Edward Snowden and NSA locked in war of words over 'whistle-blower' e-mail
Former contractor insists he raised alarm about vast surveillance programmes and says release of redacted internal messages is an attempt to discredit him
Edward Snowden has hit back after the US National Security Agency released an email exchange it says proves that he questioned its legal training programmes, but provides no evidence the former contractor complained internally about vast surveillance programmes that he later leaked to the media.
"If the White House is interested in the whole truth, rather than the NSA’s clearly tailored and incomplete leak today for a political advantage, it will require the NSA to ask my former colleagues, management, and the senior leadership team about whether I, at any time, raised concerns about the NSA’s improper and at times unconstitutional surveillance activities," Snowden wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Post.
"It will not take long to receive an answer."
The release on Thursday of the April 2013 e-mails between Snowden and the NSA’s legal office is the latest round in a battle between Snowden, who casts himself as a crusading whistleblower, and US security officials, who say he failed to report his concerns to superiors before acting.
In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Snowden said he had raised alarms at multiple levels about the NSA’s broad collection of phone, e-mail and internet connections.
"I have raised the complaints not just officially in writing through e-mail to these offices and these individuals but to my supervisors, to my colleagues, in more than one office," Snowden told the network.
"Many, many of these individuals were shocked by these programmes," Snowden said, adding that he was advised: "If you say something about this, they’re going to destroy you."