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<h2 class="post-title">Edward Snowden: the Whistleblower Behind
the NSA Surveillance Revelations</h2>
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<p data-iceapw="28" style="text-align: center;">The 29-year-old
source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA’s history
explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never
intended on hiding in the shadows.</p>
<p data-iceapw="59" style="text-align: center;">The individual
responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political
history is <a title="More from guardian.co.uk on Edward Snowden"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/edward-snowden">Edward
Snowden</a>, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the <a
title="More from guardian.co.uk on CIA"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/cia">CIA</a> and current
employee of the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden
has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four
years as an employee of various outside contractors, including
Booz Allen and Dell.</p>
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<p data-iceapw="57" style="text-align: center;">The Guardian, after
several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his
request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous
top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt
for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding
who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.</p>
<p data-iceapw="37" style="text-align: center;">Snowden will go down
in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers,
alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible
for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive
organisations – the <a title="More from guardian.co.uk on NSA"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nsa">NSA</a>.</p>
<p data-iceapw="55" style="text-align: center;">In a note
accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I
understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “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.”</p>
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<p data-iceapw="45" style="text-align: center;">Despite his
determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that
he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public
attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it
to be about what the US government is doing.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="42" style="text-align: center;">He does not fear the
consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will
distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. “I
know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know
the government will demonise me.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="78" style="text-align: center;">Despite these fears,
he remained hopeful his outing will not divert attention from the
substance of his disclosures. “I really want the focus to be on
these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger
among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want
to live in.” He added: “My sole motive is to inform the public as
to that which is done in their name and that which is done against
them.”</p>
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<p data-iceapw="70" style="text-align: center;">He has had “a very
comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a
girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career,
and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that
because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to
destroy <a title="More from guardian.co.uk on Privacy"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/privacy">privacy</a>,
internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world
with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”</p>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">‘I am not afraid, because this is
the choice I’ve made’</h2>
<p data-iceapw="38" style="text-align: center;">Three weeks ago,
Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week’s
series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii
where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he
intended to disclose.</p>
<p data-iceapw="40" style="text-align: center;">He then advised his
NSA supervisor that he needed to be away from work for “a couple
of weeks” in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition
he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.</p>
<p data-iceapw="47" style="text-align: center;">As he packed his
bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few
weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. “That is not
an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade
working in the intelligence world.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="62" style="text-align: center;">On May 20, he
boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since.
He chose the city because “they have a spirited commitment to free
speech and the right of political dissent”, and because he
believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both
could and would resist the dictates of the US government.</p>
<p data-iceapw="51" style="text-align: center;">In the three weeks
since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel room. “I’ve
left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay,”
he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his
room too, he has run up big bills.</p>
<p data-iceapw="44" style="text-align: center;">He is deeply worried
about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with
pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over
his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any
hidden cameras from detecting them.</p>
<p data-iceapw="53" style="text-align: center;">Though that may
sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such
fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade.
He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance
organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful
government on the planet, is looking for him.</p>
<p data-iceapw="25" style="text-align: center;">Since the
disclosures began to emerge, he has watched television and
monitored the internet, hearing all the threats and vows of
prosecution emanating from Washington.</p>
<p data-iceapw="64" style="text-align: center;">And he knows only
too well the sophisticated technology available to them and how
easy it will be for them to find him. The NSA police and other <span
class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD4">law enforcement officers</span> have
twice visited his home in Hawaii and already contacted his
girlfriend, though he believes that may have been prompted by his
absence from work, and not because of suspicions of any connection
to the leaks.</p>
<p data-iceapw="58" style="text-align: center;">“All my options are
bad,” he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against
him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course
for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for
questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he
might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US
territory.</p>
<p data-iceapw="45" style="text-align: center;">“Yes, I could be
rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of
the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other
nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or
assets,” he said.</p>
<p data-iceapw="52" style="text-align: center;">“We have got a CIA
station just up the <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD3">road</span> –
the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to
be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with
for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="40" style="text-align: center;">Having watched the <a
title="More from guardian.co.uk on Obama administration"
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-administration">Obama
administration</a> prosecute whistleblowers at a historically
unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt
to use all its weight to punish him. “I am not afraid,” he said
calmly, “because this is the choice I’ve made.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="38" style="text-align: center;">He predicts the
government will launch an investigation and “say I have broken the
Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against
anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has
become”.</p>
<p data-iceapw="69" style="text-align: center;">The only time he
became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he
pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of
whom work for the US government. “The only thing I fear is the
harmful effects on my family, who I won’t be able to help any
more. That’s what keeps me up at night,” he said, his eyes welling
up with tears.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">‘You can’t wait around for someone
else to act’</h2>
<p data-iceapw="38" style="text-align: center;">Snowden did not
always believe the US government posed a threat to his political
values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North
Carolina. His family moved later to Maryland, near the NSA
headquarters in Fort Meade.</p>
<p data-iceapw="41" style="text-align: center;">By his own
admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the
credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a
community <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD1">college</span> in
Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework.
