Inside Story On Snowden To Be Published Next Month

"The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man," by Luke Harding. Vintage Books announced Thursday that Harding's book will be released Feb. 11 as a paperback original. Harding is a foreign correspondent for the Guardian, the London-based newspaper that in June began publishing a series of articles on government surveillance based on documents leaked by Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.

NEW YORK (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The race to publish books about Edward Snowden is on.

Vintage Books announced Thursday that Luke Harding's "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man" will be released Feb. 11 as a paperback original. Harding is a foreign correspondent for the Guardian, the London-based newspaper that in June began publishing a series of articles on government surveillance based on documents leaked by Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.

A book by Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who broke the story, is scheduled for March. According to Vintage, "The Snowden Files" will cover everything from Snowden's first contacts with Greenwald to efforts by the U.S. and British governments to keep the information from being published.

United States Releases More Documents On Surveillance Origins

 Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. Clapper is declassifying more documents that show how the National Security Agency was first authorized to start collecting bulk phone and Internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists. Clapper explains in a statement on Dec. 21 that President George W. Bush first authorized the spying as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, just after the Sept. 11 attacks.

WASHINGTON (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The director of national intelligence on Saturday declassified more documents that outline how the National Security Agency was first authorized to start collecting bulk phone and Internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists and how a court eventually gained oversight of the program, after the Justice Department complied with a federal court order to release its previous legal arguments for keeping the programs secret.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained in a statement Saturday that President George W. Bush first authorized the spying in October 2001, as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, just after the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush disclosed the program in 2005. The Terrorist Surveillance Program — which had to be extended every 30-60 days by presidential order — eventually was replaced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — a law that requires a secret court to OK the bulk collection.

Clapper also released federal court documents from successive intelligence directors arguing to keep the programs secret, after a California judge this fall ordered the administration to declassify whatever details already had been revealed as part of the White House's campaign to justify the NSA surveillance. Former agency contractor Edward Snowden first made the surveillance programs public in leaks to the media.

President Barack Obama hinted Friday that he would consider some changes to NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records to address the public's concern about privacy. His comments came in a week where a federal judge declared NSA's collection program "unconstitutional," and a presidential advisory panel suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.

The judge said there was little evidence any terror plot had been thwarted by the program, known as Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The advisory panel recommended continuing the program but requiring a court order for each NSA search of the phone records database, and keeping that database in the hands of a third party — not the government. Obama said he would announce his decisions in January.

"There has never been a comprehensive government release...that wove the whole story together — the timeline of authorizing the programs and the gradual transition to (court) oversight," said Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group suing the NSA to reveal more about the bulk records programs. "Everybody knew that happened, but this is the first time I've seen the government confirm those twin aspects."

That unexpected windfall of disclosures early Saturday came along with the release of documents outlining why releasing the information would hurt national security. The U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California in the fall had ordered the Obama administration to make public the documents, known as state secrets declarations.

The Justice Department issued the declarations late Friday in two ongoing class action cases: Shubert v. Bush, now known as Shubert v. Obama, on behalf of Verizon customers; and Jewel v. NSA, on behalf of AT&T customers.
Calls to the Justice Department and the director of national intelligence's office were not answered. "In September, the federal court in the Northern District of California...ordered the government to go back through all the secret ex-parte declarations and declassify and release as much as they could, in light of the Snowden revelations and government confirmations," Rumold said. "So what was released late last night was in response to that court order."

In one such legal argument, former National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair in 2009 told the court that revealing information — including how information was collected, whether specific individuals were being spied upon and what the programs had revealed about al-Qaida — could damage the hunt for terrorists.

"To do so would obviously disclose to our adversaries that we know of their plans and how we may be obtaining information," Blair said. Much of his 27-page response is redacted.

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Snowden: NSA's Indiscriminate Spying 'Collapsing'

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, in Hong Kong. Snowden wrote in "an open letter to the Brazilian people" published early Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2013 by the respected Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that he would be willing to help Brazil's government investigate U.S. spying on its soil, but that he could do so only if granted political asylum.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (AP) — National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden wrote in a lengthy "open letter to the people of Brazil" that he's been inspired by the global debate ignited by his release of thousands of National Security Agency documents, and that the NSA's culture of indiscriminate global espionage "is collapsing."

In the letter, Snowden commended the Brazilian government for its strong stand against U.S. spying. He wrote that he'd be willing to help the South American nation investigate NSA spying on its soil, but could not fully participate in doing so without being granted political asylum, because the U.S. "government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak."

Revelations about the NSA's spy programs were first published in the Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers in June, based on some of the thousands of documents Snowden handed over to the Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald and his reporting partner Laura Poitras, a U.S. filmmaker.

The documents revealed that Brazil is the top NSA target in Latin America, in spying that has included the monitoring of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's cellphone and hacking into the internal network of state-run oil company Petrobras.

The revelations enraged Rousseff, who in October canceled an official visit to Washington that was to include a state dinner. She's also pushing the United Nations to give citizens more protections against spying.
In his letter, Snowden dismissed U.S. explanations to the Brazilian government and others that the bulk metadata gathered on billions of emails and calls was more "data collection" than surveillance. "There is a huge difference between legal programs, legitimate spying ... and these programs of dragnet mass surveillance that put entire populations under an all-seeing eye and save copies forever," he wrote. "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power."

Brazilian senators have asked for Snowden's help during hearings about the NSA's targeting of Brazil, an important transit hub for trans-Atlantic fiber optic cables that are hacked. Both Greenwald and his domestic partner David Miranda spoke before the Senate, and Miranda has taken up the cause of persuading the Brazilian government to grant political asylum to Snowden.

