Before all of the top secret NSA (National Security Agency) documents on which details of a global surveillance system run by NSA were breached, Edward Snowden was an American computer specialist, a CIA member, and an NSA contractor. Edward Snowden was a regular, wealthy, government employee with some great positions and credentials. He was an American born man and was serving his country. He won the Sam Adams award which is given once a year to an intelligence professional who shows great integrity to the CIA. Many other recipients of this award have also been whistle blowers like Snowden. Before all the leaking and background information is given keep the question of hero or villain in ...view middle of the document...
” After a major hunt, Greenwald, Snowden, and a lady to be named later, decided that this story must be told. It finally happened in a Hong Kong hotel room which Snowden had been staying at for a little while.
Before he released his information, Snowden fled directly to Hong Kong because “he praised it as a place with a strong tradition of free speech and a working judicial system in spite of having been returned to Chinese sovereignty.” He made it to an expensive hotel in Hong Kong, met with two reporters, breached his information, and after maybe a couple of days when he knew that he would be found, he fled directly to Russia. Russia is now keeping him safe from the hands of the United States and providing an asylum for him.
Neither of the two people there (Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras) knew what he would look like. When they found him, they were in complete shock. Greenwald said “I had expected a 60 year old grizzled veteran, someone in the higher echelons of intelligence service. I thought ‘this is going to be a wasted trip’”
What was said in the interviews, however, is another thing. This prism story published independently in the Washington Post after Poitras contacted a member of the paper. But there is one thing that is certain- The United States government forced telecoms giant Verizon to hand over the phone records of millions of Americans in order to spy on them for potential attacks on the country or even any crimes.
Shortly after his Hong Kong arrival, Snowden fled to Moscow, Russia to avoid appearing in court and being brought up against the Espionage Act which basically said that the U.S. government has the right to spy on people to obtain political...
