Edward Snowden Reveals Himself As NSA Whistleblower
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National Security Agency seal (GeorgeArthur, Creative Commons)
Snowden was a former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency and worked at the NSA for the past four years an an employee of various outside contractors. He is a current employee of Booz Allen Hamilton. The Guardian also reported that Snowden was at an NSA office in Hawaii when he was preparing to disclose the information three weeks ago.
"I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," Snowden said to The Guardian. "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."
However, according to The Guardian, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong on May 20 and has not returned back to the United States since then. Snowden left his girlfriend and his six-figure job behind in Hawaii.
MORE: NSA's PRISM Surveillance Program Flouts Fourth Amendment
Glenn Greenwald was one of the three journalists who broke the story of Snowden's identity for The Guardian. They compared Snowden to famous whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. Greenwald was also the same writer who broke the giant story earlier this week about NSA's policies.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Verizon Business Network Services was forced to hand over telephone records to the NSA detailing the location, time and telephone numbers that were used in domestic calls starting on April 25 and ending on July 19.
Additionally, the next day The Guardian and The Washington Post unveiled the existence of PRISM, a program that allows NSA analysts to get information including e-mails, chats and photographs from the computers at Microsoft, Google, Apple and other Internet companies.
Snowden alleged that President Obama advanced these policies even further once he took office in 2009. U.S. officials have stated that the allegations have been overblown and that the program is valuable towards combating terrorism.
He expects the Obama administration to accuse him of violating the Espionage Act. The Guardian has released a video interview with Snowden on their website.
Reach Executive Producer Max Meyer by email.
