The National Security Agency has been haunted by criticisms over its data-collection program after former American computer specialist, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Edward Snowden revealed that the surveillance system is also targeting  public information. Snowden said that his sole purpose in leaking government information is "to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." 

While many people think Snowden is a hero, some government officials think Snowden is guilty of treason.

In an interview with NBC's Meet the Press, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said that Snowden is "a thief who we believe had some help." Rogers is talking about the Russian government where Snowden is currently staying after receiving an asylum.

He said that "the vast majority" of what Snowden stole "had nothing to do with privacy. Our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines have been incredibly harmed by the data that he has taken with him and we believe now is in the hands of nation states."

NBC Politics wrote regarding the interview:

The Michigan Republican added that there are still "certain questions that we have to get answered" about who helped Snowden remove data from the NSA and later make it public in newspapers in the United States and Britain.

"He was stealing information that had to do with how we operate overseas to collect information to keep Americans safe.... And some of the things he did were beyond his technical capabilities" -- a fact which Rogers said "raises more questions. How he arranged travel before he left. How he was ready to go, he had a go bag, if you will."

Rogers added that he believes "there's a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB (Russian security service) agent in Moscow. I don't think that's a coincidence....I don't think it was a gee-whiz luck event that he ended up in Moscow under the handling of the FSB."

Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a former CIA official is another official who voiced his concern over the intensions of Snowden in releasing such information.

"Is it really Edward Snowden who is doing this, or is there a larger apparatus? I know that many people in the intelligence community... now no longer regard Edward Snowden as a thief or a traitor.... They regard him as a defector" who has gone over to a foreign intelligence agency.