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Edward Joseph Snowden(English Edward Joseph Snowden; born June 21, 1983, North Carolina) is an American technical assistant and former employee of the CIA and the US National Security Agency. At the beginning of June 2013 Snowden gave the newspapers The Guardian and The Washington Post secret NSA information regarding the total surveillance of American intelligence services over information communications between citizens of many countries around the world, using existing information and communication networks, including information about the PRISM project. In this regard, in the USA Edward Snowden charged in absentia with violating the law.

Edward Snowden
Occupation: System administrator
Date of birth: June 1, 1983
Place of birth: Elizabeth City, North Carolina, USA
Citizenship: USA

Career and personal life of Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, son of Lonnie and Elizabeth Snowden. He spent his childhood in Elizabeth City and lived in Maryland, near the NSA headquarters (Fort Meade). I studied computer science at a college in Maryland, but was not able to get a diploma right away. Since 2003, he served for some time in the US armed forces, leaving them after breaking both legs during training. Then he worked for the NSA, starting a career in security secret object on the campus of the University of Maryland, presumably CASL. Received Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level clearance. After the NSA, he worked in the information security department of the CIA, in particular, from March 2007 to February 2009, he worked under the diplomatic cover of the US permanent mission to the UN (Geneva). Edward Snowden's work was associated with ensuring the security of computer networks.
In 2009, Edward left and began working for consulting companies working with the NSA, first at Dell, then at defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton (less than 3 months until June 2013).

In the process of working for American intelligence agencies Edward Snowden I became increasingly disillusioned with their activities. So, according to him, in 2007 he witnessed how CIA officers recruited a Swiss bank employee. First, they deliberately got him drunk and persuaded him to get behind the wheel and go home. When he was arrested for drunk driving, CIA agents offered to help him, which allowed him to be recruited to gain access to the bank's secrets.
“A lot of what I saw in Geneva really took away my illusions about how my government operates and what it brings to the world,” he later said Edward Snowden. “I realized that I was part of something that was doing a lot more harm than good.”

According to him, then for the first time he thought about disclosing official secrets, but did not do so for two reasons. First, “most CIA secrets are about people, not about machines and systems; and I would not feel comfortable divulging anything that could harm anyone.”
Original text (English)
Second, he hoped for change after the election of Barack Obama. But he soon became convinced that with the advent of Obama the situation only worsened.

In January 2013 Edward Snowden finally decided to act. He wrote an email to Laura Poitras, a former American film producer and one of the founders of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. At the same time, Snowden did not reveal his name, but said that he had important secret information. He soon contacted Glenn Greenwald, a journalist for the English newspaper The Guardian, and publicist Barton Gellman, who wrote articles for the Washington Post.

Communication took place through encrypted e-mail messages. Snowden wrote that over time his identity would be revealed - either by his own will or in spite of it - but until then he asked that lengthy quotes from his messages not be made for fear of being identified through semantic analysis. The intelligence services, he suggested, would "almost certainly kill you if they think you are the key person through whom to stop the release of this information."
In the second half of May 2013 Edward Snowden began passing key information about the PRISM program to Greenwald and Gellman, but asked not to disclose it immediately.

Edward Snowden's changing attitude towards service

Snowden disclosed information about the PRISM program, which includes mass surveillance of negotiations between Americans and foreign citizens via telephone and the Internet. PRISM allows the Agency to view email, listen to voice and video chats, view photos, videos, track sent files, and learn other details from social networks. The PRISM program includes Microsoft (Hotmail), Google (Google Mail), Yahoo!, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, AOL, Apple and Paltalk.
Edward Snowden gave reporters a copy of the secret FISC court ruling dated April 25, 2013. Under this regulation, one of the largest American cellular operators, Verizon, is required to transmit daily to the NSA “metadata” about all calls made within the United States or between the United States and another country, including the telephone numbers of the calling and receiving subscribers, IMEI phones, time and call duration, call location. However, the audio recording of the conversation itself should not be transmitted.

The decree also prohibited all public and private employees involved in the collection of such information from disclosing the very existence of such a decree until 2038. In this regard, journalists subsequently suggested that similar resolutions could have been sent to other US cellular operators.
Edward Snowden stated that since 2009, US intelligence agencies have illegally penetrated the computer networks of the East Asian fiber-optic network Pacnet, as well as Chinese operators mobile communications to gain access to millions of SMS. According to a statement by the Hong Kong Sunday Morning Post, he handed over documents confirming this to the editor.

