Source of “prism” revelations comes out of the shadows

A 29-year-old technician is the source of the latest revelations about the u.S. Intelligence agency’s massive collection of data from american internet services. He stepped out of the shadows on sunday evening with an interview with the british newspaper "guardian. According to his own statements, the young man named edward snowden has spent the past four years working for the US intelligence agency NSA as an employee of other companies. "They have no idea what’s possible," he said of the spying capabilities of the nsa’s systems.

According to the documents revealed by snowden, the u.S. Secret service is collecting data in a crude style from internet services such as google, facebook, microsoft, apple and yahoo. "I don’t want to live in a society that does this," snowden told the guardian. "I don’t want to live in a world where everything i do and say is recorded."

He described an even broader dimension of data collection than the documents he disclosed indicate: "the NSA has built up an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost anything." This will automatically absorb the bulk of human communication. "If i wanted to look into their e-mails or their wife’s phone, all i had to do was call up the intercepted data. I can get their e-mails, passwords, voice data, credit card information."

Snowden had fled to hong kong with the documents and talked to the "guardian" there. He is aware of the consequences of his actions. "Nothing good," was his answer to the question of what would happen to him in the future. He assumes that he will never be able to contact his family or friends again. His hope is that the hong kong government will not extradite him, even though he has been aware of the risk of imprisonment from the beginning. "I don’t think I will ever see my home again."

According to the report, snowden acted as an employee of several outside companies, such as the consulting firm booz allen hamilton and the PC manufacturer dell, at the nsa, which specializes in monitoring communications infrastructure. The u.S. Government had largely denied his accusations and emphasized that data from u.S. Internet companies was only requested on the basis of court orders and only selectively.