The US Justice Department has sued NSA leaker Edward Snowden in a bid to confiscate the proceeds from his new book.

The book, Permanent Record, recounts Snowden's time as an NSA contractor and his efforts to expose the US government's mass surveillance activities. Although the memoir goes on sale today, the DOJ announced that it wants to recover all proceeds from the book because it technically violates a non-disclosure agreements Snowden signed with the CIA and NSA.

According to US prosecutors, Snowden should have let the country's top two spy agencies review the book for approval before its publication.

"The United States' ability to protect sensitive national security information depends on employees' and contractors' compliance with their non-disclosure agreements, including their pre-publication review obligations," said US assistant attorney general Jody Hunt in a statement.

Interestingly, the feds are not trying to stop the book's publication. Rather, the goal is to prevent its publisher, MacMillan Publishers, from sending any of the book's proceeds to Snowden. "Intelligence information should protect our nation, not provide personal profit," said G. Zachary Terwilliger, US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, in a statement.

According to the same lawsuit, Snowden has also been violating his non-disclosure agreements by giving public speeches about US intelligence-related matters. The former NSA contractor currently resides in Moscow, Russia, where he routinely live streams talks to various conferences. Now US prosecutors want to seize the money Snowden is paid from his public speeches, and prevent him from giving anymore of them. A "constructive trust for the benefit of the United States" would be established to handle the confiscated funds.

Snowden was quick to use the Justice Department's lawsuit as marketing for his memoir. "This is the book the government does not want you to read," he said in a tweet.

Snowden's attorney and American Civil Liberties Union director Ben Wizner added: "This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organisations. Had Mr. Snowden believed that the government would review his book in good faith, he would have submitted it for review."