Edward Snowden leaked information about the existence of the British surveillance program Tempora.
On June 17, The Guardian newspaper, citing Snowden's data, reported that British intelligence services monitored computers and intercepted phone calls foreign politicians and officials attending the G20 summit in London in 2009. The secret work was carried out by the UK Government Communications Center and the US National Security Agency. In addition, British intelligence services intercepted telephone conversations of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during the summit.

Edward Snowden emphasized that he did not provide all the information he knew:
I have carefully reviewed each document to ensure that its release will serve the legitimate interests of the public... There are documents of all types whose disclosure would have great consequences, but I do not release them because my goal is openness, not harm to people.

Edward Snowden's motives for disclosing data under the PRISM program

In a note accompanying the first batch of documents, Snowden wrote: “I understand that I will have to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if secret laws, unequal impunity and overwhelming executive power, ruling the the world that I love will be revealed at least for a moment.” “I really want the focus to be on these documents and I hope that it will spark a conversation among citizens around the world about what kind of world we want to live in.”
More recently, Edward was living a fairly comfortable life with a salary of about $200 thousand a year, renting a house in Waipahu, Hawaii with his girlfriend and working in the office of Booz Allen Hamilton.
“I am willing to sacrifice all of this because I cannot in good conscience allow the US government to violate the privacy, freedom of the Internet and the fundamental freedoms of people around the world with this enormous surveillance system that they are secretly developing,” he told the Guardian.
“If my motive was money, I could sell these documents to any number of countries and get rich.”

At some point, he came to the conclusion that the process of creating the NSA surveillance network would soon become irreversible. “You can't wait for someone else to take action. I was looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.” “I don’t consider myself a hero because I act in my own self-interest: I don’t want to live in a world where there is no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

Edward Snowden's life after the disclosure

May 20, 2013 Snowden After saying goodbye to his girlfriend for a few weeks and taking leave from the NSA under the pretext of treating epilepsy, he flies to Hong Kong, where he rented a hotel room and continued email correspondence with journalists.
On June 6, 2013, an alarmed Snowden told Gellman: “The police visited my home in Hawaii this morning.” On the same day, with his permission, The Washington Post and The Guardian published revelations about the PRISM program.
On June 9, 2013, Snowden decided to reveal his identity. He invited journalists, including Greenwald and Poitras, to Hong Kong for interviews. This video interview and his real name were published by The Guardian at his own request. However, he stated: “I have no intention of hiding who I am, because I know that I have not done anything wrong.”
After revealing his identity, Snowden continued to send classified materials to journalists. Some former NSA and CIA employees have expressed concerns that Snowden could provide classified information to China. Snowden rejected these suggestions, saying that in this case he would have been in the palace in Beijing long ago.
June 10, 2013 around noon Snowden left The Mira hotel in Hong Kong, where he was hiding from US authorities. He planned to seek political asylum in Iceland or in another country that supports freedom of speech

On June 11, 2013, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov announced Russia’s readiness to consider the appeal Snowden about granting political asylum, if any. Later this position Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed to Russian authorities.
On June 21, 2013, on Edward's 30th birthday, he was charged in the United States with theft of state property and disclosure of state secrets.
On June 22, 2013, it became known that the US State Department had asked the Hong Kong authorities to detain Snowden and extradite him to the United States. Hong Kong authorities refused to extradite Snowden, citing incorrect wording in the request.

On June 23, 2013, as reported in the media, Snowden accompanied by WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison (English)Russian. arrived at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. Since he does not have a Russian visa, he could only be in the transit area of the airport, supposedly a few hours before his connecting flight. According to Izvestia, Snowden and Harrison did not even get to the airport building: after landing, the plane was driven to the far parking lot of the airport, they were taken out of the plane and put into a car with diplomatic license plates of the Venezuelan Embassy that drove up close to the ramp, which then disappeared in an unknown direction and none of the journalists saw Snowden until before the meeting he convened on July 12 with human rights activists. According to evidence obtained by media correspondents, Snowden did not stay at the Sheremetyevo Hotel, located in the transit zone of the airport. On the contrary, the Kommersant newspaper claims that from June 23 until the meeting with human rights activists on July 12, Snowden was in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport.
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, on the evening of June 23 Snowden asked for asylum in this country. According to press reports, Snowden was planning to leave Moscow the next day for Venezuela via Havana, but his seat on the plane was empty. According to a statement from the US State Department, the ID Snowden was officially canceled by the American authorities, but this, according to the press service of the US State Department, did not deprive him of citizenship. According to Julian Assange, Ecuador provided Snowden with a refugee passport in return. The Ecuadorian authorities explained that the issuance of transit documents by the consul was not authorized by the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, therefore the documents are invalid.

