful adversaries, that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they’ll get you in time.

“But at the same time you have to make a determination about what it is that’s important to you. And if living unfreely but comfortably is something you’re willing to accept, and I think many of us are, it’s the human nature. You can get up every day, you can go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows,” he said.

“But if you realize that’s the world that you helped create, and it’s going to get worse with the next generation, and the next generation, who extend the capabilities of this sort of architecture of oppression, you realise that you might be willing to accept any risk, and it doesn’t matter what the outcome is, so long as the public gets to make their decisions about how that’s
applied,” he said.

Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant, said he had been working at the super-secret NSA as an employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and decided to break his silence after becoming disenchanted with Obama whom he said had continued the policies of predecessor George W. Bush.

The Guardian said Snowden had been working at the NSA for four years as a contractor for outside companies including Booz Hamilton and Dell.

Three weeks ago, he copied the secret documents at the NSA office in Hawaii where he works and told his supervisor he needed “a couple of weeks” off for treatment for epilepsy, the paper said. On May 20 he flew to Hong Kong, which he said he chose because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”.

Snowden said it was not his intention to harm the U.S. but admitted that his decision to go public potentially exposes him to the wrath of the U.S. authorities.

“If I had just wanted to harm the U.S., you could shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon. But that’s not my intention. I think for anyone making that argument, they need to think, if they were in my position, you know you live a privileged life, you’re living in Hawaii, in paradise and making a tonne of money, what would it take to make you leave everything behind,” he said.

“The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change,” said Snowden.

In the video interview he looked relaxed, bespectacled and wearing a light beard and a dark grey shirt.

He said he was ultimately hoping that Iceland, which values Internet freedom, might grant him asylum.