Edward Snowden discloses U.S. government operations.
Edward Snowden is an American-Russian intelligence expert hired as a subcontractor for National Security Agency in 2013. He was hired as an employee in NSA by Booz Allen Hamilton with his previous work experiences with Dell and CIA. He was born on 21st June 1983 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in the United States.
Edward Snowden came into the world in North Carolina, and then his family shifted to central Maryland, located nearby from the NSA headquarters, when he was just a kid. He left high school and completed his intermittent studies from 1999 to 2005 at a community college, and he was not honored with a degree after pursuing GED from the college. He wished to provide the services in the Special Forces and registered for the army reserve in 2004 but was discharged after 4 months. He was employed as security personnel in the research sector of the University of Maryland, which is affiliated with the NSA.
Further, even with a lack of technicality and educational training, Edward Snowden was successful in displaying his aptitude with computers, and he provided the services to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2006. He got the allotment of a confidential clearance and was shifted to Geneva in 2007 to provide the services as a network security technician in the provision of a diplomatic cover. He quit his job in the CIA for his new placement in the NSA in 2009. He was hired as a contractor to work for Dell and Booz Hamilton.
It was during this phase he started to gather information on multiple NSA activities. He went on medical leave and traveled to Hong Kong, and in the meanwhile, he conducted several interviews with The Guardian journalists. The footage that was shot during that time appeared in the documentary Citizenfour. In the list of the secret leaks from the NSA, Edward Snowden leaked a court order that obliged the Verzion tele firm to turn over the telephonic data of a million subscribers.
He also shared the presence of PRISM, a data-mining program that provided the NSA, FBI, and NSA Britain direct access to the server of the Internet huge names such as Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.
The Guardian and The Washington Post published the stories hiding the source, but then Edward Snowden came forward to reveal his identity as he felt he had done nothing wrong. He also revealed that the NSA was secretly hacking the Chinese computers since 2009 and stated that he purposely got employed by Booz Hamilton to gather information regarding the activities of the NSA. The U.S. alleged Edward of espionage, and the official authorities started an attempt to begin the extradition procedures after talks with the Hong Kong government.
The Hong Kong government did not support the U.S. authorities, and Edward Joseph Snowden was successful in flying to Moscow it was confirmed by Russian President Putin that Edward Snowden, who had been detained by the U.S. and was within the confinement of the International Moscow Sheremetyevo airport transit zone.
Putin made his intent clear of not supporting the U.S in extradition and also made clear that Russia had no intent to affect the relationship with the U.S. and that Snowden would have to stop his work intended to harm the Americans and was allowed on the refugee tag as he left the airport after a month.
The Russian government approved their residence allowance of Snowden in August 2014, which permitted him to move out of the country for up to 3 months and extended the permit in 2017, and Edward Joseph Snowden achieved success in gaining permanent residency in Russia in 2020.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden in recent times in September 2022. The presidential decree declared by the Russian president added Snowden to the list of the latest inclusions of Russian citizens in the time frame where the relationship between the U.S. and Russia is pretty low with the conflict over the Ukraine issue.
The whistleblower Edward Snowden filed for Russian citizenship in 2020 and expressed his wish to retain his U.S. nationality. The NSA contractor revealed the intentions of the U.S. government with the leaks of the NSA activities and was in Russian asylum after the revelations. The Russian government relaxed the laws of Russian citizenship that permit individuals to have a Russian passport without refraining from their original nationality.
The legal advisor of Edward Joseph Snowden, Anatoly, informed the Russian news RIA Novosti about the application of Snowden’s wife Lindsay Mills for Russian citizenship and that his daughter is already a Russian citizen born in the country.
The Russian President declared the Russian men mobilization to serve in the army’s fight in Ukraine, and Anatoly cleared that Snowden would not be called up to contribute to the cause as he had no experience with the Russian army. Moreover, the spokesperson of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, informed the media that Edward was awarded Russian citizenship based on his application request.
