Nearly a decade after he made headlines, US whistleblower Edward Snowden was granted citizenship in Russia by President Vladimir Putin on Monday. This comes nine years after he exposed the scale of secret surveillance operations by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Although the United States has wanted Edward Snowden to return to the country for years to face criminal charges for espionage. Meanwhile, Snowden's name appeared without Kremlin comment in a Putin decree conferring citizenship on 72 foreign-born individuals.
In a tweet posted in continuation with his 2020 tweet, Snowden wrote, “After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our SONS.” He further said, “After two years of waiting and nearly ten years of exile, a little stability will make a difference for my family. I pray for privacy for them - and for us all.”
Why did Edward Snowden flee the United States?
Edward Snowden used to work in the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States and had made shocking and sensational revelations about the agency.
The 39-year-old whistleblower fled the United States and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA, as per Reuters reports.
Snowden’s revelations made several claims about the NSA partaking in several global surveillance programmes, with the cooperation of European governments and several...
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