On June 25, 2013, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced at a press conference in Moscow that Russia has nothing to do with the movements Snowden around the world, and the Russian authorities learned about Snowden's plans go to South America from information in the press. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Snowden is in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport, where a Russian visa is not required, he did not cross the Russian border and did not commit any crimes in the country, and therefore there are no grounds for his detention and extradition to the United States. Putin also said: “Our special services are never with Mr. Snowden didn’t work and don’t work today.” On June 30, in an interview with Echo of Moscow, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov clarified that Putin, on the contrary, prefers that Snowden special services looked into it.

Observers note that staying in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo Airport without a Russian visa (regular or transit) is allowed for a period of no more than 24 hours. For five days after his arrival, none of the journalists saw Snowden in Moscow.
On June 28, 2013, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that he was ready to grant Snowden political asylum. During the press conference, Maduro recalled that the United States provided asylum to Luis Posad, who was sentenced to prison in Venezuela. The father of the ex-CIA officer said on the same day that his son could return to the United States for certain conditions; At the same time, he emphasized that he was expressing only his personal opinion; he had not communicated with Edward himself since April.
On June 30, 2013, Snowden asked for political asylum in Russia. At 22:30, British citizen Sarah Harrison, who was accompanying him, submitted the relevant documents to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

On July 1, 2013, at a press conference in Moscow, Vladimir Putin announced that Snowden will be able to stay in Russia, but “there is one condition: he must stop his work aimed at causing damage to our American partners, as strange as it may sound from my lips.” The next morning, Dmitry Peskov said that Snowden was not satisfied with the conditions put forward by Putin.
On July 2, 2013, the governments of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal, as well as a number of other European countries, prohibited the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales from entering the airspace of their countries after taking off from Moscow, and therefore the plane was forced to land in Vienna. The ban was due to concerns that Snowden was on board the plane. When the plane was inspected in Vienna by the Austrian security service, it turned out that Snowden was not there.
On July 7, 2013, it became known that having sent requests for political asylum to more than 20 countries, Snowden received three positive responses - from Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

July 12, 2013 Edward Snowden held a meeting in Sheremetyevo, where representatives of the international human rights organizations Amnesty International, Transparency International, Human Rights Watch, the Polish human rights organization Creedo Legal, as well as the UN representative in Russia were invited. In addition, State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Olga Kostina, Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, as well as lawyers Anatoly Kucherena, Genrikh Padva and Henry Reznik received invitations. At the meeting, Snowden announced his intention to seek temporary asylum in Russia, since his safety can now only be ensured if he temporarily remains in Russia, although he plans to settle in Russia in the future. Latin America. Human Rights Watch representative Tatyana Lokshina said at the meeting that on the way to the airport, the American Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul called her and asked her to tell her that the United States considers Snowden not a whistleblower, but someone who broke the law. In the evening the situation around Snowden The presidents of Russia and the United States, Putin and Obama, discussed it by telephone.

Reaction to Edward Snowden's actions

Criminal charges against Edward Snowden
The United States has charged Snowden in absentia with theft of government property, disclosure of national defense data and intentional transfer of classified information to unauthorized persons. Collectively, these charges face up to 30 years in prison and possibly the death penalty.

Petitions in defense of Snowden
At least two petitions have appeared on the Internet in defense of Snowden. One of them was created on June 9 on the White House website, and was repeatedly discussed in the press. The petition proclaims Snowden " national hero"and demands his full amnesty. As of June 27, she collected over 120 thousand votes, that is, she crossed the threshold (100 thousand before July 9), after which the White House will be obliged to give an official response.
Another petition was created on June 12 on the Avaaz website and calls for “considering Snowden

Edward Snowden

Edward Joseph Snowden. Born June 21, 1983 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, USA. American technical specialist and special agent, former employee of the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. Revealed secret NSA information regarding the total surveillance of American intelligence agencies around the world.

Father - Lonnie Snowden, served in the US Coast Guard until 2009, lives in Pennsylvania.

Mother - Elizabeth Snowden, a lawyer, works in federal court in Baltimore.

Parents are divorced. The father remarried Karen Haberbosch.

Has an older sister, Jessica Snowden, who works at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC.

He spent his childhood in Elizabeth City and lived in Maryland (close to the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade).

In 1999, he and his family moved to Ellicott City (Maryland).

He studied computer science at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland, but was not able to graduate immediately: he missed several months of school due to illness, but, as soon as he returned, he was able to pass the General Educational Development tests at the local community college.

