The “second source” for Snowden reporters, explained

Since revelations about the extent of government surveillance began to flow fromformer National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year, the public has engaged inan ongoing debate about the role of leaks and whistleblowers in safeguarding democracy.

And according to some journalists closely associated with Snowden, that debate has spurred another leakerto come forward with what could bemore evidence of government overreach.

But now federal investigators have identified a suspect in their investigation into an alleged second source who supplied sensitive documents to an outlet led by journalists connected to Snowden reporting, according to Michael Isikoff at Yahoo News.So is this suspect"another Snowden"? Do these leakers have valuable information to offer to the public?Here on the Switch we sort through the noise.

Wait, there's a second Snowden?

Not exactly -- but there is aleaker who appears to have funneled sensitive government documents to journalists at The Intercept, the Pierre Omidyar backed site that counts Snowden journalists Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald among its founders.

This "second source" is mentioned during the final minutesof Poitras' recent documentary on Snowden, CitizenFour.Intercept co-founding editorJeremy Scahill is briefly shown discussing the person, and thefinal sceneof the film showsGreenwald in Moscow discussing the information apparently coming from him or her with Snowden.

"The person is incredibly bold," Snowden tells him while reviewing notes presumably detailing the fresh leaks, and Greenwald replies, "It was motivated by what you did."

The second source is widely believed to be the person who supplied documents for an August storybyScahill and Ryan Devereaux that showed nearly half of the people on the U.S. government's terror-tracking database lacked connections with any known terrorist group. The classified documents in the reportreferenced datesthat wereafter Snowden was already on the run, strongly suggesting thatthey came from another individual.

And has this person been caught?

According to a Yahoo News story this week, which quoted anonymous sources, the FBIhas identified a federal contracting employee as a suspectin the leak investigation and raided the suspect's Northern Virginia home. Contacted by the Washington Post, the FBI declined to comment.

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The “second source” for Snowden reporters, explained