NSA Considers Edward Snowden Amnesty Deal

The US National Security Agency is considering offering an amnesty to Edward Snowden if he agrees to stop leaking top secret documents, a top agency official has said.

The fugitive intelligence analyst - currently in Moscow - has been charged with espionage by US authorities for divulging reams of secret files, which have been published by news organisations across the globe. 

Mr Snowden has insisted he spilled the secrets to expose the NSA's far-reaching surveillance and spark public debate.

Rick Ledgett, who heads the NSA taskforce in charge of assessing the Snowden leaks, told CBS News' 60 Minutes that he would be open to the possibility of a deal.

He said: "My personal view is, yes, it's worth having a conversation about." 

Mr Snowden is thought to have access to around 1.5 million NSA files

But NSA chief General Keith Alexander has rejected the possibility of an amnesty.

He told the programme: "This is analogous to a hostage-taker taking 50 people hostage, shooting 10 and then say 'You give me full amnesty and I'll let the other 40 go'."

Gen Alexander also said suggestions that the agency was routinely eavesdropping on the phone calls of Americans were false.

He said: "NSA can only target the communications of a US person with a probable cause finding under specific court order," he said, referring to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"Today, we have less than 60 authorisations on specific persons to do that."

NSA chief General Keith Alexander says there will be no deal

Mr Ledgett warned that Mr Snowden effectively stole the "keys to the kingdom" when he took more than 1.5 million of the agency's files.

He said of particular concern was Mr Snowden's theft of around 31,000 documents the NSA official described as an "exhaustive list of the requirements that have been levied against the National Security Agency".

He said: "What that gives is, what topics we're interested in, where our gaps are. Additional information about US capabilities and US gaps is provided as part of that."

He said the information could potentially offer a rival nation a "roadmap of what we know, what we don't know, and give them, implicitly, a way to protect their information from the US intelligence community's view. It is the keys to the kingdom."

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