The National Security Agency contractor who came forward claiming to be the source of leaks about vast government surveillance programs set off diplomatic intrigue Monday by holing up in Hong Kong and hinting at seeking protection in Iceland.

The reporter who broke the story for the British newspaper The Guardian said that he did not believe American authorities had been in touch with the contractor, Edward Snowden, 29.

“I don’t believe they know where he is or how to communicate with him,” the reporter, Glenn Greenwald, told TODAY from Hong Kong.

The Justice Department, without naming Snowden, said it was in the early stages of an investigation, and there were already calls from some members of Congress to prosecute him.

Philippe Lopez / AFP - Getty Images

A security guard stands outside the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong on Monday.

“As long as you have laws on the books, and we do, you’ve got to enforce the laws,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told CNBC. “This is somebody who — it appears, at least — leaked sensitive classified information, and I think he needs to be prosecuted.”

And FBI agents were seen Monday at Snowden's father's house in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but did not answer any reporters' questions.

The Guardian and The Washington Post, with Snowden’s consent, revealed him Sunday as the source for stories that disclosed two giant surveillance programs collecting data on Americans’ phone calls and foreigners’ Internet use.

Those disclosures led President Barack Obama to issue a striking defense — “Nobody is listening to your phone calls” — and to insist that Americans must make tradeoffs between safety and privacy.

Snowden, employed by the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said he traveled to Hong Kong on May 20 because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.”

He spoke to The Guardian at a Hong Kong hotel, but his whereabouts Monday were unknown.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, is part of China but has considerable autonomy. It has an extradition treaty with the United States, but China can veto extradition requests when it believes its foreign interests would be affected.

“The only thing I can do is sit here and hope the Hong Kong government does not deport me,” Snowden told The Guardian.

Experts and Hong Kong lawmakers said it was unlikely China would defy such a U.S. request. One Hong Kong legislator told The Wall Street Journal that Snowden’s choice of location was based on “unfortunate ignorance.”

Snowden told The Guardian that he wanted to seek asylum in a country “with shared values,” and mentioned that Iceland had stood up for people over Internet freedom issues.

But even Iceland, which took in the fugitive former chess champion Bobby Fischer in 2005, may not be a safe bet, either. Iceland has just elected a more conservative government seen as closer to Washington than previous governments have been.

Stefania Oskarsdottir, a lecturer in political science at the University of Iceland, told Reuters that she would be surprised if the new government wanted to engage in any disputes with the United States.

“I think what this guy is saying is based on something he is imagining or hoping for rather than actual facts,” she told Reuters.

Still, Snowden could travel to Iceland without a visa and could apply immediately for asylum.

Snowden grew up in North Carolina and enlisted in the Army in 2003 in hopes of joining the Special Forces. But he broke both legs in a training accident and was discharged, he said.

He told the paper that he joined the armed forces in hopes of helping the Iraqi people escape from oppression, but was jarred that his commanders “seemed pumped up about killing Arabs.”

After his injury, Snowden got a job as a security guard at a covert NSA facility at the University of Maryland before working on tech security for the CIA, The Guardian reported.

Snowden could join Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning as among the most consequential leakers in American history. Manning, who admitted sending military documents to WikiLeaks, is being court-martialed in Maryland.

Ellsberg leaked what became known as the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, documenting the government’s systematic misleading of the public about American involvement in Vietnam.

He said in an Op-Ed for The Guardian on Monday that he believed Snowden’s leaks to be the most important in American history, including the Pentagon Papers four decades ago.

“Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an ‘executive coup’ against the U.S. Constitution,” he wrote. “Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the Bill of Rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago.”

NBC News’ Ali Weinberg, Mike Kosnar and Joel Seidman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 10, 2013 6:20 AM EDT

Police in Scotland will look into allegations that CIA “extraordinary rendition” flights passed through airports in the country, they said Thursday.

Police will examine new research into the flights, in which people suspected of being terrorists by the United States were held covertly at undisclosed locations around the world without recourse to legal process.

