The Controversial Personality of Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden, born June 21, 1983, is an American computer professional, former Central Intelligence Agency employee, and former contractor for the United States government who copied and leaked classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013 without authorization. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments. Snowden's decision to leak NSA documents developed gradually following his March 2007 posting as a technician to the Geneva CIA station. Snowden first made contact with Glenn Greenwald, a journalist working at The Guardian, on December 1, 2012. He contacted Greenwald anonymously as "Cincinnatus" and said he had sensitive documents that he would like to share. Greenwald found the measures that the source asked him to take to secure their communications, such as encrypting email, too annoying to employ. Snowden then contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in January 2013. According to Poitras, Snowden chose to contact her after seeing her New York Times article about NSA whistleblower William Binney. What originally attracted Snowden to both Greenwald and Poitras was a Salon article written by Greenwald detailing how Poitras' controversial films had made her a target of the government.

Snowden's identity was made public by The Guardian at his request on June 9, 2013. "I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded," he explained. "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." Snowden told The Washington Post that he wanted to "embolden others to step forward" by demonstrating that "they can win.” He told The New York Times that the system for reporting problems did not work. "You have to report wrongdoing to those most responsible for it." He pointed out the lack of whistleblower protection for government contractors, the use of the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute leakers, and his belief that had he used internal mechanisms to "sound the alarm," his revelations "would have been buried forever.” In December 2013, upon learning that a U.S. federal judge had ruled the collection of U.S. phone metadata conducted by the NSA as likely unconstitutional, Snowden stated: "I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts." In January 2014, Snowden said his breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress.

This referred to testimony on March 12, 2013, three months after Snowden first sought to share thousands of NSA documents with Greenwald, and nine months after the NSA says Snowden made his first illegal downloads during the summer of 2012, Clapper denied to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA collects data on millions of American. Snowden said, "There's no saving an intelligence community that believes it can lie to the public and the legislators who need to be able to trust it and regulate its actions. Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back. Beyond that, it was the creeping realization that no one else was going to do this. The public had a right to know about these programs." In March 2014, Snowden stated that he had reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than ten officials, but as a contractor had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing. In May 2014, Vanity Fair reported that Snowden first contemplated leaking confidential documents around 2008 but held back. He believed the newly elected Barack Obama might introduce reforms.

On June 14, 2013, United States federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Snowden, charging him with theft of government property, and two counts of violating the Espionage Act through unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person. Each of the three charges carries a maximum possible prison term of ten years. The charge was initially secret and was unsealed a week later. Snowden has been called a hero, a whistleblower, a dissident, a patriot, and a traitor. Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg called Snowden's release of NSA material the most significant leak in U.S. history.