Snowden mystery deepens, took job to gather NSA evidence

Zach Coleman and Kevin Johnson | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Search for Edward Snowden continues Shannon Rae Green speaks with USA TODAY world editor William Dermody regarding the whereabouts of Edward Snowden.

The former top-secret analyst has requested asylum from Ecuador

The U.S. has urged Russia to consider %22all options%22 to block Snowden%27s travels

The U.S. has revoked Snowden%27s passport and sought his extradition

HONG KONG — The whereabouts of wanted NSA leaker Edward Snowden remained a mystery Monday as the White House pressured Russia to turn him over on espionage charges and a flight he had booked to Cuba took off without him.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is assisting Snowden's run from U.S. authorities, told reporters Monday that Snowden is "healthy and safe" in an undisclosed location awaiting word on his request for asylum by Ecuador.

But no word has come on his location since he arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday. Russian media have said he may still be at the airport or been whisked away by diplomats.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that it is the administration's assumption "that he is in Russia." Carney also criticized Hong Kong and China for claiming the U.S. extradition request for Snowden was not done correctly.

Officials in China and Hong Kong were notified in plenty of time to block Snowden's departure from Hong Kong, Carney said. He said the incident "unquestionably" damaged U.S. relations with China.

Earlier, the White House urged Russia to consider "all options available," according to National Security Council Spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.

The events in the Snowden saga happened on a day when a Hong Kong newspaper revealed that the fugitive told the paper he took his job with a contractor for the National Security Agency for the sole purpose of obtaining evidence on Washington's cyberspying networks.

The South China Morning Post reported Monday that Snowden told it in an interview that he sought a position as an analyst with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton so he could collect proof about the NSA's secret surveillance program and make them public.

"My position with Booz Allen Hamilton granted me access to lists of machines all over the world the NSA hacked," he told the Morning Post in a June 12 interview that was published Monday. "That is why I accepted that position about three months ago."

In his interview with the Post, Snowden divulged information that he claimed showed hacking by the NSA into computers in Hong Kong and mainland China.

"I did not release them earlier because I don't want to simply dump huge amounts of documents without regard to their content," he said. "I have to screen everything before releasing it to journalists."

Asked by the Post if he specifically went to Booz Allen Hamilton as a computer systems administrator in Hawaii to gather evidence of surveillance, he replied: "Correct on Booz." Booz Allen spokesman James Fisher declined to comment on the report.

Snowden fled to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong last month with top-secret documents and court orders on government surveillance operations.

Snowden also signaled his intention to leak more of those documents at a later date.

"If I have time to go through this information, I would like to make it available to journalists in each country to make their own assessment, independent of my bias, as to whether or not the knowledge of U.S. network operations against their people should be published," he said.

Snowden stayed in the cramped home of one of his Hong Kong supporters and planned his weekend escape last Tuesday during a two-hour dinner of pizza, fried chicken, sausages and Pepsi, The New York Times reported.

He wore a cap and sunglasses, and was so concerned about electronic surveillance that he made the three lawyers helping him stash their cellphones in the refrigerator, the paper said.

The Times wrote that Snowden was "deeply dismayed to learn that he could spend years in prison without access to a computer during litigation over whether he would be granted asylum here or surrendered to the United States."

Snowden's current whereabouts are unknown after he failed to show up for a Moscow-Cuba flight to Cuba on Monday. The Russian news site RT reported that Aeroflot had earlier confirmed that two seats had been booked in Snowden's name for Monday's flight. But an Aeroflot representative who wouldn't give her name told the Associated Press that Snowden was not on Flight SU150 to Havana. AP reporters on the flight also didn't see him.

"Snowden has gone through registration, but did not physically board the plane and has remained in the transit zone," RIA Novosti quoted an official at Sheremetyevo airport as saying.

The Aeroflot flight landed Monday evening in Havana, with no sign of Snowden, according to journalists aboard the plane and at Jose Marti International Airport. The crew also said he did not travel from Moscow.

"No Snowden, no," the captain said as he snapped a picture of the crowd of photographers, Reuters reported.

Snowden revealed an NSA program that collected telephone records for millions of Americans and a separate operation that targeted the Internet communications of non-citizens abroad who were suspected of terrorist connections.

China's Foreign Ministry distanced itself from any role in Snowden's departure from Hong Kong, saying Monday the territory had the right to make its own decision. The ministry said Beijing has "always respected" Hong Kong's ability to deal with such matters through its legal system.

Hong Kong lawmaker and lawyer Albert Ho, whose firm had been representing Snowden in an effort to clarify his legal situation with the government, said he suspects that authorities in Beijing were calling the shots. Ho said an intermediary who claimed to represent the government relayed a message to Snowden saying he was free to leave and should do so.

Ho said he didn't know the identity of the intermediary and wasn't sure whether the person was acting on Hong Kong's or Beijing's behalf.

"The entire decision was probably made in Beijing, and Beijing decided to act on its best interests," Ho told reporters. "However, Beijing would not want to be seen on stage because it would affect Sino-U.S. relations. That's why China has somebody acting in the background."

Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino has confirmed that Snowden had requested asylum in his country and pledged that his request would be considered in the shortest time possible, according to televised remarks carried by the Latin-American channel Telesur.

RIA Novosti reported at about 2 a.m. Monday morning that Ecuador's Ambassador to Russia, Patricio Alberto Chavez Zavala, was seen leaving Sheremetyevo's transit zone with several people getting into his car. Interfax reported that Snowden has not been able to leave the airport because he does not have a Russian visa. He was accompanied by WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison, a British citizen who does have a Russian visa, according to Interfax.

A Russian security official indicated on Monday that Moscow had no basis to extradite Snowden.

"Snowden has not committed any unlawful act on Russian territory," RIA Novosti quoted the security official as saying Monday morning. "Russian law enforcement has no order to detain him, so there is no basis to do so."

The South China Morning Post reported that Snowden had provided information to show that the NSA had hacked into the Hong Kong system of Pacnet, which runs undersea telecommunications cables around the Pacific, and into 63 computers and servers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China's most elite schools.

"The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data," Snowden told the newspaper.

Johnson reported from Washington.

Contributing: Anna Arutunyan in Moscow; Associated Press