From May 7 to September 28, 2004 he served in Armed Forces USA - was a reservist of the Special Operations Forces. He said he joined the Army because he wanted to fight in the Iraq War because he “felt that as a human being I had an obligation to help people free themselves from oppression.” He left the service after breaking both legs during a training exercise and never completed his military training course.

He then worked for the NSA, beginning a career guarding a secret facility at the University of Maryland (presumably CASL). Received a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level clearance - according to experts, Snowden had access not only to top secret, but also to “Special Intelligence” information containing technical details intelligence operations of the United States and its allies.

While working as a systems administrator at an NSA base in Hawaii, Snowden convinced 20 to 25 colleagues to give him their usernames and passwords, explaining that he needed them for his job.

After the NSA, he worked in the information security department of the CIA, in particular, from March 2007 to February 2009, he worked under the diplomatic cover of the US permanent mission to the UN (Geneva). His work was related to ensuring the security of computer networks.

In 2009, Edward left and began working for consulting companies working with the NSA. First at Dell. And later - at the military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, although he worked there for a short time - less than 3 months until June 2013.

In the process of working for American intelligence agencies, Snowden became increasingly disillusioned with their activities. So, according to him, in 2007 he witnessed how CIA officers recruited a Swiss bank employee. First, they deliberately got him drunk and persuaded him to get behind the wheel and go home. When he was arrested for drunk driving, CIA agents offered to help him, which allowed him to be recruited to gain access to the bank's secrets.

“A lot of what I saw in Geneva really took away my illusions about how my government operates and what it brings to the world. I realized that I am part of something that does much more harm than good.", Snowden said. According to him, then for the first time he thought about disclosing official secrets, but did not do so for two reasons. Firstly, “most CIA secrets are about people, not about machines and systems; and I would not feel comfortable disclosing anything that could endanger anyone.".

In one of his interviews, Snowden claimed that he did not vote for the 2008 presidential election, although he believed his campaign promises. During Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign, Snowden twice donated $250 to the campaign.

According to him, he hoped for changes after the election of Barack Obama. But he soon became convinced that with the advent of Obama the situation only worsened.

Edward Snowden's secrets

In January 2013, Snowden finally decided to act. He wrote an email to Laura Poitras, an American journalist, film director and producer, and one of the founders of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. At the same time, Snowden did not reveal his name, but said that he had important secret information.

He soon contacted Glenn Greenwald, a journalist for the English newspaper The Guardian, and publicist Barton Gellman, who wrote articles for the Washington Post.

Communication took place through encrypted e-mail messages. Snowden wrote that his identity would eventually be revealed, whether by his own will or against it, but until then he asked that lengthy quotes from his messages not be made for fear of being identified through semantic analysis. The intelligence services, he suggested, would "almost certainly kill you if they think you are the key person through whom to stop the release of this information."

In the second half of May 2013, Snowden began transmitting key information about the PRISM program to Greenwald and Gellman, but asked not to disclose it immediately.

According to NSA head Keith Alexander, Snowden handed over about 200 thousand secret documents to journalists. The status of the disclosed documents turned out to be significantly higher than that of materials previously published on WikiLeaks and relating to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Revealed the fact of comprehensive surveillance in 60 countries of more than a billion people by the governments of 35 countries.

Snowden revealed information about the PRISM program, which includes mass surveillance of negotiations between Americans and foreign citizens via telephone and the Internet. According to him, PRISM allows the Agency to view email, listen to voice and video chats, view photos, videos, track sent files, and find out other details from social networks. The PRISM program includes Microsoft (Hotmail), Google (Gmail), Yahoo!, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, AOL, Apple and Paltalk.

Snowden made it public secret order of the FISC court dated April 25, 2013. Under this regulation, one of the largest American cellular operators, Verizon, is required to transmit daily to the NSA “metadata” about all calls made within the United States or between the United States and another country, including the telephone numbers of the calling and receiving subscribers, IMEI phones, time and call duration, call location. However, the audio recording of the conversation itself should not be transmitted.

Snowden said that since 2009, US intelligence agencies have illegally infiltrated the computer networks of the East Asian fiber-optic network Pacnet, as well as Chinese mobile operators, to gain access to millions of SMS messages. According to a statement by the Hong Kong Sunday Morning Post, he handed over documents confirming this to the editor.

Snowden disclosed details of the British surveillance program Tempora, and also said that he does not use the iPhone because of the integrated software, allowing you to track the user. Instead of modern smartphones, Snowden prefers a regular mobile phone.