(He later obtained his GED.)</p>
<p data-iceapw="57" style="text-align: center;">In 2003, he enlisted
in the US army and began a training <span class="IL_AD"
id="IL_AD2">program</span> to join the Special Forces. Invoking
the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he
said: “I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had
an obligation as a human being to help free people from
oppression”.</p>
<p data-iceapw="42" style="text-align: center;">He recounted how his
beliefs about the war’s purpose were quickly dispelled. “Most of
the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not
helping anyone,” he said. After he broke both his legs in a
training accident, he was discharged.</p>
<p data-iceapw="65" style="text-align: center;">After that, he got
his <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD5">first job</span> in an NSA
facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency’s
covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he
went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding
of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled
him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high
school diploma.</p>
<p data-iceapw="31" style="text-align: center;">By 2007, the CIA
stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His
responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he
had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.</p>
<p data-iceapw="25" style="text-align: center;">That access, along
with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him
to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.</p>
<p data-iceapw="72" style="text-align: center;">He described as
formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were
attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking
information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting
the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car.
When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover
agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was
formed that led to successful recruitment.</p>
<p data-iceapw="41" style="text-align: center;">“Much of what I saw
in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government
functions and what its impact is in the world,” he says. “I
realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm
than good.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="32" style="text-align: center;">He said it was
during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the first time
about exposing government secrets. But, at the time, he chose not
to for two reasons.</p>
<p data-iceapw="50" style="text-align: center;">First, he said:
“Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines
and systems, so I didn’t feel comfortable with disclosures that I
thought could endanger anyone”. Secondly, the election of Barack
Obama in 2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms,
rendering disclosures unnecessary.</p>
<p data-iceapw="61" style="text-align: center;">He left the CIA in
2009 in order to take his first job working for a private
contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility,
stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that
he “watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought
would be reined in”, and as a result, “I got hardened.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="35" style="text-align: center;">The primary lesson
from this experience was that “you can’t wait around for someone
else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that
leadership is about being the first to act.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="34" style="text-align: center;">Over the next three
years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance
activities were, claiming “they are intent on making every
conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to
them”.</p>
<p data-iceapw="44" style="text-align: center;">He described how he
once viewed the internet as “the most important invention in all
of human history”. As an adolescent, he spent days at a time
“speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never
have encountered on my own”.</p>
<p data-iceapw="56" style="text-align: center;">But he believed that
the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being
rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself
as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I
don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and
therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="39" style="text-align: center;">Once he reached the
conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be
irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose
to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to
democracy”, he said.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">A matter of principle</h2>
<p data-iceapw="52" style="text-align: center;">As strong as those
beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it?
Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? “There are more
important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could
have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten
very rich.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="43" style="text-align: center;">For him, it is a
matter of principle. “The government has granted itself power it
is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is
people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are
allowed to,” he said.</p>
<p data-iceapw="32" style="text-align: center;">His allegiance to
internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: “I
support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation,” reads one.
Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor
Project.</p>
<p data-iceapw="52" style="text-align: center;">Asked by reporters
to establish his authenticity to ensure he is not some fantasist,
he laid bare, without hesitation, his personal details, from his
social security number to his CIA ID and his expired diplomatic
passport. There is no shiftiness. Ask him about anything in his
personal life and he will answer.</p>
<p data-iceapw="62" style="text-align: center;">He is quiet, smart,
easy-going and self-effacing. A master on computers, he seemed
happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at
a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow
communication specialists. But he showed intense passion when
talking about the value of privacy and how he felt it was being
steadily eroded by the behaviour of the intelligence services.</p>
<p data-iceapw="56" style="text-align: center;">His manner was calm
and relaxed but he has been understandably twitchy since he went
into hiding, waiting for the knock on the hotel door. A fire alarm
goes off. “That has not happened before,” he said, betraying
anxiety wondering if was real, a test or a CIA ploy to get him out
onto the street.</p>
<p data-iceapw="30" style="text-align: center;">Strewn about the
side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the remains of
room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of
former vice-president Dick Cheney.</p>
<p data-iceapw="42" style="text-align: center;">Ever since last
week’s news stories began to appear in the Guardian, Snowden has
vigilantly watched TV and read the internet to see the effects of
his choices. He seemed satisfied that the debate he longed to
provoke was finally taking place.</p>
<p data-iceapw="42" style="text-align: center;">He lay, propped up
against pillows, watching CNN’s Wolf Blitzer ask a discussion
panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the
leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on
impassively, not even indulging in a wry smile.</p>
<p data-iceapw="35" style="text-align: center;">Snowden said that he
admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one
important distinction between himself and the army private, whose
trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make
news.</p>
<p data-iceapw="46" style="text-align: center;">“I carefully
evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each
was legitimately in the public interest,” he said. “There are all
sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t
turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”</p>
<p data-iceapw="25" style="text-align: center;">He purposely chose,
he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he
trusted about what should be public and what should remain
concealed.</p>
<p data-iceapw="28" style="text-align: center;">As for his future,
he is vague. He hoped the publicity the leaks have generated will
offer him some protection, making it “harder for them to get
dirty”.</p>
<p data-iceapw="37" style="text-align: center;">He views his best
hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland – with its
reputation of a champion of internet freedom – at the top of his
list. He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.</p>
<p data-iceapw="31" style="text-align: center;">But after the
intense political controversy he has already created with just the
first week’s haul of stories, “I feel satisfied that this was all
worth it. I have no regrets.”</p>
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