Edward Snowden : Biography
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| Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden :
Biography
Edward Snowden is a former National
Security Agency subcontractor who made headlines in 2013 when he leaked top
secret information about NSA surveillance activities.
Synopsis
Born in North Carolina in 1983, Edward Snowden worked for the National
Security Agency through subcontractor Booz Allen in the NSA's Oahu office.
After only three months, Snowden began collecting top-secret documents
regarding NSA domestic surveillance practices, which he found disturbing. After
Snowden fled to Hong Kong, China, newspapers began printing the documents that
he had leaked to them, many of them detailing invasive spying practices against
American citizens. With the U.S. charging Snowden under the Espionage Act but
many groups calling him a hero, Snowden remains in Russia, with the U.S.
government working on extradition.
Early Years
Edward Snowden was born in North Carolina on June 21, 1983, and grew up
in Elizabeth City. His mother works for the federal court in Baltimore (the
family moved to Ellicott City, Maryland, when Snowden was young) as chief
deputy clerk for administration and information technology. Snowden's father, a
former Coast Guard officer, lives in Pennsylvania.
Snowden dropped out of high school and studied computers at Anne Arundel
Community College in Arnold, Maryland (from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2004
to 2005), later earning a GED. Between his stints at community college, Snowden
spent four months (May to September 2004) in the Army Reserves in
special-forces training. According to Army sources, he did not complete any
training, and Snowden has said that he was discharged after he broke his legs
in an accident.
Government Work
Two years after leaving Anne Arundel for the second time, Snowden landed
a job with the National Security Agency as a security guard, which he somehow
parlayed into an information-technology job at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Snowden has said that in 2007, the CIA stationed him in Geneva, but in 2009 he
left to work for private contractors, among them Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton,
a tech consulting firm. With Booz Allen, he was shipped off to Japan to work as
a subcontractor in an NSA office before being transferred to an office in
Hawaii. After only three months with Booz Allen, Snowden would make a decision
that would change his life forever.
Blowing the Whistle
While working at the NSA's Oahu office, Snowden began noticing
government programs involving the NSA spying on American citizens via phone
calls and internet use. Before long, leaving his "very comfortable
life" and $200,000 salary behind, in May 2013, Snowden began copying
top-secret NSA documents while at work, building a dossier on practices that he
found invasive and disturbing. The documents contained vast and damning
information on the NSA's domestic surveillance practices, including spying on
millions of American citizens under the umbrella of programs such as PRISM.
After he had compiled a large store of documents, Snowden told his NSA
supervisor that he needed a leave of absence to undergo medical treatment. He
had been recently diagnosed with epilepsy. On May 20, 2013, Snowden took a
flight to Hong Kong, China, where he remained during the early stages of the
fallout. This fallout began the following month, on June 5, when the United
Kingdom's Guardian newspaper released secret documents obtained from
Snowden about an American intelligence body (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court) demanding that Verizon release information "on a daily basis"
culled from its American customers' activities.
The following day, the Guardian and the Washington Times
released Snowden's leaked information on PRISM, an NSA program that allows
real-time information collection, in this case, solely information on American
citizens. A flood of information followed, and the American people, the
international community and the U.S. government have since been scrambling to
either hear more about it or have Snowden arrested.
Aftermath
"I'm willing to sacrifice [my former life] because I can't in good
conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and
basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance
machine they're secretly building," Snowden said after the fact, in a
series of interviews given in his Hong Kong hotel room. One of the people he
left behind was his girlfriend Lindsay Mills. The pair had been living together
in Hawaii, and she reportedly had no idea that he was about to disclose
classified information to the public.
The U.S. government soon responded to Snowden's disclosures legally. On
June 14, 2013, federal prosecutors charged Snowden with theft of government
property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and
willful communication of classified intelligence with an unauthorized person.
The last two charges fall under the Espionage Act. (Before President Barack
Obama took office, the act had only been used for prosecutorial purposes three
times since 1917; Since President Obama took office, it had been invoked seven
times as of June 2013.)
Snowden remained in hiding for nearly one month, first asking Ecuador
for asylum and then fleeing Hong Kong for Russia, whose government has denied
the U.S. request to extradite him. While some decried him as a traitor, he did
seem to be building some support for his cause, however. More than 100,000
people had signed an online petition asking Obama to pardon Snowden by late
June.
The following month, Snowden made headlines again when it was announced
that he had been offered asylum in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Around the
same time, it was reported that Snowden was "stuck in transit" in
Moscow after the U.S. annulled his passport, and that he had not yet made a
decision on where, of the countries offering him asylum, he would be
relocating. Snowden soon made up his mind, expressing an interest in staying in
Russia. One of his lawyers, Anatoly Kucherena, gave an interview with CBS News.
Kucherena said that Snowden would seek temporary asylum in Russia and possibly
apply for Russian citizenship later. Snowden thanked Russia for giving him
asylum and said that "in the end the law is winning."
That October, Snowden revealed that he no longer possessed any of the
NSA files that he leaked to press. He gave those materials to the journalists
he met with in Hong Kong, but he didn't keep any copies for himself. Snowden
explained that "it wouldn't serve the public interest" for him to
have brought the files to Russia, according to The New York Times.
Around this time, Snowden's father, Lon Snowden, got a chance to visit with him
in Moscow. Lon told the press that he supported his son, saying that "I
know my son. I know he loves his country," according to a CNN report. He
explained that his son was a "whistle-blower," not a
"leaker."
Snowden received some bad news the following month. According to the Guardian
newspaper, his request to the U.S. government for clemency was rejected. The
fallout from his disclosures continued to unfold over the next few months,
including a legal battle over the collection of phone data by the NSA.
President Barack Obama sought to calm fears over government spying in January
2014, ordering U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review the country's
surveillance programs.
Still in exile, Snowden remained a polarizing figure. He made an
appearance at the popular South by Southwest festival via teleconference in
March 2014. Around this time, the U.S. military revealed that the information
Snowden leaked may have caused so much damage to its security that the cost to
repair it may run in the billions.
In May 2014, Snowden gave a revealing interview with NBC News. He told
Brian Williams that he was a trained spy who worked undercover as an operative
for the CIA and NSA. Snowden explained that he viewed himself as a patriot,
believing his actions had beneficial results. His leaking of information led to
"a robust public debate" and "new protections in the United
States and abroad for our rights to make that they're no longer violated."
He also expressed an interest to go home to the United States.
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