On June 17, The Guardian newspaper, citing Snowden's data, reported that British intelligence services monitored computers and intercepted telephone calls of foreign politicians and officials participating in the G20 summit in London in 2009. The secret work was carried out by the UK Government Communications Center and the US National Security Agency. In addition, British intelligence services intercepted telephone conversations of the Russian President during the summit.

Snowden emphasized that he did not disclose all the information known to him: “I carefully examined each document to ensure that its disclosure would serve the legitimate interests of the public ... There are many different documents, the disclosure of which would have great consequences, but I am not handing them over, because my goal is openness, not hurting people."

This was later confirmed by NSA Director General Keith Alexander, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Baltimore. He said that Snowden handed over to reporters from 50 to 200 thousand secret documents that will continue to “float out.” But, unlike Snowden, Keith believes that leaks are deliberately organized in such a way as to cause maximum damage to the NSA and national interests USA.

Snowden gained access to electronic intelligence data not only from the United States, but also from Great Britain; he may have up to 58 thousand British secret documents at his disposal.

According to a classified Pentagon report, the contents of which became known in January 2014, Snowden stole 1.7 million secret files, most of the documents concern "vital operations of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force." A few days later, the heads of the intelligence committees of the US House of Representatives and Senate, Michael Rogers and Dianne Feinstein, suggested that Snowden did not have technical capabilities independently open and steal hundreds of thousands of secret documents and that such large-scale actions, as well as unimpeded movement around the world after fleeing the United States, could be carried out with the help of Russian intelligence. An investigation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation found no evidence that Snowden was assisted by foreign intelligence agencies.

Snowden himself denied allegations of involvement foreign countries to the leak of information he organized.

Edward Snowden's escape

On May 20, 2013, Snowden said goodbye to his girlfriend for several weeks and took a leave of absence from the NSA under the pretext of treatment for epilepsy. He flew to Hong Kong, where he rented a hotel room and continued email correspondence with journalists. According to WikiLeaks, Sarah Harrison was sent to Hong Kong and carried out a special operation to help Snowden reach Hong Kong safely.

On June 6, 2013, an alarmed Snowden told Gellman: “The police visited my home in Hawaii this morning.” On the same day, with his permission, The Washington Post and The Guardian published revelations about the PRISM program.

On June 9, 2013, Snowden decided to reveal his identity. He invited journalists, including Greenwald and Poitras, to Hong Kong for interviews. This video interview and his real name were published by The Guardian at his own request. However, he stated: “I have no intention of hiding who I am, because I know that I have not done anything wrong.”

After revealing his identity, Snowden continued to send classified materials to journalists. Some former NSA and CIA employees have expressed concerns that Snowden could provide classified information to China. Snowden rejected these suggestions, saying that in this case he would have been in the palace in Beijing long ago.

On June 10, 2013, around noon, Snowden left The Mira Hotel in Hong Kong, where he was hiding from US authorities. He planned to seek political asylum in Iceland or in another country that supports freedom of speech.

On June 11, 2013, the press secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, announced Russia’s readiness to consider Snowden’s application for political asylum, if one were received. Later, this position of the Russian authorities was confirmed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

On June 21, 2013, on Edward's 30th birthday, he was charged in the United States with theft of state property and disclosure of state secrets.

On June 22, 2013, it became known that the US State Department had asked the Hong Kong authorities to detain Snowden and extradite him to the United States. Hong Kong authorities refused to extradite Snowden, citing incorrect wording in the request. A White House spokesman noted that American authorities do not believe that the decision to allow Snowden to fly further instead of handing him over to them was made by Hong Kong leaders, and not Beijing.

Snowden wanted to seek asylum in Hong Kong, which was supported by the local and Chinese public, but Snowden's Hong Kong lawyer said that a Chinese "mediator" visited Snowden and made it clear to him that he would not be welcome in China. At the same time, Chinese officials denied any involvement in this matter.

As the President of the Russian Federation admitted on September 4, 2013, during his stay in Hong Kong, Snowden first met with Russian diplomatic representatives and explored the possibility of moving to Russia.

On July 1, 2013, at a press conference in Moscow, Vladimir Putin announced that Snowden would be able to stay in Russia, but “there is one condition: he must stop his work aimed at causing damage to our American partners, no matter how strange it may sound from my lips." The next morning, Dmitry Peskov said that Snowden was not satisfied with the conditions put forward by Putin.

