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Clapper’s comments pushed Snowden to be a leaker

International Desk |
Update: 2014-08-13 11:15:00

DHAKA: Edward Snowden says dishonest comments to Congress by the US chief of national intelligence pushed him over the edge and prompted him to leak a trove of national security documents.

In a wide-ranging interview with Wired magazine over several days from Moscow, Snowden said he had been troubled for years by the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA) but that national intelligence chief James Clapper’s testimony prompted him to act.

The magazine, which published several photographs of Snowden including one showing him cradling an American flag, the former NSA contractor said he made his decision after reading in March 2013 about Clapper telling a Senate committee that the NSA does ‘not wittingly’ collect information on millions of Americans.

‘I think I was reading it in the paper the next day, talking to coworkers, saying, can you believe this...?’ Snowden told journalist James Bamford he had been troubled by other discoveries, including NSA spying on the pornography-viewing habits of political radicals, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 2047 HRS, AUG 13, 2014

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