Isle resident was leak of secret surveillance programs

The man who detailed two top-secret National Security Agency surveillance programs gathered some of the information at his workplace in Hawaii before leaving several weeks ago for Hong Kong, media sources reported Sunday.

The Guardian newspaper identified Edward Snowden, 29, as the source of the leaks, which have touched off the latest national debate about secret government monitoring of Americans’ activities.

"I am not going to hide," Snowden told the Washington Post. "Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."

Snowden was a technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency but more recently worked for the NSA as a contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton, the Guardian reported.

In a statement published on its website, Booz Allen confirmed that Snowden worked for the firm for fewer than three months with a team in Hawaii. The offices are at 733 Bishop St. downtown.

"News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm," the company said in a statement. "We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter."

The Guardian reported that Snowden was working in an NSA office in Hawaii when he copied the last of the documents he planned to disclose and told supervisors that he needed to be away for a few weeks to receive treatment for epilepsy. He left for Hong Kong on May 20 and said he remains there because he believes it to be among the spots on the globe that could and would resist the dictates of the U.S. government.

Neighbors near Snowden’s rental home on Eleu Street in Wai­pahu said he and his unnamed girlfriend drove cars with Maryland license plates, kept to themselves and always left their blinds closed.

"We never spoke with them," said Carolyn Tijing, 46, who lives across the street from the house. "No one around here did. They had, like, in the garage the moving boxes — they were (stacked) floor to ceiling across the front of the garage. The door could come down, but just inside that door it was all the way across, floor to ceiling."

Tijing said the couple lived in the house for six or seven months, but a contribution receipt for a $250 donation to presidential hopeful Ron Paul puts Snowden at the address in May 2012.

Century 21 real estate agent Kerri Jo Heim said the owners of the house listed it for sale Wednesday and had never spoken with or met the previous tenants. A property manager dealt with Snowden, and the seller recently coincidentally asked the manager to give the tenants notice to move out, she said.

Heim said Sunday that police came by Wednesday to ask where the couple had gone. Heim told them she didn’t know.

Snowden’s leaks have reopened the post-Sept. 11, 2001, debate about privacy versus heightened measures to protect against terrorists, and led the NSA to ask the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation.

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he told the Guardian. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is."

The Guardian and Post both wrote explosive stories about the government surveillance programs, including the revelation that Verizon provided phone user information to the government and the use of a program called PRISM that tracks Internet use in order to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

President Barack Obama, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and others have said the programs are authorized by Congress and subject to strict supervision of a secret court.

Clapper has decried the revelation of the intelligence-gathering programs as reckless and said it has done "huge, grave damage."

Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz’s office released a statement Sunday regarding reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs federal wiretapping. Congress voted late last year to extend the act for another five years.

"My first vote as United States Senator was against the FISA Amendments Act (Reauthorization Act of 2012) because it failed to provide transparency, accountability and reasonable limits when the federal government conducts surveillance for intelligence purposes," Schatz stated in an email. "While I recognize that the FISA Amendments Act has helped to produce useful intelligence, I fear that we do not have a full understanding of the impact that this law has on the privacy of Americans. We need a comprehensive review of the FISA Amendments Act to ensure that Americans’ privacy and civil liberties are protected."

ACCORDING TO the Guardian, Snowden studied computing at a community college in Maryland but dropped out and later earned his GED. He told the newspaper he was raised in Elizabeth City, N.C., before moving with his family to Maryland near the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade.

Snowden told the Guardian he enlisted in the Army in 2003 but was discharged after breaking both legs in a training accident. He then began working as a security guard for one of the NSA’s covert facilities at the University of Maryland and subsequently worked on information technology security for the CIA.

In 2007 the CIA stationed him in Geneva.

"Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world," he told the Guardian. "I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good."

Snowden left the CIA in 2009 and has spent the last four years as a contractor for private consulting firms such as Booz Allen, working with the intelligence arm of the NSA that monitors electronic communications.

Snowden told the Guardian he is satisfied with his decision to release the documents and identify himself, and that he has no regrets.

"I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.