FBI Reportedly Raids Home of ’Second Snowden’ Intelligence Leaker

Local Editor

Federal authorities in the US have reportedly set their sights on a government contractor suspected of being the source responsible for leaking documents in the aftermath of the unauthorized disclosures attributed to former contractor for the American spy agency [NSA], Edward Snowden.

According to a report published on Monday by journalist Michael Isikoff, investigators recently raided the home of the individual. They had a federal warrant to identify the source of classified documents recently published by The Intercept - the online publication founded by Glenn Greenwald.
The lawyer-turned-columnist has worked for the last year-and-a-half on a trove of documents pilfered from the National Security Agency [NSA] by Snowden.

While Snowden identified himself as the source of the NSA leaks in June 2013 before federal prosecutors could out him, two reports published in recent months by The Intercept about the US government's "no-fly" watchlists suggested that a second, publicly unknown source within the intelligence community colluded with Greenwald and company.

In a documentary about the Snowden saga currently being screened at theaters in the US called "Citizen Four," Greenwald and fellow Intercept journalist, Jeremy Scahill, acknowledge that a new source has provided the reporters with information in the wake of the NSA leaks.

Scahill said that a probe would be par for the course regards the current administration's propensity for pursuing charges against leakers.

"The Obama administration in my view is conducting a war against whistleblowers and ultimately against independent journalism," Scahill said to Isikoff.

Furthermore, editor of The Intercept, John Cook, said that, "Any attempt to criminalize the public release of those stories benefits only those who exercise virtually limitless power in secret with no accountability."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team