)
The US intelligence officials fear that Edward Snowden who is in hiding after leaking details about the spy surveillance programme may leak sensitive secrets of America to China.
Snowden who claims to be only 'revealing criminality' by exposing the US government's snooping programme aimed at 'metadata' collection of citizens' web and telephone records which infringe upon the citizens' privacy rights.
According to ABC News, the US intelligence is now considering the NSA led spy programme's leak to be a possible foreign espionage matter as there is a 'legitimate concern' about Snowden's intention.
Snowden who leaked the Top Secrets file is believed to have fled with four laptops filled with secrets from Booz Allen Hamilton where he worked as a NSA contractor.
Recently Snowden revealed to China about US' continuous monitoring of its servers as response to the earlier attacks carried out by China on Pentagon. China had denied any such attacks on the US defence systems.
Former CIA and Pentagon Chief of Staff, Jeremy Bash, said that there is a concern about Snowden defecting to China or even co-operating with Chinese officials.
Bash added that if foreign government gains access to the secrets Snowden has, it may give them access to highly classified information.
According to the report, Snowden's upbringing remains a source of bewilderment for members of Congress, trying to determine where the now-famous intelligence contractor came from and what his intentions are.
