Former NSA employee Edward Snowden released classified documents about the U.S. government's surveillance programs in May 2013
The following month, the U.S. charged him with espionage while he was abroad and the Russian government didn't extradite him back
Thirteen years later, he and his family live in Russia, from where he continues to do virtual appearances about the tech industry
Edward Snowden went from an unknown intelligence consultant to a globally infamous whistleblower following his exposure of widespread government spying.
In 2013, Snowden was a 29-year-old defense contractor working at the National Security Agency (NSA) in Hawaii, according to The Guardian. He led a "very comfortable life," he told the outlet, with a six-figure salary, a longtime girlfriend who he shared an apartment with and a successful career that included stints at the CIA and Dell.
But Snowden put his life and career on the line when he gave journalists tens of thousands of top-secret government documents that exposed the NSA surveillance of American citizens.
"I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building," he told The Guardian in June 2013, confirming his identity for the first time. "I don't want to live in a society that does these sorts of things."
Since exposing the government's...
SINGAPORE: After a consensual physical encounter with her ex-boyfriend, a woman filed a rape report over fears of a possible pregnancy, setting off a police investigation before she admitted the a...