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| This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, in Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2013. According to a Department of Justice official on Friday, June 21, 2013, a criminal complaint has been filed against Snowden in the NSA surveillance case. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The Justice Department has charged former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government
property in the NSA surveillance case.
Snowden,
believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has admitted providing
information to the news media about two highly classified NSA
surveillance programs.
A one-page criminal
complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Va., says
Snowden engaged in unauthorized communication of national defense
information and willful communication of classified communications
intelligence information. Both are charges under the Espionage Act.
Snowden also is charged with theft of government property. All three
crimes carry a maximum 10-year prison penalty.
The
federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia where the complaint
was filed is headquarters for Snowden's former employer, government
contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
The complaint
is dated June 14, five days after Snowden's name first surfaced as the
leaker of information about the two programs in which the NSA gathered
telephone and Internet records to ferret out terror plots.
The
complaint could become an integral part of a U.S. government effort to
have Snowden extradited from Hong Kong, a process that could turn into a
prolonged legal battle. Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of
political persecution. In general, the extradition agreement between
the U.S. and Hong Kong excepts political offenses from the obligation to
turn over a person.
It was unclear late
Friday whether the U.S. had made an extradition request. Hong Kong had
no immediate reaction to word of the charges against Snowden.
The
Espionage Act arguably is a political offense. The Obama administration
has now used the act in eight criminal cases in an unprecedented effort
to stem leaks. In one of them, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged
he sent more than 700,000 battlefield reports, diplomatic cables and
other materials to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. His military
trial is underway.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, welcomed the charges
against Snowden. "I've always thought this was a treasonous act," he
said in a statement. "I hope Hong Kong's government will take him into
custody and extradite him to the U.S."
Michael
di Pretoro, a retired 30-year veteran with the FBI who served from 1990
to 1994 as the legal liaison officer at the American consulate in Hong
Kong, said "relations between U.S. and Hong Kong law enforcement
personnel are historically quite good."
"In my
time, I felt the degree of cooperation was outstanding to the extent
that I almost felt I was in an FBI field office," said di Pretoro.
The
U.S. and Hong Kong have a standing agreement on the surrender of
fugitives. However, Snowden's appeal rights could drag out any
extradition proceeding.
The success or failure
of any extradition proceeding depends on what the suspect is charged
with under U.S. law and how it corresponds to Hong Kong law under the
treaty. In order for Hong Kong officials to honor the extradition
request, they have to have some applicable statute under their law that
corresponds with a violation of U.S. law.
In
Iceland, a business executive said Friday that a private plane was on
standby to transport Snowden from Hong Kong to Iceland, although
Iceland's government says it has not received an asylum request from
Snowden.
Business executive Olafur Vignir
Sigurvinsson said he has been in contact with someone representing
Snowden and has not spoken to the American himself. Private donations
are being collected to pay for the flight, he said.
"There
are a number of people that are interested in freedom of speech and
recognize the importance of knowing who is spying on us," Sigurvinsson
said. "We are people that care about privacy."
Disclosure
of the criminal complaint came as President Barack Obama held his first
meeting with a privacy
and civil liberties board as his intelligence
chief sought ways to help Americans understand more about sweeping
government surveillance efforts exposed by Snowden.
The
five members of the little-known Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
Board met with Obama for an hour in the White House Situation Room,
questioning the president on the two NSA programs that have stoked
controversy.
One program collects billions of
U.S. phone records. The second gathers audio, video, email, photographic
and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas, and probably
some Americans in the process, who use major providers such as
Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Yahoo.
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