World News Brief, Tuesday June 11

NSA leaks source hiding out in Hong Kong; Obama and Xi Jingping end two-day meeting; South and North Korea to hold talks in Seoul; US to consider shipping arms to Syrian rebels; UK anticipates challenges at G8 meeting; and more

Top of the Agenda: Source of NSA Leaks Identifies Himself

The source of the NSA leaks that exposed widespread civilian surveillance by the Obama administration came forward to identify himself as twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden (Guardian), who says he was a former undercover CIA employee. Snowden, a technology specialist who works for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and has contracted for the NSA (WaPo), unmasked himself as a source after stories in the Washington Post and the Guardian detailed previously unknown, top-secret U.S. surveillance programs. Snowden is currently hiding out in Hong Kong, which has an extradition treaty with the United States. His location could put strains on Sino-U.S. relations (FT) just after U.S. President Barack Obama wrapped up a weekend meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on a range of issues including cybersecurity.

Analysis

"What's incontrovertible is that the Obama administration's six leak investigations — not to mention an array of powerful folks on Capitol Hill who routinely clamor for prosecution of national security-related disclosures — weren't sufficient to deter Edward Snowden from coming forth with his goods," writes Erik Wemple for The Washington Post.

"Given the scale of the intrusions involved, there are legitimate questions about the scope and permanence of the state's data-trawling 'dragnets' of American and foreign citizens. These do not simply involve the nature of the data extracted. They concern who has access to it, how long it is retained and the uses to which it is put," writes an editorial for the Financial Times.

"We are threatened by needles in a haystack — very few needles in a very large haystack. We're threatened not by a nation but by a network, and it is the nature of a terrorist network to be invisible until made visible, hence when there's an attack, we talk about who didn't connect the dots," said George Will on ABC's "This Week."

 

PACIFIC RIM

Obama, Xi End California Meeting

U.S. president Barack Obama ended his two-day meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, forging policy agreements on strategic issues (SCMP) of North Korea and climate change but remaining divided over cybersecurity and territorial disputes between China and its neighbors.

CFR's Adam Segal discusses Obama, Xi, and cyberspace in this new blog post.

SOUTH KOREA: South and North Korea agreed Monday to hold two-day high-level talks (Yonhap) in Seoul later this week, but did not outline a specific agenda or decide on delegation leaders.

ELSEWHERE:

US to consider shipping arms to Syrian rebels

UK anticipates challenges at G8 meeting

 This is an excerpt of the CFR.org Daily News Brief. The full version is available on CFR.org.