Lawmaker calls Snowden thief, implies Russia aid

WASHINGTON - Edward Snowden, the fugitive former contractor who leaked classified National Security Agency documents, “was a thief” who had possible Russian help and has “incredibly harmed” the U.S. military, the House Intelligence Committee chairman said.

“This was a thief, who we believe had some help, who stole information, the vast majority had nothing to do with privacy,” Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, told NBC’s Meet the Press in remarks scheduled to be broadcast today.

“Our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines have been incredibly harmed by the data that he has taken with him and we believe now is in the hands of nation-states,” Rogers said in excerpts released by NBC.

Rogers, commenting earlier this month about a classified Defense Departmentreport on Snowden’s leaks, which revealed agency spying programs, said the study showed the disclosures may “gravely impact” national security and that much of what Snowden took is related to current military operations.

Rogers has offered the only public characterization of the report, which he said concluded that Snowden, when he was working for the McLean, Va.-based Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., downloaded about 1.7 million intelligence files - the biggest ever theft of U.S. secrets.

Rogers implied yet stopped short of directly accusing Russia of aiding Snowden, 30, who is residing there under temporary asylum.

“I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow,” Rogers said, referring to Russia’s spy agency.

“There’s questions to be answered there. I don’t think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the FSB,” Rogers said.

The U.S. has charged Snowden with theft and espionage for leaking documents to the Guardian and The Washington Post last year that unveiled the breadth of the National Security Agency’s collection of Internet and telephone records.

President Barack Obama responded Friday to seven months of debate instigated by Snowden’s leaks. Obama endorsed taking action to ensure that U.S. citizens and allies can have more confidence that their privacy is protected while committing to few specifics. He directed others - Congress, his attorney general, his intelligence director, a newoutside privacy panel - to propose solutions.

Rogers, in his Meet the Press comments, said “if it was a privacy concern” that spurred Snowden, “he didn’t look for information on the privacy side for Americans. He was stealing information that had to do with how we operate overseas to collect information to keep Americans safe.”

“Some of the things he did were beyond his technical capabilities,” such as “how he arranged travel before he left,” said Rogers. “He had a go-bag, if you will.”

Yevgeny K horishko, spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Many of the agency surveillance programs were initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. Obama’s next steps in determining how they operate have implications for U.S. security and for companies involved in technology, telecommunications and the Internet.

In his 42-minute address in Washington on Friday, Obama said that reconciling the competing interests of national security and personal privacy is a complicated task, made more difficult by rapidly changing technology and the evolving threats the U.S. faces.

“This effort will not be completed overnight, and given the pace of technological change, we shouldn’t expect this to be the last time America has this debate,” Obama said. “But I want the American people to know that the work has begun.”

Privacy advocates and representatives of the technology industry characterized Obama’s moves as progress, while saying his actions also fell short of their goals.

Executives of Yahoo! Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Twitter Inc., LinkedIn Corp. and AOL Inc., who had together urged changes in National Security Agency surveillance programs, said in a joint statement Friday that “crucial details remain to be addressed.”

Obama said he would require judicial review of requests to query phone-call databases and ordered Justice Department and intelligence officials to devise a way to take storage of that data out of the government’s hands.

The collection and storage of millions of telephone records, now done by the National Security Agency, is one of the most contentious issues. Obama said that while there’s “no indication that this database has been intentionally abused,” critics are right that it could yield personal information “and open the door to more intrusive bulk-collection programs in the future.” Information for this article was contributed by Chris Strohm, Roger Runningen, Derek Wallbank, Michael C. Bender and Julianna Goldman of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/19/2014

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