- Thu
- Oct 3, 2013
- Updated: 12:43pm
Edward Snowden
30-year-old American Edward Snowden, a contract employee at the National Security Agency, is the whistleblower behind significant revelations that surfaced in June 2013 about the US government's top secret, extensive domestic surveillance programmes. Snowden flew to Hong Kong from Hawaii in May 2013, and supplied confidential US government documents to media outlets including the Guardian.
Surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden hiding in Hong Kong
One of America's most consequential whistleblowers, Edward Snowden, came out of hiding in Hong Kong on Monday.
The 29-year-old employee of defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and former CIA technical assistant revealed his identity and location to The Guardian in a series of interviews published today.
"I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he told the British daily after he exposed secret surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency. He showed documents to The Guardian which included details of:
- how the NSA collects and stores the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans
- exploits data from the world's largest Internet companies with their apparent co-operation
Snowden is said to have arrived in Hong Kong on May 20 from his home in Hawaii. He has been staying at an unnamed "plush hotel" ever since, running up high bills and leaving the room "maybe a total of three times".
He chose the city, he said, because Hong Kong had "a spirit commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent."
"I think it is really tragic that an American has to move to a place that has a reputation for less freedom," he said. "Still, Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People's Republic of China."
Hong Kong could refuse to extradite Snowden if Beijng wanted to keep him, according to a treaty signed between the United States and Hong Kong almost two decades ago.
Video: The Post talks to Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who broke the NSA surveillance story
Snowden feared that he would be taken away by the Chinese government for questioning over his extensive expertise in US intelligence gathering technology or "rendered" to the CIA or third-party partners.
US government sources told Reuters news agency last week that they are likely to initiate a criminal investigation into the leak.
To prevent being spied on, Snowden reportedly stuffs pillows against the doors and “puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords."
Information leaked by Snowden was reported by the Guardian and the Washington Post last week. He singlehandedly exposed a massive US intelligence programme called Prism, under which the US government secretly collected information online from private user accounts operated by Facebook, Google, Apple and other companies.
Internet service providers insisted on Monday that they had not given direct access to customer data.
"Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period,” Google’s CEO Larry Page and chief legal officer David Drummond said in a message on their official company blog.
"We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law,” they said.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg described the press reports as ”outrageous,” insisting that his firm only provided user information to the authorities when compelled to by law. Yahoo! issued a similar denial.
Snowden said he hoped the Hong Kong government would not deport him. "My predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values. The nation that most encompasses this is Iceland. They stood up for people over internet freedom. I have no idea what my future is going to be," he told the Guardian.
In a statement, Booz Allen Hamilton confirmed Snowden had been an employee for “less than three months” and promised to help US authorities investigate the “shocking” claim that he had leaked classified information.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence said the matter had now been ”referred to the Department of Justice.”
“The intelligence community is currently reviewing the damage that has been done by these recent disclosures,” it said.
“Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law.”
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12:11pm
Snowden should be unreservedly supported and the illegality of the NSA's actions fully investigated. If they are acting outside the scope of their powers appropriate actions should be taken to ensure that in future they comply with the law. If people see the organisation they work for operating illegally they have a duty to report it. If it a government agency that is acting illegally, then those who the government serves, i.e. the public, should be informed. We seem to be forgetting who should be master and who should be servant.
2:34pm
It is also now common knowledge that the USA is blatantly hypocritical when it comes to things like export control to drug-producing-countries and countries aspiring to produce nuclear weapons.
(There is documentary proof that that the USA turned a blind eye to USA companies exporting critical equipment to Iran to produce nuclear centrifuges - in fact the evidence is openly published on google images and youtube ! )
It makes me shudder to think what other abuses the USA commits and it makes a mockery of the USA as the 'champion of democracy and free speech'
My namesake of the 19th Century would be shuddering in his grave if only he knew how low the USA has stooped
Full marks to Mr Snowden for blowing the whistle !
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1:05pm
I think he went to Hong Kong because he 1) didn't want to be bothered by the US media (or worse) swarming around his house and life, and 2) wants to have time (extradition may take weeks or months) to tell his side of the story in public. Had he stayed in the US, he might have been arrested within days or even hours, and then kept isolated from the press for weeks while the administrations spins the story and goes into damage control.
I also note he wasn't a low level security contractor. He was a highly paid (around USD 200k area per year) senior consultant, hired by the NSA as a systems administrator. Sure, hardly a big shot, but not just some random temp behind a keyboard either.
8:54pm
I am all but certain they follow people's wearabouts through their smart phones, Facebook and email information. They can use this for tax evasion. Someone unemployed and they see them going to an office or construction site. Someone on disability and they see them going to a beach or biking.
Creating statistics on cheaters based on emails, phone calls and text messages.
Computers are far more powerful than people think. They can easily dig into a persons life and know allot about them. They can build webs of association. Your life increasingly becomes an open book.
Russia, China and North Korwa don't know as much about there people as US does. This really is scary. They can target people who think differently and work at infiltration and neutralise the group.
This is how powerful people retain power and pass it on to their kids. Political dinosties don't occur randomly. There is allot of work put into maintaining power. Us is now the land of the monitored,
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