Edward Snowden

Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American-Russian former contractor who worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. He released top secret NSA documents proving the United States government was monitoring phone calls, emails, webcams of its own citizens. His job at the NSA allowed him access to them. He has said, "I do not want to live in a world where anything I do or say is recorded."

Edward Snowden
Screen capture from the interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, June 6, 2013
Born	(1983-06-21) June 21, 1983 (age 42)[1] Elizabeth City, North Carolina, United States
Occupation	System administrator

Snowden traveled to Moscow after giving the documents to American journalists in Hong Kong. He had asylum in Russia for one year. Then he was granted permission to stay in the country for three more years.^[2] This has increased tensions between Russia and the United States. In October 2020 he was granted permanent residency in Russia.^[3]

In 2013 Snowden was voted Person of the Year by The Guardian.^[4]

After Snowden published information that pointed to mass surveillance by the US government, NPR reported sales of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell had gone up.^[5]