"Brazil is a big, strong country, I think one of the few nations in the world that could offer asylum to Edward Snowden," Miranda said in a phone interview. "He's helped so many nations, and I think mine like all others that have sworn to defend human rights should step forward to help him now."

Miranda said that he received the Snowden's letter directly from the former NSA analyst via "secure means." Snowden, who is living in Russia on a temporary one-year visa, previously requested political asylum in Brazil and several other nations.

In July, Brazil's Foreign Ministry choose not to respond to Snowden's request, technically not denying it and therefore leaving it pending and open to approval. On Tuesday, neither Brazil's Foreign Ministry nor the presidential office said they had immediate comment on Snowden's letter or his asylum request.

Several members of Brazil's Congress have called for Snowden to receive asylum, so that he could assist lawmakers' investigation into NSA activity in Brazil. U.S. officials have remained steadfast in their stance on Snowden, accusing him of leaking classified information and saying he should face felony charges in American courts.

Rousseff recently joined Germany in pushing for the United Nations to adopt a symbolic resolution which seeks to extend personal privacy rights to all people. The Brazilian leader has also ordered her government to take several measures, including laying fiber optic lines directly to Europe and South American nations, to "divorce" Brazil from the U.S.-centric backbone of the Internet that experts say has facilitated NSA spying.
The Snowden letter was first published Tuesday in a Portuguese translation by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. The AP obtained the original English version, which was then later widely made available online.
It comes one day after a U.S. district judge ruled that the NSA's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records likely violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on unreasonable search. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court for a final decision.

"Six months ago, I revealed that the NSA wanted to listen to the whole world," Snowden wrote. "Now, the whole world is listening back, and speaking out, too. ... The culture of indiscriminate worldwide surveillance, exposed to public debates and real investigations on every continent, is collapsing."

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4 Americans Meet Snowden To Give Him An Award

From the left: Jesselyn Radack, Raymond McGovern, Coleen Rowley and Thomas Drake, talk to each other before their interview with The Associated Press in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013. The four former U.S. government officials who met with former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden said Thursday that he is adjusting to life in Russia and expresses no regrets about leaking highly classified information. They are the first Americans known to have met with Snowden since he was granted asylum in Russia in August.

MOSCOW (AP) — Four former U.S. government officials who met with former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden said Thursday that he is adjusting to life in Russia and expresses no regrets about leaking highly classified information. Separately, Snowden's father arrived to see his son.

The Americans, who once worked for the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and NSA, have criticized the U.S. government and exposed what they believed was wrongdoing in the security agencies. All supporters of Snowden, they are the first Americans known to have met with him since he was granted asylum in Russia in August.

In interviews with The Associated Press, they described spending the previous evening with Snowden to present him with an award given annually by a group of retired national security officers. "He spoke about going out and about and getting to understand Russia and its culture and the people," said Thomas Drake, who started working for the NSA in 2001 and disclosed an electronic espionage program that he saw as invasive. "This is where he lives now, and so where you live is your home."

Snowden's father, Lon, did not say when or where he would meet his 30-year-old son, but expressed optimism about his situation. "You know, I have heard so many things through the media, and my assumption is certainly, given the circumstances, he's doing as well as could be expected," Lon Snowden told the AP shortly after he arrived in Moscow. "He's safe and he's free, and that's a good thing."

The elder Snowden said he doubts his son will return to the United States, where he is charged with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing the NSA's surveillance of phone and Internet usage around the world.
The four former U.S. officials refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living. "For his own safety it's best that no one else knows where he actually lives," Drake said. "But I believe he is making the best of his circumstances and is living as normally as possible."

Like Snowden, Drake was indicted under the Espionage Act, but the felony charges were dropped before trial and he was found guilty in 2011 on a lesser charge and sentenced to one year of probation and community service.

Drake and the other Americans — Raymond McGovern, Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley — said Snowden was in good spirits and still believes he did the right thing in disclosing the NSA surveillance program.

All but McGovern are past recipients of the Sam Adams Award, named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the U.S. military of underestimating the strength of the enemy for political purposes. The award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

The winner of the award in 2010 was WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. McGovern, a 74-year-old retired CIA officer who had worked with Adams, said the anti-secrecy group had facilitated its trip to Moscow and that WikiLeaks staffer Sarah Harrison, who had arrived with Snowden from Hong Kong in June, remained by his side.

The Americans said they saw no evidence that Snowden was under the control of Russian security services, as many in the U.S. government believe. "He spoke very openly about a whole range of things, a number of which I won't get into here, but it certainly didn't involve any kind of manipulation by the Russian government or anyone else for that matter," said Radack, a former U.S. Justice Department adviser now with the Government Accountability Project. "He definitely is his own person and makes his own decisions, and says and does what he wants to."

Radack, 42, had accused the FBI of misconduct in its handling of the case against John Walker Lindh, an American who fought with Taliban and was captured in 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. She later wrote a book about the case called "Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban." The forward for the book was written by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Snowden to publish his disclosures.

Rowley, who worked for the FBI from 1981 until retiring in 2004, testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 about intelligence failures ahead of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and systemic problems at the FBI. She was one of three whistleblowers chosen as persons of the year by Time magazine.

She called Snowden a "prime example" of the need to achieve security without violating the law. "This is a false trade-off, that you have to sacrifice the law, the Constitution, human rights itself in order to somehow get this false sense of security," Rowley said. "And he's a prime example, so it's very important to obviously compare notes and to talk to him."

Lynn Berry contributed to this story.