Edward Snowden Comes Forward Via The Guardian For NSA Leaks

The NSA whistleblower has outed himself. Edward Snowden, 29, came forward as the person who leaked phone and computer tapping documents to The Guardian newspaper the same day the House and Senate agreed that the leaker should be prosecuted. He requested The Guardian release his name, the paper reported Sunday.

"The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity," The Guardian wrote in an article.

Snowden is a former CIA employee and currently works with the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. He's been working for the National Security Agency for four years. He expects to be prosecuted to the fullest extent. He said, however, that he does not to believe his actions were inappropriate.

"I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said.

Snowden copied the last documents he submitted to The Guardian three weeks ago in the NSA's Hawaii office. He told his supervisor that he needed time off to be treated for epilepsy. He packed up his bag, told his girlfriend he would be away for a few weeks and took off. Snowden is hiding in Hong Kong, a place he believes will be resistant to U.S. efforts to extradite him, Salon reported. Still, in his first set of leaked documents, he wrote a note anticipating harsh punishment.

"I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," "[But] I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant," he wrote.

He said his motives were not rooted in money, but rather a need to get vital information out to the public.

"There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich," he said. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to."