Source: USA TODAY

A 29-year-old former CIA employee who admitted responsibility Sunday for one of the most extraordinary leaks of classified information in U.S. history told The Guardian he exposed the documents because he thinks Americans should know how the government has intruded on their privacy.

“I can’t in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” Edward Snowden told the Guardian in an interview.

In the interview, Snowden described a comfortable lifestyle and a stellar career that included a $200,000 salary from consulting company and defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, of McLean, Va., and a home in Hawaii that he shared with a girlfriend. He told the paper his main fear is the U.S. government will come after his family, his friends and his partner.

Booz Allen confirmed in a statement that Snowden worked at the consulting company for less than three months and was assigned to a team in Hawaii.

“News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm,” the statement said. “We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.”

Snowden, who learned after seizures last year that he suffers from epilepsy, is a former technical assistant for the CIA who spent the past four years at the NSA as a contract employee of several companies, including Dell and Booz Allen, the newspaper reported. He copied the documents last week at NSA’s Hawaii office and then told a supervisor he needed time off for medical treatment, the newspaper said.

When he boarded a plane to Hong Kong on May 20, he simply told his girlfriend he would be away for a few weeks, the Guardian reported. The paper said Snowden is now staying in a hotel in Hong Kong and is considering seeking asylum in Iceland.

“I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want,” he told the newspaper.

He told the newspaper he is willing to stand behind his actions in public because “I know I have done nothing wrong.”

“My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them,” he told the Guardian.

Snowden grew up in Elizabeth City, N.C., but his family eventually moved to a gray-shingled house in Ellicott City, Md., near NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, the Guardian reported. He did not complete high school and instead earned a GED certificate. Snowden did not finish community college, where he studied computers.

At the condominium complex in Maryland listed as one of Snowden’s last known addresses, no one answered the door and neighbors said they didn’t recall ever seeing him. The neighborhood, with narrow, meandering streets, is one of many compact bedroom communities that dot the Interstate 95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington, home to workers not just at the NSA but other federal government agencies and private contractors.

In 2003, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, but broke both his legs in a Special Forces training accident and was discharged, he told the Guardian.

His first NSA job was as a security guard at an agency facility at the University of Maryland in College Park, the Guardian reported. Next, he worked on IT security at the CIA. One job in 2007 took him to Geneva, where he maintained computer network security for the CIA, the paper said.

Snowden told the paper he thought about revealing government surveillance then, but Obama’s 2008 election gave him hope of real reform.

In 2009, he went to work for a private contractor that assigned him to an NSA facility on a military base in Japan, the paper said. Obama, Snowden said, ultimately advanced the surveillance policies rather than reforming them.

Snowden described NSA’s data-capturing infrastructure as so intrusive it can intercept e-mails, phone calls, passwords and credit cards. He told the newspaper that the NSA “routinely lies” to Congress about the scope of its surveillance in the United States.

The Guardian said Snowden is so worried about surveillance that he pads his hotel room door with pillows to prevent eavesdropping and drapes a hood over his head and laptop to avoid password detection by hidden cameras.

“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things,” he said in the Guardian interview. “We collect more digital communications from Americans than we do from the Russians.”

Contributing: Greg Toppo in Ellicott City, Md

Follow Donna Leinwand Leger on Twitter @DonnaLeinwand

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

The National Security Agency’s classified PRISM program is an internal government computer system used to manage foreign intelligence collected from Internet and other electronic service providers, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement Saturday.

The disclosure Saturday marks the most extensive explanation the government has offered of what the program is, how it works and what it is authorized to collect.

Clapper said he declassified the details of the NSA’s surveillance and intelligence collection programs “in hope that it will help dispel some of the myths and add necessary context to what has been published” about government surveillance of Americans’ phone records and foreigners’ Internet use.

The National Security Agency and the FBI are siphoning personal data from the main computer servers of nine major U.S. Internet firms, The Washington Post and the London-based Guardian reported Thursday night. Clapper said those reports lacked context about how the program is governed.

The Guardian this week revealed that the government demanded millions of phone records from Verizon. On Saturday, the newspaper reported on a classified NSA data-mining program called “Boundless Informant” that allegedly records and analyzes where electronic intelligence comes from. The classified document shows NSA collected nearly 3 billion pieces of intelligence from U.S. computer networks in one month, the paper reported.

“Over the last week, we have seen reckless disclosures of intelligence community measures used to keep Americans safe. In a rush to publish, media outlets have not given the full context — including the extent to which these programs are overseen by all three branches of government — to these effective tools,” Clapper said.

“PRISM is not an undisclosed collection or data mining program,” Clapper said in a fact sheet that accompanied his statement.

The system manages foreign intelligence information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said. “The authority was created by the Congress and has been widely known and publicly discussed since its inception in 2008,” he said.

The program has yielded results, including providing insight into a terrorist organization’s strategic planning efforts, intelligence about weapons of mass destruction proliferation networks and information about potential cyberthreats, the fact sheet said.

“This insight has led to successful efforts to mitigate these threats,” the fact sheet said.

Clapper said Congress “after extensive public debate” reauthorized Section 702 in December. He and Attorney General Eric Holder provide “exhaustive” reports assessing compliance with targeting to Congress twice a year, Clapper said in the fact sheet. Congress also receives opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, he said, and congressional intelligence and judiciary committees are regularly briefed.

The government “does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers,” Clapper added. “The notion that Section 702 activities are not subject to internal and external oversight is similarly incorrect. Collection of intelligence information under Section 702 is subject to an extensive oversight regime, incorporating reviews by the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.”

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, approves the information collection and the providers know about it, Clapper said. The decisions are based on “a written directive” from Holder and Clapper, the fact sheet said. Eleven federal judges, appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, sit on the court.

