Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents describing the US government's electronic spying programs while he was working for Dell Inc in April 2012, almost a year earlier than previously reported, according to US officials and other sources familiar with the matter.

Snowden, who was granted a year's asylum by Russia on Aug 1, worked for Dell from 2009 until earlier this year, when he was assigned as a contractor to US National Security Agency facilities in the US and Japan.

Snowden downloaded information while employed by Dell about eavesdropping programs run by the NSA and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, and left an electronic footprint indicating when he accessed the documents, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

David Frink, a spokesman for Texas-based Dell, declined to comment on any aspect of Snowden's employment with the company, saying Dell's "customer" - presumably the NSA - had asked Dell not to talk publicly about him.

Since Snowden disclosed documents on previously secret US Internet and phone surveillance programs in June, his three-month tenure with US contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp, which began in late March, has been the focus of considerable attention. His time at Dell has received little attention.

Lawmakers have questioned how a relatively low-level systems administrator was able to gain access to so many top-secret documents without raising red flags.

Transoceanic cables

Some of the material Snowden downloaded in April 2012 while a Dell employee related to NSA collections of large quantities of Internet traffic and other communications culled from fiber-optic cables, including transoceanic cables, the sources said.

Snowden has said he left Dell for a job at Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii around March of this year, specifically to gain access to additional top-secret documents that could be leaked to the media.

Booz Allen Hamilton fired Snowden after he fled to Hong Kong with a trove of secret material. The company has said it is cooperating with a number of inquiries into Snowden's hiring and security lapses.

It is not clear whether Dell has taken similar steps.

Reuters

(China Daily 08/17/2013 page8)