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  .... for this young man?  I'm sure his life is in extreme danger.
  Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

  The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's 
history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended 
on hiding in the shadows

  . Q&A with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home 
again'

  Link to video: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in 
a society that does these sort of things'

  The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US 
political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical 
assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz 
Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for 
the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including 
Booz Allen and Dell.

  The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity 
at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret 
documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of 
anonymity. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have 
done nothing wrong," he said.

  Snowden will go down in history as one of America's most consequential 
whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is 
responsible for handing over material from one of the world's most secretive 
organisations - the NSA.

  In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: 
"I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions," but "I will be 
satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible 
executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an 
instant."

  Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted 
that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. "I don't want public attention 
because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what 
the US government is doing."

  He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that 
doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. 
"I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the 
government will demonise me."

  Despite these fears, he remained hopeful his outing will not divert 
attention from the substance of his disclosures. "I really want the focus to 
be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among 
citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in." He 
added: "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in 
their name and that which is done against them."

  He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly 
$200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable 
career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because 
I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, 
internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this 
massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."



  'I am not afraid, because this is the choice I've made'


  Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last 
week's series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where 
he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose.

  He then advised his NSA supervisor that he needed to be away from work for 
"a couple of weeks" in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition 
he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.

  As he packed his bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a 
few weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. "That is not an 
uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the 
intelligence world."

  On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever 
since. He chose the city because "they have a spirited commitment to free 
speech and the right of political dissent", and because he believed that it 
was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the 
dictates of the US government.

  In the three weeks since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel 
room. "I've left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire 
stay," he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his room 
too, he has run up big bills.

  He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel 
room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over 
his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden 
cameras from detecting them.

  Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for 
such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He 
knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in 
America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is 
looking for him.

  Since the disclosures began to emerge, he has watched television and 
monitored the internet, hearing all the threats and vows of prosecution 
emanating from Washington.

  And he knows only too well the sophisticated technology available to them 
and how easy it will be for them to find him. The NSA police and other law 
enforcement officers have twice visited his home in Hawaii and already 
contacted his girlfriend, though he believes that may have been prompted by 
his absence from work, and not because of suspicions of any connection to 
the leaks.

  "All my options are bad," he said. The US could begin extradition 
proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and 
unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk 
him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or 
he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US 
territory.

  "Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. 
Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other 
nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets," 
he said.

  "We have got a CIA station just up the road - the consulate here in Hong 
Kong - and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that 
is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that 
happens to be."

  Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a 
historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to 
attempt to use all its weight to punish him. "I am not afraid," he said 
calmly, "because this is the choice I've made."

  He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have 
broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used 
against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has 
become".

  The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was 
when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of 
whom work for the US government. "The only thing I fear is the harmful 
effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what 
keeps me up at night," he said, his eyes welling up with tears.



  'You can't wait around for someone else to act'


  Snowden did not always believe the US government posed a threat to his 
political values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North 
Carolina. His family moved later to Maryland, near the NSA headquarters in 
Fort Meade.

  By his own admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the 
credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a community 
college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework. 
(He later obtained his GED.)

  In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join 
the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to 
justify his leaks, he said: "I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I 
felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from 
oppression".

  He recounted how his beliefs about the war's purpose were quickly 
dispelled. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing 
Arabs, not helping anyone," he said. After he broke both his legs in a 
training accident, he was discharged.

  After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security 
guard for one of the agency's covert facilities at the University of 
Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. 
His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming 
enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school 
diploma.

  By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, 
Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security 
meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.

  That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA 
officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he 
saw.

  He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives 
were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking 
information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker 
drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was 
arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him 
offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.

  "Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my 
government functions and what its impact is in the world," he says. "I 
realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than 
good."

  He said it was during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the 
first time about exposing government secrets. But, at the time, he chose not 
to for two reasons.

  First, he said: "Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not 
machines and systems, so I didn't feel comfortable with disclosures that I 
thought could endanger anyone". Secondly, the election of Barack Obama in 
2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures 
unnecessary.

  He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a 
private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, 
stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he 
"watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined 
in", and as a result, "I got hardened."

  The primary lesson from this experience was that "you can't wait around 
for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that 
leadership is about being the first to act."

  Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA's 
surveillance activities were, claiming "they are intent on making every 
conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them".

  He described how he once viewed the internet as "the most important 
invention in all of human history". As an adolescent, he spent days at a 
time "speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have 
encountered on my own".

  But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, 
is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself 
as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't 
want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for 
intellectual exploration and creativity."

  Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon 
be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. 
"What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said.



  A matter of principle


  As strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did 
he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? "There are more 
important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold 
these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."

  For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself 
power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is 
people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed 
to," he said.

  His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his 
laptop: "I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation," reads 
one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor 
Project.

  Asked by reporters to establish his authenticity to ensure he is not some 
fantasist, he laid bare, without hesitation, his personal details, from his 
social security number to his CIA ID and his expired diplomatic passport. 
There is no shiftiness. Ask him about anything in his personal life and he 
will answer.

  He is quiet, smart, easy-going and self-effacing. A master on computers, 
he seemed happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at 
a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow communication 
specialists. But he showed intense passion when talking about the value of 
privacy and how he felt it was being steadily eroded by the behaviour of the 
intelligence services.

  His manner was calm and relaxed but he has been understandably twitchy 
since he went into hiding, waiting for the knock on the hotel door. A fire 
alarm goes off. "That has not happened before," he said, betraying anxiety 
wondering if was real, a test or a CIA ploy to get him out onto the street.

  Strewn about the side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the 
remains of room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of 
former vice-president Dick Cheney.

  Ever since last week's news stories began to appear in the Guardian, 
Snowden has vigilantly watched TV and read the internet to see the effects 
of his choices. He seemed satisfied that the debate he longed to provoke was 
finally taking place.

  He lay, propped up against pillows, watching CNN's Wolf Blitzer ask a 
discussion panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the 
leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on impassively, not 
even indulging in a wry smile.

  Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that 
there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, 
whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden's leaks began to make 
news.

  "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that 
each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts 
of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn't turn over, 
because harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

  He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose 
judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain 
concealed.

  As for his future, he is vague. He hoped the publicity the leaks have 
generated will offer him some protection, making it "harder for them to get 
dirty".

  He views his best hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland - with 
its reputation of a champion of internet freedom - at the top of his list. 
He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.

  But after the intense political controversy he has already created with 
just the first week's haul of stories, "I feel satisfied that this was all 
worth it. I have no regrets."
  SOURCE: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance
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