Feds probe spying leak, seek to limit damage

WASHINGTON -- With the security contractor and ex-CIA worker who revealed a once-secret U.S. electronic surveillance program having fled overseas, the government is investigating the leak and seeking to contain damage.

The Obama administration refused to say what it knows about Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American and former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency, or what steps it may take.

"There is, obviously, an investigation under way into this matter," White House press secretary Jay Carney said yesterday.

As lawmakers awaited briefings from administration officials, activists supporting Snowden announced the creation of a legal defense fund for him. They started a petition on the White House's website calling him a "national hero" and seeking a pre-emptive pardon on his behalf.

Snowden was hiding in a Hong Kong hotel after leaving the United States on May 20, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper. Snowden apparently checked out of his Hong Kong hotel at midday Monday, his destination and whereabouts unknown, according to the Los Angeles Times.

An employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., Snowden worked at the National Security Agency for the past four years for various contractors, according to reports by the Guardian and The Washington Post, which said he provided them with documents about a program known as PRISM, which the government has now acknowledged.

Carney echoed remarks by President Barack Obama last week in defending the government's collection of communications data, saying a balance between privacy protections and necessary intelligence gathering "has been appropriately struck."

Shawn Turner, a spokesman for James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, said in an emailed statement that U.S. intelligence agencies are "currently reviewing the damage that has been done by these recent disclosures."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said on "CBS This Morning" that Congress would conduct a "very serious" investigation.

The full House will be briefed at 5 p.m. today by intelligence and law enforcement officials.