“In short, Section 702 facilitates the targeted acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning foreign targets located outside the United States under court oversight,” the fact sheet said. “Service providers supply information to the government when they are lawfully required to do so.”

Executives from Facebook, Google and Apple disputed reports that the companies have provided direct access to their servers for the National Security Agency and the FBI.

To target someone for such intelligence collection, the government must have “an appropriate, and documented, foreign intelligence purpose,” such as for the prevention of terrorism, hostile cyberactivities, or nuclear proliferation, and the foreign target must be “reasonably believed to be outside the United States,” the fact sheet said. Section 702 prohibits “intentionally” targeting any U.S. citizen or anyone known to be in the United States, the sheet said. The agency also cannot target a person overseas if the purpose is to get information from a person inside the United States, the sheet said.

“We cannot target even foreign persons overseas without a valid foreign intelligence purpose,” the fact sheet said.

If the intelligence community intercepts communications for a person in the U.S., it cannot use the information unless it is needed to understand or assess the importance of foreign intelligence, is evidence of a crime, or indicates a threat of death or serious injury, the fact sheet said.

Targeting decisions are reviewed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice, the fact sheet said.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Ariel Castro, 52, the former school bus driver accused of holding three women captive in his Cleveland home for nearly a decade, was charged late Friday with murder and more than 300 counts of rape and kidnapping.

The Cuyahoga County grand jury’s 329-count indictment charges Castro with one count of aggravated murder for allegedly terminating one of his captives’ pregnancies, 139 counts of rape and 177 charges of kidnapping, seven counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of felony assault and one count of possession of criminal tools dating from the time of the first woman’s disappearance until February of 2007.

County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in a statement that the investigation is still underway. Additional charges could follow in a superseding indictment.

The indictment charges Castro as a “sexually violent predator” who committed the murder and rapes in the course of a kidnapping. Those charges are considered aggravating factors that call for stiffer penalties. The murder charge is tied to one victim’s fourth pregnancy, the indictment said.

The County Prosecutor’s Capital Review Committee will consider whether prosecutors should seek the death penalty if Castro is convicted. Castro, who was fired last year from his job as a school bus driver, is being held in the Cuyahoga County jail on $8 million bail. A judge will arraign Castro on the new charges next week, McGinty said.

Amanda Berry, one of the kidnapped women, broke free from Castro’s home on the west side of Cleveland on May 6 and led police to Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. Berry gave birth to a daughter while held captive. Berry, now 27, disappeared April 21, 2003, a day before her 17th birthday. Knight, now 32, disappeared Aug. 22, 2002, the day she was to appear at a custody hearing for her son. DeJesus, now 21, disappeared April 2, 2004.

Castro allegedly chained Knight to a pole in the basement and raped her the day after he took her captive, the indictment says. He allegedly taped Berry’s legs and mouth, sexually assaulted her after she tried to escape, chained her to a pole in the basement with a motorcycle helmet on her head, chained her to a radiator in the bedroom, and attempted to strangle her with a vacuum cleaner cord, the indictment says. He also allegedly chained and assaulted DeJesus.

McGinty said after Castro’s arrest last month that he would ask the grand jury to charge Castro for every day of the women’s captivity and for every instance of sexual assault.

Castro, who was fired last year from his job as a school bus driver, is being in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $8 million bail.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Three months before an extreme tornado struck Moore, Okla., city officials complained of trouble getting grant money that they said would help more than 800 residents build “safe rooms.”

Moore’s “safe-room rebate program is still ‘on hold,’ ” the city Emergency Management Department wrote in a February blog post on the city website. “We’ve found that the FEMA requirements and their interpretations seem to be a constantly moving target.”

The city’s troubles stem from a Hazard Mitigation Plan, which expired in September 2011. Both the state and FEMA require an approved plan as a condition for grant money.

Safe rooms are reinforced spaces that can withstand tornadoes up to 250 miles per hour, said Leslie Chapman-Henderson, president of Federal Alliance for Safe Homes.

“A tested and certified safe room provides near-absolute protection up to EF5,” the magnitude of the tornado that struck Moore, Chapman-Henderson said.

In existing homes, a closet, laundry room, bathroom or other interior room can be retro-fitted with Kevlar panels, concrete block or other reinforced materials. Pre-fabricated safe rooms can be bolted to a garage floor. In new construction, the builder can reinforce one of the rooms with concrete or steel, she said.

“It’s a marginal increase in cost. It can be as low as $1,500,” she said.

Moore and other communities in Cleveland County began work on their soon-to-expire plan in the summer of 2011. The city in October 2011 told residents it would seek $2 million in FEMA funding through the state for a $2,500 rebate on safe rooms for 800 Moore homeowners.

In an update posted last year, city officials said the plan remained in flux and the plan was unlikely to be approved before Nov. 1, 2012, more than a year after it expired.

The city in February blamed changing federal requirements that occurred “while our contractor was writing the document; he has had to rewrite it,” the blog post said. City officials said they hoped to resubmit the document to state officials in March. FEMA has not yet received a revised plan from Cleveland County.

By now, the city noted, much of the federal money allocated to the state after the last disaster had already been spent. The state applied for and received federal money after major tornadoes in 1999 and 2003.

“We have more federally assisted, more federally funded safe rooms than anyone in the United States,” Oklahoma Emergency Management Director Albert Ashwood said Wednesday.

More than $57 million in FEMA funds have helped pay for 11,768 private and public safe rooms in Oklahoma, more than in any other state, FEMA spokesman Dan Watson said.

“Many of those safe rooms constructed with FEMA dollars were in the same area as this week’s tornado and most were funded through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program,” he said.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.