On July 2, 2013, the governments of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal, as well as a number of other European countries, prohibited the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales from entering the airspace of their countries after taking off from Moscow, and therefore the plane was forced to land in Vienna. The ban was due to concerns that Snowden was on board the plane. When the plane was inspected in Vienna by the Austrian security service, it turned out that Snowden was not there.

July 4, 2013 CEO channel RBC-TV A. Lyubimov invited Snowden to work as a TV presenter of the show “Snowden. Detective technologies" - this work can be performed remotely, including in the transit area of the airport.

On July 7, 2013, it became known that, having sent applications for political asylum to more than 20 countries, Snowden received three positive responses - from Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Edward Snowden in Russia

On June 23, 2013, Snowden, accompanied by WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison, arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. He did not have a Russian visa, and he could only legally stay in the transit area of the airport - supposedly a few hours before his connecting flight.

According to the media, citing unnamed sources at Sheremetyevo and the passengers of the plane, after landing the plane was driven to the far parking lot of the airport, Snowden and Harrison were taken out of the plane and put into a car with diplomatic license plates that drove up close to the ramp, which then disappeared in an unknown direction. and none of the journalists saw Snowden until the meeting he convened on July 12 with human rights activists.

On July 12, 2013, Snowden held a meeting in the Sheremetyevo transit zone, where representatives of the international human rights organizations Amnesty International, Transparency International, Human Rights Watch, the Polish human rights organization Creed Legal, as well as the UN representative in Russia. In addition, State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Olga Kostina, Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, as well as lawyers Anatoly Kucherena, Genrikh Padva and Henry Reznik received invitations.

At the meeting, Snowden read out a prepared statement. In particular, he announced his intention to ask for temporary asylum in Russia, since his safety can now only be ensured if he temporarily remains in Russia, although he plans to settle in Latin America in the future. Two years later, Julian Assange said that he advised Snowden to seek asylum and stay in Russia. According to Assange, Snowden could have been kidnapped or even killed in Latin America, and Russia is one of the few countries that is not under the influence of the CIA.

Human Rights Watch representative Tatyana Lokshina said at the meeting that on the way to the airport, the American Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul called her and asked her to tell her that the United States considers Snowden not a whistleblower, but someone who broke the law.

In the evening, the presidents of Russia and the United States, Putin and Obama, discussed the situation by telephone.

Three days later, V. Putin said that the Americans scared everyone and no one wants to take him, “this is such a gift for the Nativity of Christ,” Putin also expressed the hope that as soon as Snowden has the opportunity to leave Russia, he will immediately take advantage of it.

On July 16, 2013, Snowden officially applied to the Federal Migration Service with a request for temporary asylum in Russia.

On July 17, 2013, US Senator Lindsey Graham called for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics in response to Russia granting asylum to Edward Snowden.

On July 24, 2013, it became known that Snowden wants to stay in Russia forever, find work here and has already begun to learn Russian, which was announced after another meeting in the Sheremetyevo transit zone by the lawyer representing his interests, Anatoly Kucherena.

On August 1, 2013, Snowden received a certificate of temporary asylum in the territory Russian Federation, issued on July 31, 2013 by the Office of the Federal Migration Service for the Moscow Region and valid until July 31, 2014 (with the possibility of extension). This document gives the right to move freely throughout the territory of Russia and find employment in any job. workplace(except for civil service) without obtaining a work permit. On the same day, Snowden crossed the Russian border, leaving the transit zone of Terminal E of Sheremetyevo Airport and leaving, according to lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, in a taxi, accompanied by Sarah Harrison, in an unknown direction. Anatoly Kucherena, showing a copy of his asylum document, said that for security reasons, the whereabouts of Snowden, one of the world's most wanted people, would not be disclosed.

On August 7, due to the situation with Snowden, US President Obama canceled a meeting with Russian President Putin in Moscow scheduled for September, as well as bilateral negotiations in St. Petersburg.

On October 10, 2013, his father Lonnie Snowden flew to Russia to meet with Edward. The meeting between father and son was very emotional. On October 16, Snowden Sr. left for the United States.

On December 19, 2013, Putin, at a large press conference at the World Trade Center, said that in operational terms, Russian intelligence services do not work with Snowden, he himself has not met Snowden, and described him as an interesting person, thanks to whom a lot has turned in the heads of politicians.

While in Russia, Snowden spoke out against the Russian government's policies to restrict the Internet and its treatment of gays. “The desire that we see in the Russian government to control more and more the Internet, to control more and more what people see, even parts of their private lives, to decide what is appropriate or inappropriate for how people express their love to each other. to a friend is fundamentally wrong,” said Edward Snowden.

