In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) query, the NSA today informed journalistJason Leopold that it could not locate emailpursuant to his request for any and all emails written by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in which Mr. Snowden contacted agency officials through email to raise concerns about NSA programs.

Snowden, the force behind one of the largest leaks of classified material in the history of the United States, has stated in the past that he repeatedly raised concerns internally about NSA activity.

The NSA denies that. An NSA statement from last December is clear: after extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowdens contention that he brought these matters to anyones attention.

Todays FOIA response maintains the NSAs previous position:

At the end of the response, theres an interesting paragraph:

So, the email that the NSA released previously, in which Snowden asked questions relating to executive orders, and Department of Defense regulations, didnt match Leopolds request in the view of the NSA. Therefore, if there are other Snowden emails asking similar questions, they would not have been included in the NSAs response, perhaps.

Heres the released email:

What we need now is a new Edward Snowden to Edward Snowden Edward Snowdens old correspondence en masse. Im kidding.

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NSA Denies Any Record Of Snowden Emailing Superiors About ...

By Alexey Eremenko

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: June 24, 2014 (Issue # 1816)

Edward Snowden at TED2014 The Next Chapter, Session 2 Retrospect, Mar. 17-21, 2014, Vancouver Convention Center, Vancouver, Canada. Photo: James Duncan Davidson / TED

A year ago, an airplane carrying U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden landed in Russia. It has been a wild ride for him since: nonstop prize nominations, chats with presidents and marriage proposals from female spies, among other adventures. The St. Petersburg Times takes a look at some of the highlights of Snowden's first year in the land of vodka, oil and apparently freedom of information.

Stranded

All Snowden wanted to do was change planes in Moscow en route from Hong Kong to Ecuador, but then he disappeared. Journalists played the "where's Snowden?" game in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport for days on end with the enthusiasm of 5-year-olds, and a few even accompanied the empty seat supposed to hold Snowden all the way to his next transit stop, Havana.

He eventually emerged to admit that the enraged White House had canceled his passport and applied for asylum in Russia. The saga of Snowden's sojourn in the transit zone lasted for a biblical 40 days until the Kremlin granted his request. Lesson 1 for Snowden: Mother Russia does not let you go easily.

That Website Job

First on the to-do list of any immigrant even an intelligence fugitive is getting a job. Capitalizing on Russia's extreme shortage of IT experts, Snowden scored a job as a developer at an unspecified "major Russian website," according to his lawyer, but no one came out and admitted to having hired the U.S. government's pale, bespectacled public enemy No. 1.

More:
Snowden's 1st Year in Russia: The Highlights

Edward Snowden addressed the Council of Europe via videofeed Tuesday, June 24.NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden addressed the leading European human rights organization on Tuesday, once again refuting many of the claims made over the last year by members of the national security establishment, journalists, and others.

Speaking to the Council of Europe via videofeed from Russia during a special session on improving the protections of whistleblowers, Snowden denied any connection to the Russian government, and stated that he has stayed in the country not by choice, but as a matter of circumstance.

Snowden's personal appearance was not made possible under the immunity normally accorded to the Council's hearings, even though the body said it had gone to "quite some lengths" to do so.

"I did not travel to Russia with the intention of staying," Snowden told the Council, but was "transiting through Russia to Latin America when the U.S. State Department revoked my passport," after which he applied for asylum in more than 20 countries, including many Western European ones.

Snowden also disputed the notion that his disclosures had harmed national security. "It is a subversion of democratic rule for any authorities to use state secrecy law as a means to implement programs that they know the public would never agree to authorize," he argued. A year after the disclosures, "we have never seen the governments in any country point to any specific harm to any individual or any national security priority," he stated in his defense.

"We saw something very similar to this happen to Chelsea Manning." Snowden pointed out that "at one point the United States government claimed that the publishers [of the Manning documents] would 'have blood on their hands.'"

Snowden maintains that more than a year after his initial disclosures rocked the national security establishment, he is satisfied with the results. "Public affairs have to be known by the public to be handled. We can't be said to be a democracy if we've lost our seat at the table of government," he argued.

"When citizens are reduced to the status of subjects...that diminishes us as a free people, as a society, and as a culture, and I believe that we have not just a right, but a civic obligation to push back when we see lawbreaking, when we see abuse, when we see excesses of simple bad policy,"

Watch a video of the hearing here.

Listen to the audio from it here.

Read the rest here:
Snowden: Citizens Have 'Civic Obligation to Push Back' Against Abuses

NSA WHISTLEBLOWER Edward Snowden isn't a fan of living in Russia, and has said that he wants his right to travel restored.

Speaking to the human rights parliamentary assembly in Strassbourg on Tuesday via a video link from Moscow, Snowden coughed on his true feelings for his present location.

"I didn't choose to be in Russia," he said. "If the Russian government had a choice I'm sure they'd prefer me not to be here. Since I came here I've been very open in saying I want to restore my right to travel... live a normal life."

Snowden added that he has been limited in his options however, with 20 countries having refused his application for asylum. Of course, Snowden would ideally go back to his American homeland, but there he is accused of several crimes, including deliberately exposing classified information belonging to the intelligence services.

He doesn't regret blowing the whistle on the US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, however, despite facing 10 years or more in prison, saying that the public has a right to know.

"Public affairs have to be known by the public," Snowden said, "When citizens are reduced to the status of subjects, where we're not active participants ... that diminishes us as a free people, as a society and as a culture."

Snowden added that while the NSA's mass surveillance efforts are largely ineffective, saying that the bulk surveillance programmes have never stopped a single incident, he said such spying is likely to continue, regardless of the legal consequences.

"The NSA and other intelligence services never rely on a single method to gather information. They don't have an exhaustible, finite supply of intelligence-gathering systems," he said.

"Intelligence agencies are like a factory, whenever they need a new method they make one; they get scientists and researchers and get a new one. If a government or someone burned a specific method they'd just make more. That's how any intelligence agency around the world runs."

Originally posted here:
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden wants out of Russia