US leaker Snowden under criminal investigation

(MENAFN - Arab Times) WASHINGTON June 14 2013 (AFP) -The United States has launched a criminal investigation and is taking "all necessary steps" to prosecute Edward Snowden for exposing secret US surveillance programs the FBI director said Thursday.

Robert Mueller who is to step down soon after more than a decade leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation defended the Internet and phone sweeps as vital tools that could have prevented the attacks of September 11 2001.

Snowden's disclosures "have caused significant harm to our nation and to our safety" Mueller told lawmakers at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

As to Snowden "he is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation" Mueller said. "We are taking all necessary steps to hold the person responsible for these disclosures."

Mueller's comments confirm that the US government is pursuing Snowden the 29-year-old American IT specialist who has admitted to leaking information about far-reaching surveillance programs.

Snowden who worked as a subcontractor handling computer networks for the National Security Agency (NSA) is in Hong Kong a semi-autonomous Chinese territory where he has vowed to contest any possible extradition in court.

Mueller defended the collection of US phone records and Internet data related to foreign targets which officials maintain are legal programs approved by federal judges and in accordance with the Constitution.

"The program is set up for a very limited purpose and a limited objective and that is to identify individuals in the United States who are using a telephone for terrorist activities and to draw that network" he said.

Mueller told lawmakers that one of the 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar had called a known Al-Qaeda safe house in Yemen from the US city of San Diego.

"If we had had this program in place at the time we would have been able to identify that particular telephone number in San Diego" Mueller said.

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US leaker Snowden under criminal investigation