According to a report published February by the Open Society Justice Initiative, a human rights advocacy group, as many as 54 nations aided the CIA's rendition and detention operations. It said more than 130 people were detained and detailed allegations of harsh treatment of some of the suspects.

Scotland’s Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, the chief prosecutor, told lawmakers on Wednesday that “the use of torture cannot be condoned. It is against international law and contrary to the common law of Scotland.”

In 2007 and 2008, Scottish police investigated similar claims about rendition flights, but concluded there was “insufficient credible and reliable information to enable them to commence a criminal investigation,” Mulholland said.

However, he said that new research by academics in England “should be the subject of police consideration.”

Police Scotland confirmed Thursday that a formal request from Mulholland's office to look into the new information had been received, and they would do so then report back to prosecutors.

At the Scottish parliament Wednesday, lawmaker Margo MacDonald asked Mulholland not to delay in investigating because the “evidence is there in front of his eyes.”

“The government … must stand up for the values to which the people of Scotland adhere and maintain the laws that we have held dear for centuries,” she said.

Mulholland replied he was “confident that the police will do their duty and will conduct a thorough inquiry.”

The new research was carried out by academics working on “The Rendition Project,” which was given about $118,000 in funding by the U.K. government’s Economic and Social Research Council.

One of the researchers, Sam Raphael, of Kingston University, London, said the Scottish decision to examine their work was a “positive first step in finally getting to the bottom of U.K. and Scottish involvement in a global network of illegal kidnappings, secret detention and torture.”

He said they had created an online database of 11,000 flights that may have been involved in rendition, though he stressed not all had been.

“This is the closest and most comprehensive picture to date of the movements of these aircraft across the world,” he said.

In 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that directed that the CIA close its secret detention facilities in order to “promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals” held by the United States. A task force established by the order produced recommendations in 2009 that would allow rendition to continue, but with measures to prevent “the transfer of individuals to face torture.”

At the time, the CIA’s then director Mike Hayden said that the agency had “many counter-terror tools in its arsenal” and the “rendition, detention and interrogation program has been an important one,” but the CIA would adjust its efforts to reflect the changes ordered by the president.

A 6,000-page review of CIA detention practices was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee in December last year. Committee chairwoman Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement that the classified report “uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.”

Related:

• Report pulls back veil on CIA's rendition program
• Italy pardons US colonel in CIA rendition case
• Europe court: German was victim of CIA extraordinary rendition program

FSB via AFP - Getty Images file

A handout photo taken early on May 14 and released by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) shows a man, identified as Ryan C. Fogle being questioned after his arrest.

The U.S. diplomat who Russia claims tried to recruit one of its intelligence officials to spy for the CIA has left Moscow, Kremlin-loyal TV reported on Sunday.

A Russian NTV broadcast appeared to show the U.S. embassy employee, Ryan Christian Fogle, moving through security at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow on Sunday, according to reports from the Associated Press and the BBC.

Fogle’s flight left on Sunday, according to the reports.

It was unclear where Fogle was heading. The U.S. Embassy has refused to comment on details of the case.

Fogle, who reportedly was wearing a blond wig, carrying cash, and had technical equipment when arrested, was briefly detained last week by Russian authorities. Russia declared Fogle "persona non grata" and ordered his expulsion last Tuesday.

The Russians identified him as the third secretary of the political division of the U.S. Embassy. The State Department said only that an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow had been detained and released.

The Russian security service, known as the FSB, released to Russian media photographs of the American’s arrest and what it said were items he had with him, including two wigs, a torch, a compass and a wad of 500-euro notes, each worth $650.

Russian television also displayed a letter it said was found on Fogle, printed in Russian, that offered $100,000 for a potential CIA recruit.

After the decision to expel Fogle was made, the Russians then revealed a person they purport is the CIA station chief in Moscow.

