Whistleblower Behind Revelation of NSA Surveillance Revealed - East Idaho News
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Whistleblower Behind Revelation of NSA Surveillance Revealed

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Getty 020513 SafeComputing?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1370807660587iStockphoto/Thinkstock(HONG KONG) — The man responsible for leaking information about the National Security Agency’s cell phone surveillance has been identified by Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

Edward Snowden, 29, is a former technical analyst for the CIA and a current NSA contractor who reportedly disclosed a number of top-secret documents to the British newspaper.

Snowden, apparently in Hong Kong, asked to have his identity revealed, says The Guardian.

On Wednesday The Guardian reported that Verizon had shared daily records of all its customers’ phone calls with the US government between April and July, after a secret US court approved the program. But the Washington Post reports the classified records may go back to 2006 and involve other companies.

The Post followed with a new report Friday that several leading Internet companies had contributed to a separate program that allowed intelligence agencies to tap into “audio, video, photographs, e-mails and other documents” of their users.

President Obama dismissed what he called “hype” around the reports, and insisted, “nobody is listening to your telephone calls.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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