By MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

WASHINGTON — A 29-year-old former C.I.A. computer tech-nician went public on Sunday asthe source behind the daily drum-beat of disclosures about the na-tion’s surveillance programs,saying he took the extraordinarystep because “the public needs todecide whether these programsand policies are right or wrong.”

During a 12-minute video in-terview that went online Sunday,Edward Joseph Snowden calmlyanswered questions about hisjourney from being a well-com-pensated government contractorwith nearly unlimited access toAmerica’s intelligence secrets tobeing holed up in a Hong Konghotel room, the subject of a Unit-ed States investigation, with theunderstandingthat he couldspend the restof his life in jail.

The revela-tion came afterdays of specula-tion that thesource behind aseries of leaksthat have trans-fixed Washing-ton must havebeen a high-level official at one ofAmerica’s spy agencies. Instead,the leaker is a relatively low-levelemployee of a giant governmentcontractor, Booz Allen Hamilton,that has won billions of dollars insecret government contractsover the past decade, partly byaggressively marketing itself asthe premier protector of Ameri-ca’s classified computer infra-structure. [Page A12.]

The episode presents both in-ternational and domestic politicaldifficulties for the Obama admin-istration. If Mr. Snowden re-mained in China, the WhiteHouse would have to navigategetting him out of a country thathas been America’s greatest ad-versary on many issues of com-puter security.

Then the United States mustset up a strategy for prosecutinga man whom many will see as ahero for provoking a debate that

EX-C.I.A. WORKERSAYS HE DISCLOSEDU.S. SURVEILLANCE

REVEALED DATA TROVE

In Interview From Hong

Kong, He Says Public

Needed to Know

Continued on Page A13

EdwardSnowden

By MICHAEL D. SHEARand ASHLEY PARKER

WASHINGTON — After sevenmonths of steadily building mo-mentum, the push for a compre-hensive overhaul of the immigra-tion system enters its most cru-cial phase this week in the Sen-ate, where Republicans remaindivided over how much to co-operate with President Obama asthey try to repair their party’sstanding among Hispanic voters.

Republican leaders are bettingthat passage of an 867-page bi-partisan overhaul will halt theembarrassing erosion of supportamong Latinos last year thathelped return Mr. Obama to theOval Office. But the party’s con-servative activists are vowing op-position, dead set against any-thing linked to Mr. Obama andconvinced that the immigrationbill is nothing more than amnestyfor lawbreakers.

That intraparty clash will playout for the next three weeks onthe Senate floor, as Republicansupporters of the bill — aided be-hind the scenes by the Obama ad-ministration — seek modestchanges that they hope will se-cure broad support among bothparties. Senator Kelly Ayotte, Re-publican of New Hampshire, an-nounced on Sunday that shewould support the immigrationbill, calling it a “thoughtful bipar-tisan solution to a tough prob-lem.”

At the same time, conservativeRepublican senators, led by JeffSessions of Alabama and TedCruz of Texas, are preparing anonslaught of amendments thatthreaten to unravel the carefullycrafted compromise. Their goal isto defeat the bill altogether or, at

Senate Digs InFor Long BattleOn Immigrants

For a Divided G.O.P.,

a Political Calculus

Continued on Page A15

By THOMAS ERDBRINK

TEHRAN — A group of cha-dor-wearing female supporters ofIran’s nuclear negotiator, SaeedJalili, cheered wildly when he en-tered a packed conference hallduring a campaign stop at TehranUniversity last week.

“No compromise, no submis-sion, only Jalili!” they shouted,while waving a handwritten plac-ard with the text: “Negotiatingwith Satan is against the Koran.”

They are among many whosupport Mr. Jalili, who is thepresidential candidate favored byIran’s hard-liners in Friday’spresidential election.

He has built his campaignaround implacable “100 percent”opposition to compromise withthe West over the country’s nu-clear program. And while he andthe seven other carefully vettedcandidates might disagree on is-sues like women’s rights and eco-nomic troubles, when it comes toIran’s nuclear program they areall saying the same thing: therewill be no backing down, no bar-gaining away the nation’s per-ceived right to enrich uraniumfor power generation.

Even his opponent on the farside of Iran’s narrow politicalspectrum, the cleric HassanRowhani — the closest any of thecandidates comes to the reform-ist camp — avoids any mention ofthe word “compromise” when

discussing the nuclear program.He spends much of his time fend-ing off attacks from political op-ponents who accuse him of hav-ing already sold out the country’srights when he was the nuclearnegotiator by temporarily sus-pending uranium enrichmentwhile under heavy internationalpressure in 2004.

Hoping to force Iran to stop en-riching uranium and begin nego-tiating in earnest, the Obama ad-ministration has imposed tougheconomic sanctions that appearto be wreaking havoc on Iran’seconomy. But if the presidentialcampaign is any indication, rath-er than forcing a capitulation, thesanctions seem only to have stiff-ened Iran’s will to resist.

“Year after year, America hasimposed harsher sanctions onus,” said Nader Karimi Joni, anIranian journalist who is criticalof certain state polices. “Now,with these candidates, we see theconsequences: the sanctionshurt, but they have made ourleaders much more determined.”

The stances of Mr. Jalili, thecurrent nuclear negotiator, andMr. Rowhani, the former negotia-tor, illustrate how much Iran’s po-sition has hardened after a dec-ade of escalating sanctions andincreasing international isola-

In Iran Race, All 8 CandidatesToe Hard Line on Nuclear Might

NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Cheers went up Saturday for Hassan Rowhani, the candidate closest to the reform camp. Still, he backs Iran’s nuclear program.

