According to sources, the FBI has raided the home of a man who may be Edward Snowden’s successor for leaking NSA documents. Reportedly, the FBI raided the home of the suspect, who is identified as an employee of a government contractor that works with the NSA. A separate source said, “Investigators are continuing to pursue it, but are not ready to charge yet.”
The leaker is believed to be the source of a story by The Intercept, which published documents showing more than half of the people on the FBI’s terrorist tracking database had no clear affiliation with any terrorist group at all. That report included items dated after Snowden had already left his employer and revealed himself in Hong Kong.
Snowden proceeded to give Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras millions of classified documents from the NSA that outlined a myriad of civil rights and privacy abuses across the world and the United States. Recent documentary Citizenfour, chronicles that process, and shows Greenwald informing Snowden that there is a new whistleblower.
The most surprising element of the case is an anonymous source from inside the justice department telling Yahoo News that “there is no longer an appetite at Justice for these cases.” After aggressive prosecution of whistleblowing cases by the Obama administration, the feeling is that public opinion has turned against the administration. If the same tactics are used against this new suspect, he will charged under the Espionage Act, a capital crime. (Photo: Laura Poitras)
