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Exposed US spy programme for better world, former CIA worker Edward Snowden says
LONDON: A former CIA employee working as a contractor at the US National Security Agency said he was the man who had leaked details of a top secret US surveillance programme, acting out of conscience to protect "basic liberties for people around the world."
Holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden, 29, said he had thought long and hard before publicising details of an NSA programme code named PRISM, saying he had done so because he felt his country was building an unaccountable and secret espionage machine that spied on every American.
The CIA declined to comment. Both the Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper — to whom he gave the documents he had purloined — published Snowden's identity on Sunday after he sought to be identified.
"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under," he told the Guardian, which published a video interview with him on its website.
"The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards," Snowdown said.
The Guardian published revelations last week that US security services had monitored data about phone calls from Verizon and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook.
Some legal experts were puzzled as to why Snowden fled to Hong Kong because it has an extradition treaty with the United States while mainland China does not.
That treaty provides that Hong Kong authorities could hold Snowden for 60 days while Washington prepares a formal extradition request.
Snowden said in the video that "Hong Kong has a strong tradition of free speech."
Douglas McNabb, a Houston lawyer who specializes in extradition, said: "Probable cause won't be hard" for the United States to cite. "This guy came out and said, 'I did it.'"
McNabb added: "His best defence would probably be that this is a political case instead of a criminal one." The treaty prohibits extradition for political cases.
Jesselyn Radack, a former US justice department attorney who represents whistleblowers, told Reuters: "As a whistleblower myself, this is one of the most significant leakers in my lifetime and in US history."
She said she hoped the case could become "a watershed moment that could change the war on whistleblowers and the broader war on information in our country."
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 dramatically in the last decade, after the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York in 2001.
US officials say the agency operates within the law. Some high-ranking members of Congress have indicated support for the NSA activities, while others are pushing for tougher oversight and possible changes to the law authorizing the surveillance.
Snowden's decision to reveal his identity and whereabouts lifts the lid on one of the biggest security leaks in US history and escalates a story that has placed a bright light on President Barack Obama's extensive use of secret surveillance programmes.
Snowden's decision to go public also may expose him to the wrath of the US authorities. The Guardian compared him to Bradley Manning, an American soldier now on trial for aiding the enemy, for passing classified military and State Department files to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Exposed US spy programme for better world, former CIA worker Edward Snowden says - The Times of India
Go to hell USA
, we don't need your assistance in our private affairs.
LONDON: A former CIA employee working as a contractor at the US National Security Agency said he was the man who had leaked details of a top secret US surveillance programme, acting out of conscience to protect "basic liberties for people around the world."
Holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden, 29, said he had thought long and hard before publicising details of an NSA programme code named PRISM, saying he had done so because he felt his country was building an unaccountable and secret espionage machine that spied on every American.
The CIA declined to comment. Both the Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper — to whom he gave the documents he had purloined — published Snowden's identity on Sunday after he sought to be identified.
"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under," he told the Guardian, which published a video interview with him on its website.
"The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards," Snowdown said.
The Guardian published revelations last week that US security services had monitored data about phone calls from Verizon and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook.
Some legal experts were puzzled as to why Snowden fled to Hong Kong because it has an extradition treaty with the United States while mainland China does not.
That treaty provides that Hong Kong authorities could hold Snowden for 60 days while Washington prepares a formal extradition request.
Snowden said in the video that "Hong Kong has a strong tradition of free speech."
Douglas McNabb, a Houston lawyer who specializes in extradition, said: "Probable cause won't be hard" for the United States to cite. "This guy came out and said, 'I did it.'"
McNabb added: "His best defence would probably be that this is a political case instead of a criminal one." The treaty prohibits extradition for political cases.
Jesselyn Radack, a former US justice department attorney who represents whistleblowers, told Reuters: "As a whistleblower myself, this is one of the most significant leakers in my lifetime and in US history."
She said she hoped the case could become "a watershed moment that could change the war on whistleblowers and the broader war on information in our country."
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 dramatically in the last decade, after the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York in 2001.
US officials say the agency operates within the law. Some high-ranking members of Congress have indicated support for the NSA activities, while others are pushing for tougher oversight and possible changes to the law authorizing the surveillance.
Snowden's decision to reveal his identity and whereabouts lifts the lid on one of the biggest security leaks in US history and escalates a story that has placed a bright light on President Barack Obama's extensive use of secret surveillance programmes.
Snowden's decision to go public also may expose him to the wrath of the US authorities. The Guardian compared him to Bradley Manning, an American soldier now on trial for aiding the enemy, for passing classified military and State Department files to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Exposed US spy programme for better world, former CIA worker Edward Snowden says - The Times of India
Go to hell USA
, we don't need your assistance in our private affairs.