Continued on Page A9

By JOHN ELIGON

NORBORNE, Mo. — Aboutthis time last year, farmers werelooking to the heavens, pleadingfor rain. Now, they are prayingfor the rain to stop.

One of the worst droughts inthis nation’s history, a dry spellthat persisted through the earlypart of this year, has ended withtorrential rains this spring thathave overwhelmed vast stretchesof the country, including much ofthe farm belt. One result has beenflooded acres that have drownedcorn and soybean plants, stuntedtheir growth or prevented themfrom being planted at all.

With fields, dusty and dry onemoment, muddy and saturatedthe next, farmers face a familiarfear — that their crops will notmake it.

“This is the worst spring I canremember in my 30 years farm-ing,” said Rob Korff, who plants3,500 acres of corn and soybeanshere in northwestern Missouri.“Just continuous rain, not havingan opportunity to plant. It canstill be a decent crop, but as faras a good crop or a great crop,that’s not going to happen.”

As farmers go through the ritu-al of examining every weathermap and every tick on the futuresboards, trying to divine if andhow their pocketbooks can sur-

After Drought,

Rains Plaguing

Midwest Farms

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Neil Patrick Harris opened the Tony Awards with a splash and“Kinky Boots” won best musical and six Tonys in all. Page C1.

Broadway’s Show of Shows

Continued on Page A15

By MELENA RYZIK

Paintings fade; sculptureschip. Art restorers have longknown how to repair those ma-terial flaws, so the experience oflooking at a Vermeer or a Rodinremains basically unchangedover time. But when creativity iscomputerized, the art isn’t soeasy to fix.

For instance, when a Web-based work becomes technologi-cally obsolete, does updated soft-ware simply restore it? Or is thepiece fundamentally changed?

That was the conundrum fac-ing the Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art, which in 1995 be-

came one of the first institutionsto acquire an Internet-made art-work. Created by the artist Doug-las Davis, “The World’s First Col-laborative Sentence” functionedas blog comments do today, al-lowing users to add to the open-ing lines. An early example of in-teractive computer art, the pieceattracted 200,000 contributionsfrom 1994 to 2000 from all overthe globe.

By 2005 the piece had beenshifted between computer serv-ers, and the programmer movedon. When Whitney curators de-cided to resurrect the piece lastyear, the art didn’t work. Once in-novative, “The World’s First Col-

laborative Sentence” now mostlyjust crashed browsers. The rudi-mentary code and links were outof date. There was endlesslyscrolling and seemingly indeci-pherable text in a format that hadlong ago ceased being cuttingedge.

“This is not how one uses theInternet now,” Sarah Hromack,the Whitney’s director of digitalmedia, said. “But in the ’90s, itwas.”

For a generation, institutionsfrom the Museum of Modern Artin New York to the PompidouCenter in Paris have been col-lecting digital art. But in trying to

When Artworks Crash: Restorers Face Digital Test

Continued on Page A3

CONGRESSSurveillance tactics stirdebate by lawmakers. PAGE A12

North and South Korea agreed to holdhigh-level government talks on restor-ing economic and other ties, as tensionseased on the peninsula. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-9

2 Koreas Agree to NegotiatePeople with valid pistol permits fromother parts of the country have foundthemselves under arrest when theybrought guns to New York. PAGE A17

NEW YORK A17-21

LawfulGuns,Until Plane LandsTheme parks like Universal StudiosHollywood are selling tickets with spe-cial line-skipping access and perks forthose willing to pay. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-8

V.I.P.:Very Important ParkgoerRafael Nadal of Spain beat his compatri-ot David Ferrer in straight sets to winthe French Open for the eighth time, ex-tending a record. PAGE D1

SPORTSMONDAY D1-8

Still the King of Roland Garros Paul Krugman PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

By VIVIAN YEE

It was once common for ele-mentary-school teachers to ar-range their classrooms by ability,placing the highest-achievingstudents in one cluster, the low-est in another. But ability group-ing and its close cousin, tracking,in which children take differentclasses based on their proficien-cy levels, fell out of favor in thelate 1980s and the 1990s as criticscharged that they perpetuated in-equality by trapping poor and mi-nority students in low-levelgroups.

Now ability grouping has re-emerged in classrooms all overthe country — a trend that hassurprised education experts whobelieved the outcry had all butended its use.

A new analysis from the Na-tional Assessment of EducationalProgress, a Census-like agencyfor school statistics, shows that ofthe fourth-grade teachers sur-

veyed, 71 percent said they hadgrouped students by readingability in 2009, up from 28 percentin 1998. In math, 61 percent offourth-grade teachers reportedability grouping in 2011, up from40 percent in 1996.

“These practices were essen-tially stigmatized,” said TomLoveless, a senior fellow at theBrookings Institution who firstnoted the returning trend in aMarch report, and who has stud-ied the grouping debate. “It’skind of gone underground, it’s be-come less controversial.”

The resurgence of abilitygrouping comes as New YorkCity grapples with the state of itsgifted and talented programs — aform of tracking in some publicschools in which certain stu-dents, selected through testing,take accelerated classes together.

These programs, which serve

Grouping Students by Ability

Regains Favor in Classroom

Continued on Page A3

SILICON VALLEY Some tech lead-ers express dismay. PAGE B1

VOL. CLXII . . No. 56,163 © 2013 The New York Times NEW YORK, MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013

Late EditionToday, variably cloudy, a few show-ers, thunderstorm, watch for flood-ing, high 74. Tonight, rain, thunder-storm, low 65. Tomorrow, a storm,high 80. Weather map, Page A14.

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