According to a NBC News translation of FSB's statement on Fogle's arrest, American intelligence has made multiple attempts lately to recruit employees of Russian law enforcement agencies and special divisions, the Russians claim.

Related:

'Spirit of the Cold War': Russia says US diplomat was trying to recruit for CIA

This story was originally published on Sun May 19, 2013 4:15 PM EDT

News analysis

LONDON -- The Justice Department's secret seizure of phone records from the Associated Press was prompted by a leak that put considerable strain on the relationship between American and British intelligence agencies.

The leak was the basis of an AP story in May 2012 about a CIA operation in Yemen that foiled an al Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed for the United States. 

There was anger in the British government over the leak and subsequent news reports that disclosed U.K. spies had been heavily involved in the operation.

The alleged details of the operation, which were never officially confirmed, were straight out of a John Le Carre novel. According to reports, a U.K. passport holder of Yemeni descent was recruited by British security officials and sent to Yemen to infiltrate an al Qaeda group.

The details of alleged U.K. involvement were attributed by many American media outlets to U.S. security sources. According to London's Times newspaper, the level of detail made public had left British officials "slack-jawed." 

"I understand there is an investigation under way, being led by the Americans. It is clearly a matter for the U.S. authorities,", the official spokesperson for Britain's prime minister said at the time. "Clearly, we think that sensitive information should be protected."

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, went even further and said leaks about operations could be "extremely harmful."

"It can prevent the effective involvement of intelligence officers or agencies in operations that are designed to save lives either in this country or other countries," he added. "Whether a leak arises in the U.S., the U.K. or elsewhere it is equally serious."

In the wake of the leak, it was claimed that the double agent had managed to smuggle out a bomb that would have been used to blow up an airliner. The bomb was described as even more sophisticated than the underwear bomb that attempted to bring down an jet landing in Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

The British double agent was also said to have provided vital information about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and about its master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri. Around the same time as the leak, a drone strike in Yemen killed a senior al Qaeda leader, Fahd al Quso, who had been involved in the USS Cole bombing. However, it not been confirmed that this killing was connected to the undercover operation.

The leaked news potentially did more than put the operation it at risk. It also threatened the life of the double agent and his family and had an impact on the prospects for similar operations in the future. After all, why would similar recruits co-operate with the British knowing that information about what they did would go public?

"The revelations about the British agent in al Qaeda remind us that Beltway leaking is a major security threat," said Nigel Inkster, a former assistant chief of the British intelligence agency MI6.

Raffaelllo Pantucci, senior research fellow at London-based think tank RUSI, added: "It, of course, undermines  the trust between the agencies. It’s a big problem."

The Saudis also substantially assisted in the operation, according to experts. Could their connections have been compromised? In 2010, Saudi intelligence had helped foil an attack out of Yemen involving bombs disguised as printer cartridges smuggled onto airplane cargo.

Did British disquiet help spur the U.S. investigation into the leak? British government sources would not say whether a complaint was lodged.

"It is a long standing policy of successive governments not to comment on intelligence matters," an official with the U.K.'s Foreign Office said Wednesday.

NBC News' Michele Neubert contributed to this report.

Related: 

• AP, DOJ clash over seriousness of leak that prompted phone records seizure

Evoking the spy games of the Cold War, Russia said Tuesday that it had detained an American diplomat who was carrying cash, two wigs and technical equipment and was trying to recruit a Russian intelligence official to work for the CIA.

Russia ordered the expulsion of the American diplomat, whom it identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle, third secretary of the political division of the U.S. Embassy. The State Department said only that an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow had been detained and released.

American officials said they did not expect a rift in U.S.-Russian relations. U.S. officials are trying to improve those relations, and to persuade Russia to help resolve a civil war in Syria.

FSB via AP

Wigs and spy gadgets that the Russian Federal Security Service says were carried by American diplomat Ryan Fogle.

Russia used stronger language, calling the matter provocative and in the spirit of the Cold War.

