Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

Transcript

this is a historic moment especially in the debate over security and personal freedoms just over an hour ago as i said the guardian newspaper did something stunning outing the name of its own leaker the man who gave them information on one of the most broad and secret u.s programs ever made public let's show that video again of the website where they released that name and that video this is edward snowden as you say a computer systems expert he's had administrative ability in past jobs and those jobs include working for the cia and most recently as an uh contractor for the nsa so he could set some passwords overseas security snowden told the guardian that he worked for the cia and it was during that job that he came to realize the scope of these programs then he moved to the nsa as a contractor in 2009 even more that's when he realized that he felt he needed to leak this information because of the scope of collection that even if regular americans weren't targeted he felt this could ultimately affect them even if you're not doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded and the the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it's getting to the point you don't have to have done anything wrong you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call okay here are some of the things that we know about edward snowden again from the video and report by the guardian 29 years old computer technician who says he's worked in several positions again at the cia and at the nsa snowden told the guardian that he is in fact uh that he is in fact right now consulting for the firm booze allen hamilton in hawaii i called an email to the communication staff for booz allen they have not gotten back to me yet but fred this story is quite a blockbuster it's an incredible read what the guardian is saying here fred is that just a few days ago this man left behind his entire life in hawaii they say that he did not even tell his girlfriend that he would be gone told his or he told his girlfriend why he was leaving that he told his supervisor he needed to leave for a few weeks because he needed treatment for epilepsy which the guardian says he does suffer from but essentially that was a cover for him to leave the country and then to fly to where he is now edward snowden according to the guardian is in hong kong also in that story he is quoted as saying he does not expect to return to this country and he is nervous about possible retaliation from our intelligence agencies just an incredible story