Edward Snowden
Who was Edward Snowden?
American whistleblower and former NSA contractor (born 1983)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Edward Snowden (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Edward Joseph Snowden was born on June 21, 1983, in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He went to Anne Arundel Community College and later started a master's program at the University of Liverpool, which he did not finish. His career in intelligence began in 2006 when he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, working in IT security. He switched to Dell in 2009 to manage computer systems for the National Security Agency. In early 2013, he joined Booz Allen Hamilton, a private contractor, specifically to get more NSA documents.
In May 2013, Snowden went to Hong Kong, and in early June, he shared thousands of classified NSA documents with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, and Ewen MacAskill. These documents exposed global surveillance programs run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence group, in partnership with telecom companies and several European governments. This led to widespread public and legislative debates about balancing national security and individual privacy.
On June 21, 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Snowden under the Espionage Act of 1917 with two counts, along with a charge of stealing government property. The State Department quickly revoked his passport. Snowden was stuck at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow for about a month before Russia granted him asylum. He stayed in Russia and became a Russian citizen in 2022. In 2017, he married Lindsay Mills, his longtime partner.
Even in exile, Snowden stayed active publicly. In early 2016, he became president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit in San Francisco that focuses on protecting journalists from surveillance and digital threats. He also worked at an unnamed Russian IT company. On September 17, 2019, he released his memoir, Permanent Record, where he shared his background, career, and reasons for leaking NSA programs. In September 2020, a U.S. federal court ruled in United States v. Moalin that one of the mass surveillance programs he exposed was illegal, giving substantial support to his reasons for the leaks.
Before Fame
Edward Snowden grew up in North Carolina and later in Maryland, close to the federal government and intelligence areas that would shape his career. He attended Anne Arundel Community College and gained strong skills in computing and network systems. Although he enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Liverpool, he didn't complete his degree and instead joined the intelligence field through enlistment and then civilian contractor jobs.
Snowden entered the intelligence community thanks to his technical skills and security clearances, rather than the usual academic or military path. After a short attempt to join the U.S. Army Special Forces, which ended due to injury, he switched to IT work for the NSA through the CIA and later private contractors. This path put him at the center of extremely sensitive surveillance systems at a time when the security apparatus had expanded significantly in size and secrecy after September 11.
Key Achievements
- Disclosed classified NSA documents in 2013 revealing the global PRISM surveillance program and related intelligence operations
- Received the Sam Adams Award, Right Livelihood Award, and multiple European civil liberties prizes for whistleblowing
- Served as president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation beginning in 2016
- Published the memoir Permanent Record in 2019, providing a firsthand account of NSA surveillance practices
- His disclosures directly contributed to a 2020 U.S. federal court ruling that the NSA's bulk phone data collection program was unlawful
Did You Know?
- 01.Snowden spent 40 days living inside Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow before Russia formally granted him asylum in August 2013.
- 02.He has conducted numerous public interviews and lectures via video link from Russia, including appearances at major universities and technology conferences around the world.
- 03.His memoir, Permanent Record, was published simultaneously in multiple languages and immediately became a target of a U.S. government lawsuit seeking to seize its proceeds.
- 04.A U.S. federal court ruled in 2020, seven years after his disclosures, that the NSA phone surveillance program he exposed was in fact illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
- 05.Snowden was granted Russian citizenship by decree of President Vladimir Putin in September 2022, just months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Sam Adams Award | 2013 | — |
| Fritz Bauer Prize | 2013 | — |
| Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize | 2014 | — |
| Right Livelihood Award | 2014 | — |
| Stuttgart Peace Prize | 2014 | — |
| Carl von Ossietzky Medal | 2014 | — |
| Whistleblower Prize | 2013 | — |
| Bjørnson Prize | 2015 | — |
| Ossietzky Prize | 2016 | — |
| The Glass of Reason | 2016 | — |
| SUMA Award | 2015 | — |
| Bert-Donnepp-Preis | 2013 | — |
| Fritz Bauer Prize | 2014 | — |