British newspaper IDs source of leaks about secret US surveillance program

British newspaper IDs source of leaks about secret US surveillance program

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

A 29-year-old American who works as contract employee at the National Security Agency is the source of The Guardian’s disclosures about the U.S. government’s secret surveillance programs, the London newspaper 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.

“I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he was quoted as saying.

The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has decried the revelation of the intelligence-gathering programs as reckless, and in the past days has taken the rare step of declassifying some details about them to respond to media reports about counterterrorism techniques employed by the government.

An Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, allows the NSA and FBI to tap directly into the servers of major U.S. Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL, scooping out emails, video chats, instant messages and more to track foreign nationals who are suspected of terrorism or espionage.

The NSA also is collecting the telephone records of millions of American customers, but not actual conversations.

President Barack Obama, Clapper and others have said the programs are authorized by Congress and subject to strict supervision of a secret court.