Edward Snowden

Cyber Security Specialists | Whistleblower

Snowden
Edward Snowden, an American contract employee at the National Security Agency, is the whistle-blower 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 information to media outlets before fleeing to Russia.
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  1. Edward Joseph Snowden was born.

  2. Joined the United States Army Reserve

  3. Discharged from breaking his legs during training.

  4. Hired by the CIA

  5. Resigned from the CIA to work as a private contractor

  6. While working for NSA Snowden grew increasingly disturbed by how the NSA was spying on ordinary citizens through their phone and internet data. He began compiling a dossier filled with information on the NSA’s mass surveillance practices. Snowden grew increasingly disturbed by how the NSA was spying on ordinary citizens through their phone and internet data. He began compiling a dossier filled with information on the NSA’s mass surveillance practices. He then contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, as well as journalists Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Barton Gellman, enlisting them to leak the documents he had collected.

  7. Snowden told his bosses he needed to take a medical leave of absence to deal with his recently diagnosed epilepsy. On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong and braced himself for what was to come.

  8. The Guardian leaked documents demonstrating that Verizon was sharing all of its user data with the NSA. The next day, The Guardian and The Washington Post broke the story about PRISM, a surveillance program that allows the NSA to collect internet data from citizens through their online activity on products and applications by Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and Apple, to name a few.