NSA Leaker Steps Forward: Edward Snowden, 29, Names Himself From Hong Kong

HONG KONG, June 10 - The man behind the leaked National Security Agency documents on secret US surveillance programs has identified himself. He is Edward Snowden, 29, a contractor who says he acted because the public should know what is being done in its name.

Snowden revealed himself on Sunday in a video interview with The Guardian, which published his name at his request after several days of conversations. He is speaking from Hong Kong, where he flew on May 20.

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

Snowden is a former CIA technical assistant. He says he spent four years at the NSA as an employee of outside contractors, including Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, most recently in Hawaii, where he earned about $200,000 a year. Accounts of the interview say he told his supervisor he needed time off for epilepsy treatment before he left for Hong Kong.

The Guardian and The Washington Post have spent the past week reporting on the documents. The stories describe the collection of millions of US phone records and a program called PRISM, which gathers data on foreign internet users from the servers of nine companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook.

Snowden said he reviewed each document he gave to reporters to make sure it was in the public interest.

"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which was done in their name," he said. He added: "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things."

He chose Hong Kong, he said, because "they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent." He expects trouble at home. "My primary fear is that they will come after my family, my friends, my partner," he said, and he described his own position bluntly: "All my options are bad."

US officials say the agency operates within the law.

Why it matters: Until Sunday the debate over PRISM and phone records was about documents with no name attached. Now it has a person, and questions about how a contractor came to have access to so much material. For anyone who uses a search engine, an email account or a phone, the underlying question has not changed: how much of that data can the government collect, and who decides.

For now, Snowden is in a Hong Kong hotel room, and the next move belongs to Washington.