A statement by the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said that Fogle was taken to the service’s headquarters and then to the U.S. embassy after his arrest Monday night.

The security service, known as the FSB, released to Russian media photographs of the American’s arrest and what it said were items he had with him, including the wigs, a torch, a compass and a wad of 500-euro notes, each worth $650.

Russian television also displayed a letter it said was found on Fogle, printed in Russian and addressed “Dear friend.” The letter offered a $100,000 payment as “an advance from someone who has been highly impressed by your professionalism, and who would highly value your cooperation in the future.”

The statement from the security service said that the U.S. had “repeatedly attempted to recruit employees of Russian law enforcement bodies and special departments” recently.

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, was participating in a question-and-answer session on Twitter when the detention was announced. He was summoned to Russia’s foreign ministry, The Associated Press reported.

Experts expressed surprise at the old-school nature of the alleged espionage, but they noted that intelligence-gathering had not stopped just because the Cold War ended more than two decades ago.

FSB via AP

In this photo provided by Russian Federal Security Service, a man claimed by the service to be Ryan Fogle is seen at the service's offices in Moscow.

“If anything, it has increased,” said James Nixey, head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the British think tank Chatham House. “The methods have changed — or so we thought — because it’s more about industrial espionage and corruption these days.”

Besides the diplomacy over Syria, there have been questions about whether Russia gave the United States enough information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the attack on the Boston Marathon.

Russian officials asked the U.S. for more information about Tsarnaev, who was born in what is now Russia and traveled to Russia early last year. Russia suspected that Tsarnaev was becoming radicalized, American officials have said.

The FBI interviewed him in 2011 and turned up nothing, and when the FBI asked Russia twice for more information about its concern, Russia failed to respond, the American officials said. Tsarnaev was killed April 19 in a shootout with police.

President Barack Obama later said Russia had cooperated since the attack but noted: “Old habits die hard. There are still suspicions sometimes between our intelligence and law enforcement agencies that date back 10, 20, 30 years, back to the Cold War.”

The incident would not be the only intelligence blunder in Russia. Britain admitted bugging a Moscow park in 2006 by disguising a recording device as a big rock. The FSB saw a British diplomat picking it up and walking away with it.

Related: 

Full Russia coverage from NBC News

Editor’s note: This story includes a correction.

This story was originally published on Tue May 14, 2013 7:59 PM EDT

Ho / AFP - Getty Images

Two freshly assembled Grey Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles sit on the tarmac at Forward Operating Base Shan in Logar Province, Afghanistan in April, 2012.

WASHINGTON - With debate intensifying in the United States over the use of drone aircraft, the U.S. military said on Sunday that it had removed data about air strikes carried out by unmanned planes in Afghanistan from its monthly air power summaries.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Afghanistan war, said in a statement the data had been removed because it was "disproportionately focused" on the use of weapons by the remotely piloted aircraft as it was published only when strikes were carried out - which happened during only 3 percent of sorties. Most missions were for reconnaissance, it said.

The debate over the use of drones in Afghanistan and elsewhere was triggered in part by U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to nominate his chief counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, an architect of the drone campaign, as the new director of the CIA.

The Air Force Times said air force chiefs had started posting the drone data last October in an attempt to provide more detail on the use of drones in Afghanistan.

The newspaper said the statistics were provided for November through January, but the February summary released on March 7 had a blank spot where the drone data had previously been listed.

"A variety of multi-role platforms provide ground commanders in Afghanistan with close air support capabilities, and it was determined that presenting the weapons release data as a whole better reflects the air power provided" in Afghanistan, Central Command said in its statement.

"Protecting civilians remains at the very core of AFCENT's (Air Force Central Command's) mission," it said. "The use of all AFCENT aerial weapons are tightly restricted, meticulously planned, carefully supervised and coordinated, and applied by only qualified and authorized personnel."

