Edward Snowden

An American whistleblower who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 when he was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and subcontractor is named for Edward Snowden. On Snowden’s 30th birthday, 21st June 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed charges against Snowden of two counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property, following which the Department of State revoked his passport. In early 2016, he became the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization that states its purpose is to protect journalists from hacking and government surveillance. On 17th September 2019, (Constitution Day) his memoir, “Permanent Record” will be published.

US government sues Edward Snowden over his memoir

• Justice Department says Snowden violated nondisclosure agreements by publishing ‘Permanent Record’ without gov’t review.
• The United States filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who in 2013 leaked secret documents about US telephone and Internet surveillance, saying his new book violates non-disclosure agreements. The Justice Department is seeking to “recover all proceeds” from Snowden’s book, which was released Tuesday.
• In his memoir, Snowden tells his life story in detail for the first time and explains why he chose to risk his freedom to become perhaps the most famous whistle-blower of all time. It offers an expansive account of how he came to reveal secret details about the government’s mass collection of emails, phone calls and Internet activity in the name of national security. On Tuesday, he tweeted a link to his book on Twitter, saying, “the government of the United States has just announced a lawsuit over my memoir, which was just released worldwide. This is the book the government does not want you to read.” Ben Wizner, Snowden’s attorney and director of the American Civil Liberties’ Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said the memoir “contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations”. He added, “Had Mr. Snowden believed that the government would review his book in good faith, he would have submitted it for review. But the government continues to insist that facts that are known and discussed throughout the world are still somehow classified.”
• Snowden was charged under the US Espionage Act. He now lives in Russia in order to avoid arrest. The Justice Department is not attempting to limit the book’s distribution but is asking a federal judge to allow the government to collect all the proceeds from the book. The book’s publisher was also named in the lawsuit. The government issuing the publisher to ensure that no funds are transferred to Snowden while the case plays out, the Justice Department said.

Where is Edward Snowden?

Edward Snowden was born on June 21, 1983, in North Carolina, the USA as Edward Joseph Snowden. His father was a coast guard officer and his mother, a chief deputy at the US district court in Maryland. His father name is Lonnie and his mother name is Elizabeth. His grandfather served the ‘FBI’ for some years. He said that ever since he was a kid, he knew that he would serve the federal government as his family members. His parents got separated when Snowden was a teenager, but he didn’t let that affect his academics and went on acquiring top ranks in school. His mind was sharp and his I.Q. was well over 140, placing him in an elite group of people who possess a high level of intelligence. An illness forced him to remain absent from high school for many days. He cracked and went on to attend classes at ‘Anne Arundel Community College.’ He took classes online for a master’s degree at the ‘University of Liverpool.’ He adopted Buddhism as his religion at the age of 20. He also has a sister named Jessica. As of 2019, he celebrated his 36th birthday with his friends and families.

Body Measurements of Edward

At the age of 36, Edward still looks very handsome with white skin tone and short hair with a very short beard. He has got a very attractive personality with nice attitude. He has a tall height of 5 ft with a balanced weight of 75 Kg. His bust size, waist size, hips size, dress size, shoe size and more is still to get disclosed. His hair color is light brown and his eye color is Green. Overall, he has got a healthy body.

What is Edward Snowden doing?

