WASHINGTON — Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agencycontractor who leaked a trove of documents revealing the agency’s surveillance operations, said he raised his concerns to more than 10 officials, “none of whom took any action to address them,” before he decided to give the documents to journalists.
Mr. Snowden’s comments, in written answers to questions by members of the European Parliament that were released on Friday, amplified previous assertions that he initially tried to raise concerns internally about surveillance collection he believed went too far.
An N.S.A. spokeswoman declined to comment, but the agency has previously said its internal investigation, including interviews with co-workers, found no evidence that he had brought concerns to the attention of anyone.
But in his written testimony, Mr. Snowden insisted that he had, adding that his efforts had elicited two types of responses. Some people, he said, responded with “well-meaning but hushed warnings not to ‘rock the boat’ ” for fear of retaliation like being investigated by the F.B.I. as a suspected leaker.
“Everyone in the intelligence community is aware of what happens to people who report concerns about unlawful but authorized operations,” he wrote.
Other people, he said, told him to “let the issue be someone else’s problem.”
“Even among the most senior individuals to whom I reported my concerns,” he continued, “no one at N.S.A. could ever recall an instance where an official complaint had resulted in an unlawful program being ended, but there was a unanimous desire to avoid being associated with such a complaint in any form.”
The Justice Department has charged Mr. Snowden with violating the Espionage Act. He is living in asylum in Russia. Some of his critics, like the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, have suggested he may be working with the Russian intelligence service, without offering evidence.
In his testimony, Mr. Snowden said he has “no relationship” with the governments of Russia or China, but he acknowledged that he was approached by Russian intelligence officers when he arrived in Moscow. He reiterated his previous claims that he took no documents with him to Russia after turning over archives to several journalists in Hong Kong.
“I didn’t take any documents with me from Hong Kong, and while I’m sure they were disappointed, it doesn’t take long for an intelligence service to realize when they’re out of luck,” he said.
“I would also add, for the record, that the United States government has repeatedly acknowledged that there is no evidence at all of any relationship between myself and the Russian intelligence service,” Mr. Snowden said.
He said that he did not want to stay in Russia but that his efforts to obtain asylum in various countries in Europe had not succeeded, and he blamed diplomatic pressure from the United States.
Mr. Snowden also took issue with the contention by some officials that whistle-blower laws would have protected him if he had gone through official channels. President Obama, for example, has pointed to an executive orderhe issued that extended protections against retaliation to employees of intelligence agencies, saying, “So there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.”
But Mr. Snowden noted that Mr. Obama’s directive covers only intelligence agency employees, not outside contractors, so “individuals like me were left with no proper channels.”
On Monday, Mr. Snowden is scheduled to appear in a live video feed from Russia at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Tex., to discuss communications privacy issues.
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