WASHINGTON, November 8 (RIA Novosti) – Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden obtained logins and passwords from unwitting employees at the US National Security Agency and used the credentials to access some of the classified documents he disclosed to the media, the Reuters news agency cited sources as saying Friday.
Snowden, who is currently living in Russia after receiving temporary asylum there, may have convinced 20 to 25 of his NSA colleagues in Hawaii to give him their login credentials by telling them he needed the information for his work as a computer systems administrator for the agency, Reuters cited an unidentified source as saying.
Snowden, a former NSA contractor, leaked details of top-secret US government surveillance programs to the media, the publication of which has sparked an international uproar over the agency’s massive collection of data on private individuals in the United States and abroad.
Several NSA employees who provided the login information have been identified, questioned and removed from their posts, according to a second unidentified source that Reuters described as “close to several US government investigations into the damage caused by the leaks.”
Russia granted temporary asylum to Snowden in August despite extradition demands from the United States, where he faces charges of espionage and theft of government property. Snowden has been living at an undisclosed location in Russia since then.