In the spring of 2014, the Russian Association of Electronic Communications, the Notamedia company and the radio station Ekho Moskvy jointly established the first award in the field of Internet media: Internet Media Awards (IMA). According to them, Snowden personally agreed to the appropriation new award his name.

On August 1, 2014, Snowden received a residence permit in Russia for a period of three years. He has a job and also receives help from private individuals; in five years he will be able to apply for Russian citizenship in the general manner.

In March 2015, he expressed a desire to leave Russia and move to Switzerland.

In March 2016, he stated that he would like to return to the United States.

Edward Snowden Quotes:

"The war in Iraq, in which I was assigned to participate, was started because of false premises. The American people were misled. Whether this was due to bad faith or an error in intelligence, I cannot now say for sure. But I can say, "that this exposes the problem of over-reliance on intelligence services without public discussion of their activities."

"Each of us has a sensor in our pocket that shows where we are, at any time and everywhere. Think about your privacy. Children born today may grow up and not even know what privacy is. They will never won't understand what it means to have something that isn't recorded or tracked."

“I was looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is being the first to act.”

“If you willingly sacrificed yourself to be used as a negative example, if you are willing to voluntarily spend your whole life in prison, then how can you sit there for a while and then come out and advocate, become even stronger and inspire other people to oppose this policy - are you doing good or bad?"

"Even if you don't do anything wrong, you will be watched and recorded... It gets to the point where you don't have to do anything wrong, you just end up under suspicion from someone, even on a false accusation." and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with, and blame you for it or just take you under suspicion of your innocent life."

"I'm not a spy - that's the real question."

"I am neither a traitor nor a hero. I am an American."

"Your rights matter because you never know when you'll need them."

"I don't want to live in a world where there is no right to privacy and therefore there is no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

"A child born today will grow up with a complete lack of understanding of privacy. Children will never know what a moment of privacy means when you are not being recorded and your statements are not analyzed. And this is a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us will define who we are and who we want to become."

"I don't want to live in a world where everything I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity, love or friendship is recorded."

"There are things more important than money. If I were motivated only by money, I would sell these documents to many countries and become very rich."

“Saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

"I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine whether it should change."

"Regardless of the outcome of Brexit, it shows how quickly half of any population can be persuaded to vote against themselves. A good lesson."

Edward Snowden. Interview

Edward Snowden's height: 180 centimeters.

Personal life of Edward Snowden:

Since 2008, she has been in a relationship with Lindsay Mills.

Lindsay Mills was born in 1985 in Maryland. She was professionally engaged in choreography and ballet. Earned money by performing erotic dances. According to Western media Mills was also a stripper in men's clubs and pole danced. He maintains his own blog, where he posts his thoughts. He is interested in photography.

When Edward Snowden fled the United States in 2013, there were rumors that he abandoned Lindsay - primarily because he did not inform her about his plans (obviously, for reasons of secrecy and security).

In an interview with journalists in 2013, Lindsay's father, Jonathan Mills, said that Snowden literally abandoned his daughter to the mercy of fate, leaving her without a livelihood. He noted that “Lindsay still cannot get her life back on track and recover from the shock she experienced when her boyfriend told her that he was going on a business trip, and he himself left forever.” His girlfriend only learned from news reports that Snowden had fled the country and started publishing secret intelligence documents: she thought he was going on a business trip, Jonathan Mills testified.

However, when Edward settled in Russia, Lindsay Mills came to him in Moscow in July 2014, where she lives with him.

One of Snowden's main hobbies is Japanese and East Asian culture in general. Mass culture, including anime, video games and martial arts, which he became interested in while working at a US military base in Japan and learning Japanese. At one time he worked for an American anime production company.

He also studied Mandarin and thought he could make a good career in China or Hong Kong.

In his application form when enlisting in the US Armed Forces, he indicated “Buddhism” in the “religion” column, because the answer “agnosticism” was “strangely absent” in that application form.

According to Spiegel magazine, Snowden practices Buddhism, is a vegetarian, does not drink alcohol and does not drink coffee. He spends a lot of time at the computer and reading books on Russian history.

Edward Snowden in art and cinema:

In the 2014 film “Where the Motherland Begins,” directed by Rauf Kubaev, the first frames show an episode about a secret flight to Russia to avoid the arrest of ex-CIA officer James Snow, whose prototype was Edward Snowden. The role of James Snow in the film was played by the aspiring Lithuanian actor Arnas Fedaravičius.

