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| This image made available by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows an undated image of Edward Snowden, 29. Snowden worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency and is the source of The Guardian's disclosures about the U.S. government's secret surveillance programs, as the British newspaper reported Sunday, June 9, 2013. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Risking prosecution by the U.S. government, a 29-year-old
intelligence analyst who claims to have worked at the National Security
Agency and the CIA was revealed as the source of The Guardian's and The
Washington Post's disclosures about the U.S. government's secret
surveillance
programs, the newspapers reported Sunday.
The
leaks have reopened the post-Sept. 11 debate about privacy concerns
versus heightened measure to protect against terrorist attacks, and led
the NSA to ask the Justice Department to conduct a criminal
investigation.
The Guardian said it was
publishing the identity of Edward Snowden, a former technical assistant
for the CIA and current employee of defense contractor Booz Allen
Hamilton, at his own request. The Washington Post also identified
Snowden as its principal source for its reporting on intelligence
operations that put the White House and the administration on the
defensive.
"My sole motive is to inform the
public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done
against them," Snowden told The Guardian.
He
told The Washington Post that he would "ask for asylum from any
countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of
global privacy" in an interview from Hong Kong, where he is staying.
"I'm
not going to hide," Snowden told the Post. "Allowing the U.S.
government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for
revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."
A spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence did not have immediate comment on the disclosure.
The
NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of
Americans each day, creating a database through which it can learn
whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S. The
NSA program does not listen to actual conversations.
Separately,
an Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, allows the NSA and FBI
to tap directly into U.S. nine U.S. Internet companies to gather all
Internet usage - audio, video, photographs, emails and searches. The
effort is designed to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.
Director
of National Intelligence James Clapper decried the revelation of the
intelligence-gathering programs as reckless and said it has done "huge,
grave damage." In recent days, he took the rare step of declassifying
some details about them to respond to media reports about
counterterrorism techniques employed by the government.
President
Barack Obama, Clapper and others have said the programs are authorized
by Congress and subject to strict supervision of a secret court.
"It's
important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security and
also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," Obama said.
"We're going to have to make some choices as a society. And what I can
say is that in evaluating these programs, they make a difference in our
capacity to anticipate and prevent possible terrorist activity."
Snowden
told The Guardian that he lacked a high school diploma and enlisted in
the U.S. Army until he was discharged with broken legs after a training
mission.
After leaving the Army, Snowden got
his foot in the door with the NSA at a covert facility at the University
of Maryland, working as a security guard.
He
later went to work for the CIA as an information technology employee and
by 2007 was stationed in Geneva, Switzerland, where he had access to
classified documents.
During that time, he
considered going public with what he knew about the nation's secretive
programs. He decided against it, he told the newspaper, because he did
not want to put anyone in danger and he hoped Obama's election would
curtail some of the clandestine programs.
He said he was disappointed that Obama did not rein in the surveillance programs.
"Much
of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government
functions and what its impact is in the world," he said. "I realized
that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."
Snowden
left the CIA in 2009 to join a private contractor. He spent the last
four years at the National Security Agency, the intelligence arm that
monitors electronic communications, as a contractor with consulting
giant Booz Allen Hamilton and, before that, Dell.
The
Guardian reported that Snowden was working in an NSA office in Hawaii
when he copied the last of the documents he planned to disclose and told
supervisors that he needed to be away for a few weeks to receive
treatment for epilepsy.
He left for Hong Kong
on May 20 and has remained there since, according to the newspaper.
Snowden is quoted as saying he chose that city because "they have a
spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent",
and because he believed it was among the spots on the globe that could
and would resist the dictates of the U.S. government.
"I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets," Snowden told the newspaper.
The
Guardian said Snowden has been monitoring news coverage of the leaks
and asked to be identified after several days of interviews.
"I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," Snowden is quoted as saying.
Officials
said the revelations were dangerous and irresponsible. Rep. Mike
Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
said the journalists who disclosed the operations did not grasp the
consequences.
"He doesn't have a clue how this
thing works," Rogers told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "Neither did the
person who released just enough information to literally be dangerous."
