The computer expert and former NSA consultant received a settlement permit two years ago and became a Russian citizen three months ago. In 2013, he decided to break his professional code and release thousands of top-secret documents that exposed intelligence agencies’ surveillance programs around the world. Forced to flee, he has since been in de facto exile: With his oath to the Russian Federation, he now has a passport again
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Edward Snowden has pledged his allegiance to the Russian Federation in exchange for handing over his passport, which he has been missing for almost 10 years. Nine years have passed since his avalanche of revelations of top-secret invasion of privacy documents by intelligence agencies around the world and his escape abroad. Two years ago he received permanent residence in Russia, and three months ago he became a citizen of Russia. Now the final step for the computer expert and former NSA consultant. On December 1st – but the news leaked out the next day – he swore allegiance to Russia. A goal that Snowden would probably not have chosen when he decided in 2013 to violate his professional code and declassify thousands of top secret documents.
The history
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Shortly after resigning as an NSA operative in Hawaii, Snowden, then 30, flew to Hong Kong, from where he made his revelations in late May. This was followed shortly thereafter on June 21, 2013 by a US Department of Justice arrest warrant for violating the Espionage and Theft of Government Property Act, and Snowden embarked for Moscow: an easy stopover to Cuba and then to Ecuador, where he intended to seek asylum. But his journey ended at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where agents confiscated his passport, which the US government had since canceled. He remained in a state of limbo for over a month before the Russian authorities – also in an anti-American capacity – granted him a residence permit with the right to asylum for a year, which then became two, and so on.
What is Snowden doing now?
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Wikileaks, 4 lawyers and journalists sue CIA for espionage
Whether it was his new adopted country or not, Russia has become his de facto prison: he has rebuilt his life, aware that he is a pawn in a political game that the war in Ukraine has then exacerbated. Like Julian Assange, Snowden has become a hero of free information for some, a traitor and coward for others. And his symbolic struggles continued. In 2016, he was appointed President of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a San Francisco-based NGO dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and protecting journalists. In 2019 he launched online his autobiographical book Permenent Record, which informed his revelations about covert surveillance and individual freedom and was published by Metropolitan Books in New York. An aspiring Russian citizen, he continued to work in IT and married Lindsay Mills, with whom he had two children. In an October 2018 interview, he said: “In Russia, I can’t say I’m sure. But the real question is, does it matter? I didn’t come forward to be sure. Russia – he said – it is Not.” my home. , is my place of exile”.
The revelations that shook the world
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Oliver Stones Snowden: We are all spied on
The revelations of the “whistleblower” Snowden, who finally freed his conscience after years of fighting as an intelligence officer, opened a Pandora’s box to the diverse facets of global surveillance programs without national borders. Things that were only a matter of conjecture in 2013 and little or nothing was publicly known about. He brought into play not only the NSA, for which he worked, but also the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (between the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand) and various telecom companies accused of improperly intruding on human life people, for lawful and unlawful reasons, in any case without permission. Snowden made his disclosures to a pool of journalists, and his stories appeared in the Guardian, Washington Post and other newspapers. The number of secret files released remains uncertain, but it is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 for the United States alone and more than 1.5 million overall.
World
Why Russia is in danger of falling into chaos: The Economist analysis
Since February 24, Putin has been gathering disappointments and frustrations on the ground, and now Moscow is threatening to become ungovernable. So says the Russian editor of The Economist, Arkady Ostrovsky
Russia’s war against Ukraine has begun February 24, 2022. After nine months, Putin would have gathered disappointments and frustrations on the ground and now, according to Arkady Ostrovsky, Russian editor of The Economist, To fly is in danger of becomingungovernable‘ and ‘to plunge into chaos’
“The war turns Russia into one failed statewith uncontrolled borders, private military units, a fleeing population, moral decay and the possibility of a civil conflict. As Western politicians’ confidence in Ukraine’s ability to withstand Putin’s terror has increased, concerns about Russia’s ability to survive the war are growing.
That was another blow to the Kremlin leadership Pickup from Khersonthe capital of one of the four regions Russia declared annexed in September and said it will remain Russian “forever”.