In October 2014, the two-hour premiere took place in New York. documentary film“Citizenfour. Snowden's Truth" by Laura Poitras, dedicated to Edward Snowden. The film won several prestigious film awards, including BAFTA, Sputnik and Oscar. In Russia, in cinemas, the film became the highest-grossing non-fiction film of 2015.

On October 5, 2015, Peter Taylor's film Edward Snowden: Spies and the Law premiered on the BBC's Panorama program.

On September 15, 2016 in Russia and September 16 in the USA, the film “Snowden” was released. The film's premiere was postponed twice; filming took place in Munich in February-May 2015. To write the script, the American film director acquired the rights to film the books by lawyer Anatoly Kucherena “The Time of the Octopus” and Guardian newspaper journalist Luke Harding’s “The Snowden File: The Story of the Most Wanted Man in the World.” The role of ex-CIA employee Snowden in this film was played by American actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Edward Snowden took part in the filming of the film; he spent one shooting day in Moscow.

A number of games for mobile devices have been created based on events from Snowden’s life.

In one of the episodes of the American animated series " South Park" - “Go, the government will look after you" - there is a hint of Edward Snowden when Cartman says that he has become an informer and he will have to hide in Russia.

On May 15, 2014, it became known that Sony Pictures Entertainment had acquired the rights to the film adaptation of British journalist Glenn Greenwald’s book about Edward Snowden, “Nowhere to Hide,” and intends to make a film about the ex-CIA officer. The film will be produced by Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who previously worked on James Bond films.

Also named in honor of Edward Snowden for his contribution to the defense of freedom of speech, the species of decapod crayfish Cherax snowden, described by German zoologists in 2015, was named.

The scandal with the US demand to extradite Edward Snowden and his journey to a “democratic country” in transit through Moscow attracted Russia’s attention to the former CIA employee. Based on his own statements, we figured out why he made public the secret project PRISM, which monitors subscribers and Internet users around the world.

Edward Snowden is a 29-year-old computer scientist who previously worked for US intelligence agencies. In high school, he was expelled from school, but his computer skills allowed him to get jobs with the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), Forbes reports.

He calls himself a system administrator - in fact, he was an ordinary IT specialist, but with greater opportunities due to his work for US state security. In a video on the Guardian, he says he "could see everything": by monitoring NSA networks and controlling file transfers, he somehow had access to a huge amount of secret documents and correspondence. Unlike ordinary agents, who get access to such documents once or twice during their careers, system administrators with privileged access see “outrageous” things all the time, Snowden explains.

The leak of NSA documents was not the first time that civic position Snowden. In 2012, he donated several hundred dollars to Ron Paul (Libertarian Party presidential candidate), and EFF and TOR project stickers on Edward's laptop, he is identified as a fighter for Internet freedom.

According to Snowden himself, he had an office job in Hawaii where he received $200,000 a year, lived with his girlfriend and family, but was willing to sacrifice everything to ensure that user rights were respected.

I am willing to sacrifice everything because I cannot in my right mind allow the US government to destroy the privacy, internet freedom and basic freedoms of people around the world with this giant surveillance machine they are building in secret.

Snowden was all-seeing and all-knowing - as part of his duty, he monitored all flows of information within the Agency. In the end, the number of unfair things he observed exceeded the acceptable limit.

When you have full access to everything, like a system administrator in secret service, you are exposed to a lot more information than an ordinary employee. Therefore, you often see things that can be seriously disturbing. If you a common person, then you encounter this a couple of times. But a person who sees everything has to endure it constantly.

Modern technology, says Snowden, allows the state to easily monitor anyone.

The Internet is a TV that also monitors you. Most of people in developed countries have had at least some interaction with the Internet, and governments are abusing the ability to extend their power beyond what is necessary.

Unfortunately, ordinary people They don't know what the government is doing.

I would be satisfied if those unjust forces that rule the world were declassified even for a moment. I think the public deserves to know the motivation behind people disclosing such information. I want to tell people what is being done on their behalf and against them.

Snowden feels like the hero of the novel “1984,” which describes a totalitarian system - at any moment, each of us can be squeezed.

They intend to make any conversation, any form of interaction known to them. Even if you are not doing anything wrong, you are being watched. One day you will come under suspicion and they will be able to examine every decision you have ever made, every conversation you have ever had with a friend, and then accuse you of something, make you a criminal based on that information.

Edward is not alone - with his action he wanted to inspire other people with important information, which may shed light on what the government is actually doing.

I wanted to inspire others to take the same step. I showed them that they could win.

But if you decide to do this, it is important to be extremely careful. According to Snowden, the government is a strong and dangerous adversary. Edward warned reporters when he handed them classified documents.