TEHRAN, Oct. 25 (MNA) – Former CIA officer, Edward Snowden, who had fled from the United States and received temporary asylum in the Russian Federation, has materials about US intelligence activities against Iran, Russia and China.
According to Washington Post, Snowden obtains more than 30 thousand of documents, but not all of them were forwarded to the journalists. The office of the national intelligence refused to comment on that.
Mr. Snowden said he gave all of the classified documents he had obtained to journalists he met in Hong Kong, before flying to Moscow, and did not keep any copies for himself. He did not take the files to Russia “because it wouldn’t serve the public interest,” he said.
“What would be the unique value of personally carrying another copy of the materials onward?” he added. He also asserted that he was able to protect the documents from China’s spies because he was familiar with that nation’s intelligence abilities, saying that as an NSA contractor he had targeted Chinese operations and had taught a course on Chinese cybercounterintelligence.
In a wide-ranging interview over several days in the last week, Mr. Snowden offered detailed responses to accusations that have been leveled against him by American officials and other critics, provided new insights into why he became disillusioned with the NSA and decided to disclose the documents, and talked about the international debate over surveillance that resulted from the revelations. The interview took place through encrypted online communications. The documents, if disclosed, could compromise operations, officials said.
The notifications come as the Obama administration is scrambling to placate allies after allegations that the NSA has spied on foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The reports have forced the administration to play down operations targeting friends while also attempting to preserve other programs that depend on provisional partners. In either case, trust in the United States may be compromised.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is handling the job of informing the other intelligence services, the officials said. ODNI declined to comment. Snowden lifted the documents from a top-secret network run by the Defense Intelligence Agency and used by intelligence arms of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Snowden took 30,000 documents that involve the intelligence work of one of the services, the official said. He gained access to the documents through the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or JWICS, for top-secret/sensitive compartmented information, the sources said.
An NSA spokeswoman did not respond Thursday to a request for comment on Mr. Snowden’s assertions.