The statement said the decision to stop reporting the drone strikes was taken with the International Security Assistance Force - the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Brennan was sworn into office on Friday following a protracted confirmation battle that saw Senator Rand Paul attempt to block a vote on the nomination with a technical maneuver called a filibuster, in which he tried to prevent a vote by talking continuously.

Paul held the Senate floor for more than 12 hours while talking mainly about drones, expressing concern that Obama's administration might use the aircraft to target U.S. citizens in the United States.

Related:

As drone furor ebbs, Senate confirms Brennan as CIA director

McCain, Graham assail Rand Paul on drone policy

Holder: No drone strikes in US, except in 'extraordinary circumstance'

Published at 10:17 a.m. ET: TEHRAN -- Iran's state TV has broadcast footage allegedly extracted from the advanced CIA spy drone captured in 2011, the latest in a flurry of moves from Iranian authorities meant to underline the nation's purported military and technological advances.

Iran has long claimed it managed to reverse-engineer the RQ-170 Sentinel, seized in December 2011 after it entered Iranian airspace from the country's eastern border with Afghanistan, and that it is capable of launching its own production line for the unmanned aircraft.

After initially saying only that a drone had been lost near the Afghan-Iran border, American officials eventually confirmed the Sentinel had been monitoring Iran's military and nuclear facilities. Washington asked for it back but Iran refused and instead released photos of Iranian officials studying the aircraft.

The video aired late Wednesday on Iranian TV shows an aerial view of an airport and a city, said to be a U.S. drone base and Kandahar, Afghanistan. The TV also showed images purported to be the Sentinel landing at a base in eastern Iran, but it was unclear if that footage meant to depict the moment of the drone's seizure.

In addition, the TV also showed images of an Iranian helicopter transporting the drone, as well as its disassembled parts being carried on a trailer.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard via EPA, file

Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, right, looks at the US RQ-170 drone which reportedly crashed in eastern Iran near the city of Kashmar on Dec. 4, 2011, displayed at an undisclosed location in Iran.

In another part of the video, the chief of the Revolutionary Guard's airspace division, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that only after capturing the drone, Iran realized it "belongs to the CIA."

"We were able to definitively access the data of the drone, once we brought it down," said Hajizadeh.

He described the Sentinel's capture as a huge scoop for Iran, saying that at the time, Tehran did not rule out a possible punitive U.S. airstrike over the drone.

Iranian officials have accused the U.S. of stepping up its espionage activities against Iran as part of intensified Western efforts to force Tehran to abandon its uranium enrichment program, a key aspect of its disputed nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies suspect Iran may be trying to develop atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

In an attempt to embarrass Washington, Iran has claimed to have captured several American drones, most recently in December, when Tehran said it seized a Boeing-designed ScanEagle drone — a less sophisticated aircraft — after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf.

U.S. officials said there was no evidence that the latest claims were true.

Also Thursday, the semi-official Fars news agency published photos reportedly depicting a domestic production line of ScanEagle drones. The photos show several drones in a workshop.

Iran has said before that it's making ScanEagle copies and putting them into service, but it has not offered proof of those claims.

Slideshow: Everyday life in Iran

At schools, in shops and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

Launch slideshow

Fars also quoted deputy defense minister Mohammad Eslami as saying that Iran has also established a "production line for the drones in foreign countries." He did not elaborate, and it was not clear if he was referring to Syria or Lebanon's Hezbollah group, Iran's top regional allies.

The latest Sentinel footage came as the U.S. tightened sanctions to pressure the Iranian government to limit its nuclear program and restrictions on institutions that Washington says are stifling political dissent and censoring speech.

Among the expanded measures announced Monday by the Treasury Department is a move to deny Iran access to revenue garnered from its oil exports. Under the latest sanctions, Iran would be able to use revenue from its oil sales only in a country that purchased its crude — now mostly big Asian economies such as China and India — which would significantly limit its access to the money.

Related:

US sources: Downed CIA drone made previous trips over Iran

Analysis: Israel airstrike may foreshadow Iran attack

Drone that crashed in Iran risks secret US technology