WASHINGTON — The Obama administration and former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden offered divergent accounts Thursday of his efforts to raise concerns about National Security Agency activity more than a year ago, as each side tried to shape the debate over whether the massive leak of classified information was avoidable.
Intelligence officials released a brief e-mail that Snowden wrote in April 2013 inquiring about legal authorities but raising no concerns about any particular NSA program or law. The suggestion was that the e-mail did not make Snowden a whistle-blower. US officials said the NSA had found no other evidence that he had expressed concerns to anyone in a position of authority.
But in an e-mail to the Washington Post, Snowden, who last year leaked large quantities of classified documents to journalists and who is living in Russia under temporary asylum, called the official release ‘‘incomplete.’’
He said it did not include his correspondence with NSA compliance officials and concerns he had raised about ‘‘indefensible collection activities.’’ He repeated claims he had shown colleagues ‘‘direct evidence’’ of programs that they agreed were unconstitutional.
‘‘If the White House is interested in the whole truth, rather than the NSA’s clearly tailored and incomplete leak today for a political advantage, it will require the NSA to ask my former colleagues, management, and the senior leadership team about whether I, at any time, raised concerns about the NSA’s improper and at times unconstitutional surveillance activities,’’ Snowden said in response to questions from the Post. ‘‘It will not take long to receive an answer.’’
On Thursday, NSA and White House officials said there were ‘‘numerous avenues’’ that Snowden could have used to raise his concerns. Some US officials asserted, for instance, that he could have gone to Congress but did not. As a contractor, however, he would not have had whistle-blower protection, especially against retaliation.
‘‘The fact is that I did raise such concerns both verbally and in writing, and on multiple, continuing occasions — as I have always said, and as NSA has always denied,’’ Snowden said.