Edward Snowden comes out as NSA PRISM leaker: Reports

An ex-CIA employee working as a contractor for the National Security Agency has come out as the person who leaked the details of the NSA's top secret surveillance program called PRISM, which accessed data from major Internet companies.

Holed up in a hotel room in Hong Kong, Edward Snowden, 29, told The Guardian that he leaked the information because he thought the United States was overstepping its authority by spying on American citizens.

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things. ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under," he told The Guardian, which published a profile and video interview with him on its website. The Washington Post later confirmed that Snowden was its source as well.

The Guardian and The Post published the bombshell revelation last week that the NSA had monitored data about phone calls from cellphone companies and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook.