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Edward Snowden once wrote that traitors who spill state secrets ought to be shot

WASHINGTON — Years before he became the world’s most notorious leaker, Edward Snowden ranted online about how he hated people who spill secrets so much that he wanted to blast them in the private parts, it was revealed yesterday.

In 2009, the tech geek declared on a Web forum that groups such as WikiLeaks and The New York Times, which publish sensitive government information, “should be shot in the balls.”

Using the username TheTrueHOOHA, Snowden launched his attack on leakers on a tech-news Web site called Ars Technica, according to The Washington Post.

“Are they TRYING to start a war? Jesus christ,” he wrote. “You don’t put that s–t in the NEWSPAPER . . . That s–t is classified for a reason.’ ”

Snowden also talked about firearms, saying he owned a Walther P22, the same gun used by fictional superspy James Bond — and he “love[d] it to death.”

“I don’t intend to be in combat anytime soon,” Snowden said. “[But I] could still use it to put 10 tiny holes in important parts of a home invader if necessary though.”

Meanwhile yesterday it was revealed that the Justice Department bureaucrats botched the name of the spy-secrets leaker and made other boneheaded clerical errors on arrest documents.

The mistakes helped the fugitive slip out of Hong Kong, Chinese officials said.

Chinese immigration records listed Snowden’s middle name as Joseph, but the US government used James in some documents and referred to the former National Security Agency contract worker simply as Edward J. Snowden in others, said Hong Kong Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen.

“These three names are not exactly the same. Therefore, we believed that there was a need to clarify,” he told The Associated Press.

The United States also failed to provide Snowden’s passport number, he said.

INSIDE TRAITOR’S RUSSIA HIDEOUT

US officials are furious with China, since officials in Hong Kong let Snowden hop on a plane Sunday and fly to Moscow, where he remained holed up in an airport transit zone that Russian authorities claimed was off-limits to law enforcement.

The White House said the episode had damaged US-Chinese relations. China insisted Hong Kong followed the law, noting it had asked the United States for clarification about the arrest documents three days before Snowden skipped town.

“Up until the moment of Snowden’s departure, the very minute, the US Department of Justice did not reply to our request for further information,” said Yuen. “Therefore, in our legal system . . . the Hong Kong government has no legal basis for restricting or prohibiting Snowden leaving Hong Kong.”

Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said President Obama’s mishandling of the Snowden extradition has made the United States look like “weenies.”

“We are certainly weenies with respect to the Chinese,” he said on Fox News. “They have defied our clear wishes. They have, indeed, protected Snowden in getting out of Hong Kong, and they have suffered no consequences, and the Russians must be judging that they are not going to suffer any consequences either.”