National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden began mining for sensitive documents about the United States government’s surveillance programs more than a year before going to the media, sources now report.
According to Reuters, the 30-year-old former intelligence
contractor first collected documents detailing the NSA’s
electronic spying programs in April 2012 while employed at Dell
Inc., the computer company Mr. Snowden worked at from 2009 until
earlier this year.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Reuters’ sources said that
Snowden started scouring networks for information about
eavesdropping programs run by both the NSA and Britain’s
Government Communications Headquarters while at Dell, and he left
a digital footprint in his path to mark his territory.
When asked for comment by Reuters, Dell spokesman David Frink
said, “We are honoring our customer’s request that we not
comment on this matter.” Mark Hosenball, a reporter with the
news agency, wrote that company’s response left him to presume
that Dell was also contracted to work for the NSA.
Snowden left Dell earlier this year to take a job at Booz Allen
Hamilton, an intelligence contractor whose relationship with the
US government has been well documented for decades. It was there,
earlier news reports claimed, that Snowden began accumulating
troves of data about the government’s spy apparatus which were
later leaked to the media and published beginning with articles
in the Guardian and Washington Post on June 5.
“My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to
lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked,” Snowden
told the South China Morning Post one week after the first leaks
were published. “That is why I accepted that position about
three months ago.”
When the South China Post asked Snowden if he took any job
specifically to gather evidence of
surveillance, he replied, “Correct on Booz.” Now
allegations made to Reuters suggest that while Snowden didn’t
necessarily sign on to work with Dell three years earlier for the
sake of scooping up confidential files, he used his access there
to accumulate material during his tenure.
In Thursday’s report, Hosenball recalled how an Internet alias
used by Snowden authored an Internet post in February 2010 on the
technology site Ars Technica in which the role of private
corporations with regards to working alongside the federal
government was critiqued.
“It really concerns me how little this sort of corporate
behavior bothers those outside of technology circles,” the
account linked to Snowden wrote. “Society really seems to have
developed an unquestioning obedience towards spooky types.”
Since the first leaked documents attributed to Snowden more than
two months ago, discussions over the role of not just those
contractors but the government itself have been rampant in the
United States and abroad. Despite criticism from civil
libertarians, however, the White House and select members of
Congress have defended the surveillance programs time and time
again, touting strict oversight procedures that have been put in
place specifically to prevent abuses.
Also on Thursday, though, the Washington Post published NSA
documents handed over by Mr. Snowden in which it was revealed
that the NSA violated those oversight rules
upwards of thousands of times in just the year 2012.
On Friday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said, “The American
people rely on the intelligence community to provide forthright
and complete information so that Congress and the courts can
properly conduct oversight,” and added, “I remain
concerned that we are still not getting straightforward answers
from the NSA.”
“I plan to hold another hearing on these matters in the
Judiciary Committee and will continue to demand honest and
forthright answers from the intelligence community. Using
advanced surveillance technologies in secret demands close
oversight and appropriate checks and balances, and the American
people deserve no less than that,” he said in a statement.
Republished from: RT