Edward Snowden is an American computer Specialist and former United States contractor widely known for leaking classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013. He was also known to be an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Edward Snowden Biography
Edward Joseph Snowden was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the U.S on the 21st of June 1983. He is American by nationality and there is not much information on his parents. We do know that he comes from a family that has served the United States with his maternal grandfather having served in the U.S Coast Guard as a rear admiral, went on to be a senior official with the FBI, and later to work in the Pentagon in 2001.
His mother is a clerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. His father was an officer in the Coast Guard; Edward’s older sister was a Lawyer at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C. Edward Snowden served his time with the CIA, and was always expected to serve his country the way his family has.
Edward Snowden Wiki
Growing up, Edward Snowden had an IQ test score of 145 on two occasions. He also dropped out of high school and studied intermittently at a community college between 1999 and 2005. He doesn’t have a degree, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to serve his country and do what he loved doing best.
It was said that Edward Snowden enlisted in the Army reserve in May 2004 as a Special Forces candidate, got recruited and was discharged four months after (for unknown reasons). Snowden has always shown and proved his in-depth knowledge and love for computers, this got the Central Intelligence Agency to acquire his services in 2006 and a year later he was transferred to Geneva where he was given a job as a network security technician under a diplomatic cover. He was also given a top-secret clearance to help his work).
2009 – 2013
In 2009, Edward Snowden left the CIA and went to work as a private contractor for technology giants like Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton and also the NSA. In 2013, he conducted a number of interviews with various journalists and he revealed some vital information on the information gathering routine and methods by the NSA (notably secret surveillance programs) that have been put in place by the agency to gather information and breach people’s privacy.
Edward Snowden started talking when he gathered information on NSA activities. He requested a medical leave of absence and when granted he moved to Hong Kong where he began to talk to reporters and journalists.
2014
In 2014, there was a feature documentary film titled “Citizenfour” that told his story and the whole NSA spying scandal which premiered on the 10th of October 2014 at the New York Film Festival, it won several awards for its originality and storyline.
This triggered a lot of controversies and lawsuits around with companies. Telecommunication giants like Verizon were served a court order to turn over metadata like numbers of dialed numbers and call duration of its numerous customers.
In the course of this interview, Snowden also revealed the existence of a data-mining program that gives the NSA, FBI, and most security agencies worldwide direct access to the servers of internet companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.
Snowden claimed that they (the NSA) have been hacking into Chinese computers since 2009 and that he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton so he could get his proof and evidence. However, on the 14th of June Edward Snowden was charged by the United States for espionage and they began talks with the Hong Kong government in an attempt to extradite him.
There are currently reports that he is in Russia on Asylum. On social media, he has an active Twitter account with over 3 million followers.
Wife/Girlfriend
There is no information on his relationship status due to the whole “whistleblowing” as some would call it.
Is Edward Snowden Dead?
There were reports that Snowden was dead and that he had been killed by a group among a whole lot of reasons and information regarding his death. But he released a funny Twitter post waving that entire rumor away.
He simply said in his post that the reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. Interesting guy!