• In the year 2006, Edward Snowden started his career at the ‘Central Intelligence Agency’ (CIA) as an IT professional.
• He was stationed with a diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland for maintaining computer-network security.
• He later discovered the surveillance system which infiltrated the privacy of the general public and started collecting documents.
• He was fired following suspicion of breaking into the top classified documents.
• After that, he went on to work with ‘Dell’ in one of NSA’s offices in Japan where he worked as a sub-contractor from 2009 until 2013.
• He was assigned to an ‘NSA’ facility at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo.
• XKeyscore is an analytical tool that allows for collection of “almost anything done on the internet,” was described by The Guardian as a program that shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements: “I, sitting at my desk [could] wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.”
• In the year 2012, he was reassigned to the Hawaii regional operations center as the lead technologist.
• After leaving ‘Dell,’ he went on to work for another tech consultant company called ‘Booz Allen Hamilton’ where he worked for three months.
• He then found out the practices which he thought were immoral, unethical, and needed to be halted immediately.
• He went on to build a dossier of all the information he collected, which he thought was necessary to prove his point.
• Once he was done with collecting the relevant documents he took a medical leave, stating that he suffered from epilepsy.
• He then arranged for a meeting with a journalist from ‘The Guardian’ and then made contact with a documentary filmmaker named Laura Poitras.
• The information was officially presented to the whole world through ‘The Guardian’ in June 2013, where it stated that the Americans’ phones were getting tapped without their knowledge and some of them were being kept under surveillance.
• The information was gathered through ‘PRISM,’ a program devised by the ‘NSA.’
• The world was shaken and ‘NSA’ went bitter as Edward kept addressing the media from Hong Kong.
• After that, he told he wouldn’t allow this to happen and that the privacy of the general public was being monitored every second of the day, infringing the basic rights of human beings to be free.
• The US government replied to the leaks almost immediately and charged Snowden with the accusations of ‘theft of government properties’ and ‘illegal communication of intelligence information to an unauthorized person’ under the espionage act.
• His leaks paved the way to unearth crucial matters, such as the ‘Black Budget’ which exposed the work of the 16 spy agencies working under the US Intelligence and their handiwork in persuading private companies to reveal and provide access to their communication network.
• After that, he moved out of Hong Kong and went to Russia, where he got stranded at the airport for close to a month due to issues with his passport.
• But the Russian government allowed him to stay in the country and rejected several of America’s requests to extradite him.
• Americans considered him a national hero and came up with a petition to free Snowden of all the charges.
• Several appeals of clemency made by Snowden were rejected by the American government.
• Later, he continued living in Russia while Barack Obama asked the intelligence agencies to look into the matter and reconsider their security protocols.
• In October 2013, he claimed that he didn’t have the ‘NSA’ documents with him anymore and that he had given it all to the journalists in Hong Kong, fearing Russians might use them for their benefit.
• He stayed in Russia for an indefinite period of exile, but he remains a controversial figure in America.
• He also made a much-awaited appearance at the Southwest festival through teleconferencing in March 2014.
• It was also revealed that the US government has lost billions of dollars owing to the leaks.
• In May, he cleared the air and said that he was a patriot and the welfare of his country’s people is on his priority list and that he would want to return to his homeland.
• Several human right groups asked the US government to pardon Snowden and he himself apologized to President Obama several times, hoping that he would be allowed to enter his country.
• In the year 2014, ‘Citizenfour,’ a documentary film on the life of Snowden, made by Poitras, came out and received huge critical acclaim, eventually winning an ‘Oscar.’
• He has constantly denied allegations of being a traitor to his country. He believes that what he did was needed as the general public had to be told how the government was keeping a watch all the time.
• He then made another revelation in November 2018, when he produced a court declaration in the ‘Jewel vs NSA’ case where the ‘Electronic Frontier Foundation’ (EFF) had accused ‘NSA’ and other high-ranking officials of ‘illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet communications surveillance’ under the George W. Bush administration.
• In January 2019, Vanessa Rodel, one of the refugees who had housed Snowden in Hong Kong, and her 7-year-old daughter were granted asylum by Canada.
• On 17th September 2019, the United States filed a lawsuit against Snowden for alleged violations of non-disclosure agreements with the CIA and NSA.
• In September 2019, as part of interviews relating to the release of his memoirs, “Permanent Record”, he revealed to the Guardian that he married Lindsay Mills in a courthouse in Moscow.
• On 17th September 2019, (Constitution Day) his memoir, “Permanent Record” will be published.

Who is Edward Snowden married to?

Source:

Snowden is a married person. Edward Snowden met Lindsay Mills in America and they started dating. He broke up with her right before leaking the highly classified information, citing her safety to be the main concern. When he went to live in Russia, she joined him there and the couple has been together ever since. In the year 2015, Mills showed herself at the ‘Oscar’ award ceremony where Poitras accepted the award for ‘Citizenfour.’ As of today, the couple is living a happy life without any disturbances.

Net Worth of Edward

Edward Snowden’s net worth is estimated to be around USD 8.6 million as of 2019. His exact salary is still to get revealed yet but there is no doubt in the mind of his follower that he is earning a considerable amount of salary from his present work. His earnings are from his whistleblower career. Overall, he is satisfied with his earnings.