Edward J. Snowden

Edward J. Snowden (b. ca. 1984) is an American, a 29-year-old IT specialist for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton (a contractor for the National Security Agency, NSA). Snowden is now famous for revealing the PRISM Internet snooping program of the National Security Agency (a mass surveillance program). He is also a former CIA employee who made himself famous in May and June 2013, by revealing to the world that the National Security Agency had in effect built a dossier on every man, woman and child in the US and probably beyond borders.

He told a British newspaper The Guardian

• "I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant."

The Washington Post quotes him as saying

• "Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."

Political reaction

John Boehner called Snowden a "traitor" who committed a "giant violation of the law" that put Americans at risk.

See also

• warrantless domestic surveillance
• Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court