Report: NSA employee gave password to Edward Snowden

A memo sent to congressional panels this week shows an employee at the National Security Agency recently resigned after providing his password to Edward Snowden, according to NBC News. 

The memo reveals a civilian employee, who is not identified, confessed to the FBI last year he allowed Snowden to use his login credentials when they both worked at the NSA, the network reported. 

The employee told FBI special agents in June that he allowed Snowden to use his “Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate” to access classified data on NSANet.

NBC News reports the memo suggests the employee entered the password onto Snowden’s computer, but the employee said he didn’t know Snowden would use it to leak documents. 

{mosads}The first document Snowden leaked was disclosed days earlier in a report by The Guardian newspaper. 

“Unbeknownst to the civilian, Mr. Snowden was able to capture the password, allowing him even greater access to classified information. The civilian was not aware that Mr. Snowden intended to unlawfully disclose classified information. However, by sharing his PKI certificate, he failed to comply with security obligations,” the memo says. 

NBC News obtained the Feb. 10 memo, and published a report about it Wednesday night. The memo is unclassified but labeled “for official use only.”

According to the document, the NSA revoked the employee’s security clearance on Nov. 20 after initially suspending his access to “NSA Sensitive Compartmented Information.”

He remained an employee until he resigned on Jan. 10, the memo says.

“The civilian employee recently resigned from employment at NSA. NSA has notified the Department of Justice of this administration resolution.”

The NSA’s director of legislative affairs, Ethan Bauman, signed the memo, which was sent to the Judiciary and Intelligence congressional committees, NBC News reports. 

It says the NSA also removed another contractor and an active-duty military member’s access to its information in August, after they were implicated in the Snowden case.

Snowden has been living in Russia since August under temporary asylum. He faces espionage charges in the United States.