Edward Snowden (1983 - )
Tue Jun 21, 1983
Image: Edward Snowden speaks about the NSA leaks in an interview with reporter Glenn Greenwald at the hotel The Mira Hong Kong. [Wikipedia]
Edward Snowden, born on this day in 1983, is an American whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the NSA in 2013 when he was working as a CIA employee, exposing multiple governments’ widespread surveillance programs.
Snowden’s disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments, prompting a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.
In 2013, the United States Department of Justice unsealed charges against Snowden of two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property, revoking his passport. Two days later, he flew into a Moscow Airport, where Russian authorities noted that his U.S. passport had been canceled, and he could not leave the airport terminal for over one month.
Russia later granted Snowden the right of asylum with an initial visa for residence for one year, and he continues to reside there on extension today.
“Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give to an American.”
- Edward Snowden
- Date: 1983-06-21
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.theguardian.com.
- Tags: #Birthdays.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org
Reminder that the reason is in Russia is because the US trapped him there, that was not his intended destination. The US was leveraging every country they could to prevent Snowden flying anywhere. They ended up cancelling his passport while he was on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow in transit to a final destination somewhere in Latin America.
So he ended up being stuck in the international terminal in Moscow and not able to even leave the airport since he had no valid passport. Russia and the US do not have an extradition agreement, and the US has always refused to send criminals back to Russia, so they did the same, also citing that his actions would not have even violated Russian law. Eventually over a month later they processed a temporary one year asylum request since he was stuck in Russia anyway. And that was extended until he was granted permanent residency in 2020.
In short the only reason he ended up in Russia is because the US trapped him there.
I’ve seen what Russia does to American citizens they detain (atheletes, reporters, teachers, etc.).
It’s telling that Edward Snowden, a former CIA agent, would not get the same or worse treatment in Russia.
Is it really? Seems like a simple case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
I find it hard to believe that Russia is just being nice to Snowden. Snowden was a former CIA agent. There are many examples of double agents in espionage throughout history, let alone between Russia and the US.
If Snowden isn’t working for Russia then you can guarentee Russia would be torturing him for any information he has. Which they don’t show any signs of doing.
AFAIK he was a contractor for the NSA
It says in the post that he was working as a CIA employee
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Why on earth would they do that, when he has already published all the information he had?
How do you know he published all the information he has? There is no way of knowing that.
Even if it was, Russia has shown time and time again that they torture the people they detain even when there isn’t intel to be gained. They aren’t doing that to Snowden though.
This is the same nonsense Fox News pundits were pushing at the time. There is no evidence that he took anything other than the documents he shared with the Guardian. Wildly speculating that he’s sharing state secrets, which we have no evidence he has, with Russia, a country he never intended to visit beyond a layover, is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence. “He’s not being tortured,” is not extraordinary evidence.
I never said he took more documents.
He was a CIA agent. That means he has information other than documents that could be of use to Russia.
You are bending over backwards to handwave the most logical answer: Snowden was/is working for Russia
He was entry-level cybersecurity officer for the CIA. You make it sound like he was James Bond, but he was closer to an IT professional. And the information he shared with the Gaurdian was from his time at the NSA, not the CIA.
Let’s walk through your, “most logical,” answer. Snowden was a Russian agent. Instead of maintaining his position with the NSA so he could continue to feed Russia national security secrets, he decided the best thing to do was to blow up his cover by sharing his knowledge of the U.S.'s mass surveillance program, not with Russia, but with journalists. Once he had thoroughly and publicly destroyed his career, he traveled to Russia to share additional classified materials and/or information, and his passport was coincidentally canceled en route.
That’s the simplest explanation to you? Because to me, the simplest explanation is that he was a whistle-blower, and the Obama administration decided it would be better to strand him in a hostile, authoritarian country rather than allow him to reach his intended destination.
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