FBI Visits NSA Leaker's Dad, Stepmother In Upper Macungie Township
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — FBI agents on Monday visited the home of a man whose son has identified himself as the source of leaks about top-secret U.S. surveillance programs.
Two agents left the Upper Macungie Township home of Lonnie Snowden on Monday afternoon.
Snowden's son, Edward Snowden, is the focus of an intense investigation into the leak of classified information from National Security Agency programs that track phone and Internet messages around the world.
A man who showed FBI identification as he was leaving the home referred questions to the FBI in Philadelphia, which declined to comment.
Neighbors on the quiet residential street said Lonnie married Edward's stepmother about five or six years ago. They never saw Edward at the house. Neighbor Jonathan Reck said Lonnie Snowden told him Sunday his son was "the whistle-blower."
"He basically came over and said, 'If you didn't know it, my son is the one who's basically the whistle-blower for the NSA,'" Reck said. "He said, 'I don't know what's really going to happen here, but I just wanted to let you know in case the neighborhood starts going crazy.'"
He said Snowden apologized if the neighborhood suffered a media onslaught.
The Recks said the Snowdens saw them outside in the yard and came over to inform them about Edward. Tammy Reck said Karen Snowden was upset that she might never see her stepson again.
"It would be like if you had a child, and your child did something, and you would never get to see that child again in his life," Tammy Reck said. "You'd probably be upset. And that's kind of like how she was."
Property records show Karen Snowden bought the house new in 1998.
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