On the lam NSA leaker Edward Snowden has “everything” from a facility in Hawaii where he was stationed, US officials are said to believe as they hunt the 29-year-old.
Yesterday, Edward Snowden successfully evaded capture after it was believed he’d travel from Russia to Cuba, and the US has been seeking out the NSA whistleblower since he revealed his identity earlier this month.
Snowden has been assisted in his flight by Wikileaks, the organization whose embattled founder Julian Assange has come under fire in the past for leaking sensitive data.
Wikileaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson addressed rumors that Snowden had shared sensitive data with rival goverments, dismissing the claims as standard operating procedure after a major leak.
On Monday, Hrafnsson said:
“This rumor that is being spread is a fabrication and just plays into the propaganda by the administration here that somehow Mr. Snowden is cooperating with Russian or Chinese authorities.”
Assange confirmed that Wikileaks had interest in the material in Snowden’s possession, saying:
In relation to publishing such material, of course WikiLeaks is in the business of publishing documents that are supposed to be suppressed.
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist with whom Snowden collaborated to break the NSA surveillance story, says that he can confirm that Snowden is indeed in possession of material that could harm the US, but that the security contractor has not engaged in any such behavior:
“I know that he has in his possession thousands of documents, which, if published, would impose crippling damage on the United States’ surveillance capabilities and systems around the world … He has never done any of that.”
The assurance was of little value to the US government as they attempt to stop the leaks, and one NSA official told the Washington Post :
“They think he copied so much stuff — that almost everything that place does, he has … Everyone’s nervous about what the next thing will be, what will be exposed.”
While insinuations have been made that Snowden’s possession of the documents as he evades capture places national security at risk, Assange claims that all data had been secured against such a circumstance before Snowden fled.