In 2013, in a Hong Kong hotel, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald await the arrival of an informant who has promised to provide them with extremely important information. They are already beginning to doubt his existence when they see a man approaching them with a Rubik's cube. They exchange secret phrases, and the man leads them to a hotel room. There he takes from them Cell phones, so that they could not be listened to, and introduces himself. The informant introduces himself as 29-year-old Edward Joseph Snowden, who works as a private contractor for the NSA and also worked for the CIA. He begins to tell his entire story from 2003, when he was still in the army, preparing to join the special forces.

Edward was unable to continue his service due to a leg injury, so he decides to join the CIA. He successfully passes all the tests and is accepted for training. In a secret training complex, he meets a certain engineer Hank Forrester, and then begins training with Corbin O'Brien. Snowden turns out to be at the top of his class, so he has enough free time to go on a date with a girl named Lindsay, who works as a photographer. Before that, they only corresponded. The couple has different views on politics, but, nevertheless, they find a common language.

At the training complex, Edward again communicates with Hank. It turns out that he used to be one of the CIA's chief engineers and a cybersecurity specialist. He also created a system that could distinguish internal traffic from external traffic in order to more easily identify threats. However, management decided not to use his program. After some time, Hank learned that the government had begun to use a system based on his work, but it was greatly reduced in capabilities. Moreover, billions of dollars were allegedly spent on its development. When Hank began to file complaints against management, he was sent into exile to this training center. Then Edward realized that it was better not to argue with management. As the top student in the group, Snowden begins to bond with O'Brien, who sees great potential in him.

In 2013, the trio were joined at the hotel by Ewen MacAskill, who also works for the Guardian. It is he who decides to set this in motion and gives instructions to begin working in this direction. Snowden tells him about 2007, when he worked in Geneva under the guise of a UN diplomat, but in reality he provided network security for the CIA. He didn't get along very well with the management, but Corbin put in a good word for him, so Edward was offered to work with one of the CIA employees. There, Edward met his colleague Gabriel Saul and for the first time saw how he used a system that could search the entire Internet not only for public data, but also for personal correspondence in all kinds of services and sites.

Later, Edward goes to a work reception with Lindsay. There he meets an already familiar CIA agent, who gives him the task of ingratiating himself with one of the many bankers present at the reception. Snowden doesn't succeed, but Lindsay, having learned about this, successfully starts a conversation with a banker named Marwan, who then begins to communicate with Edward. Now the hero only needs to find a pressure point to force the banker to cooperate with the CIA. Gabriel helps him in this, who, using his resources, hacks his daughter’s correspondence. They find out that Marwan's daughter is in love with young guy who is in the country illegally.

After this, the CIA agent goes undercover to meet with Marwan, where he promises to help him deal with the problem. Together they get drunk and go their separate ways. different sides. The CIA agent expects that Marwan will drive drunk and be detained by the police, which will be the main lever of pressure on him. Edward doesn't like this at all and threatens to tell Marwan the truth, but the agent cools his ardor by threatening in response to tell his superiors that Snowden used an NSA program that he doesn't even have access to. After this, Edward returns home, where he and Lindsay follow Obama's election victory. He also explains to the girl that they need to cover the laptop camera so that no one can spy on them.

Again in 2013, Ewen MacAskill convinces the others that they should wait a little longer to publish, and everyone reluctantly agrees. Suddenly the phone rings, and those present begin to worry, but it turns out that it is only a call from the reception, since the tag with the request not to disturb has disappeared from the door. The journalists leave, and only Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras remain in the room. The hero tells her how, after Geneva, he worked in Japan in 2009. There he worked on a data archiving system called the Vault, which would preserve important data in case of an attack on embassies and important military installations. Edward also explains that the CIA monitored the citizens of all countries and uploaded viruses that would allow the United States to control the most important centers of states in case a war broke out. Edward understood that his work was not aimed at fighting terrorism, but at the superiority of the United States over all other countries.

Edward also recalls problems in his relationship with Lindsay. Before leaving, they had a huge fight. Edward saw that his girlfriend was storing nude photos of herself on her computer, which he did not like very much. He asked that they be removed so that no one could see them. Lindsay began asking questions, but Snowden could not answer them because he could not disclose information related to his secret work. As a result, they separated. However, later, already in the USA, Edward visited Lindsay at her parents' house, and they reconciled again. They began a normal life again and made friends.

Snowden continues to go hunting with O'Brien, who continues to convince him that surveillance is a necessary evil that helps protect the lives of millions of people. There, Edward learns that his “Storage” program is now being used by the military, which allows them to better coordinate their actions. Edward also learns that a position has been created especially for him at a secret CIA facility in Hawaii, which will be a huge leap in his career. At home, Edward talks to Lindsay and tells her about this proposal, but says that if she doesn't want to leave, they can stay here.

Immediately after this, Edward has an epileptic seizure. Later, the doctor informs him that he now needs to take medications that will dull his senses, but will significantly reduce the likelihood of a repetition of the incident. Lindsay says that they should go to Hawaii, as it should have a positive effect on his health. Again in Hong Kong, on June 5, 2013, journalists finally decide to release material for publication.

In Hawaii in 2012, Edward Snowden visits his new job for the first time at the NSA cryptology center, where he will now be engaged in counter-espionage. There he meets an old acquaintance, Gabriel, who has been working here for three years. Immediately after this, Edward witnesses his Vault system being used to bomb people in the Middle East. Moreover, the government simply targets mobile phones that allegedly belong to terrorists, without even checking who owns them at the moment.

Later, Edward shows his colleagues the statistical information he collected, and it turns out that the agency has collected information on more than 3 billion calls and messages in the United States, which is twice the amount of information collected in Russia. Colleagues advise Snowden not to share this data with management. We are then shown a party where Edward has another seizure because he is not taking his medication in order to work better. After this, he will have a dialogue with O'Brien, who is trying to make sure that Snowden will not let him down. He knows that Edward used a system in Geneva that he did not have access to, so Edward is forced to lie that he did this in order to check if Lindsay is cheating on him. To this, O'Brien replies that he is aware of the disagreements taking place in his relationship and convinces that Lindsay is not cheating on him, since he himself followed her.

After this, Edward immediately goes to his girlfriend. He tells her that they are being followed and advises her to be extremely careful. He also says that he will soon leave the country, and recommends that she return to her parents. However, Lindsay decides to stay so as not to arouse suspicion. After this, Edward returns to work, where he copies secret data onto a memory card. The copying is successful, however, when he took the memory card out of the laptop, it fell onto the floor. The boss almost noticed her, but his colleague covered her with his foot in time, thereby saving the hero. Edward thanked him and apologized for the problems that might now threaten him, but his colleague was understanding of what was happening. Snowden hid the memory card in a Rubik's cube and successfully removed it from the facility.

In 2013, journalists finally published their findings, which became a sensation around the world. Edward then gives an interview and becomes an enemy of the United States. He successfully escapes from the hotel under the guise of a journalist and hides from US authorities in Hong Kong. He then hides in Russia, where he remains hidden to this day. Lindsay soon moves in with him.

Edward Joseph Snowden – former employee Central Intelligence Agency and Agency national security. In June 2013 Edward Snowden passed on classified NSA information to the media. Thanks to this, the whole world learned that American intelligence services were spying on information communications between citizens of states around the world, using existing information and communication networks.

US authorities have charged Edward Snowden in absentia with theft of government property, disclosure of national defense data and intentional transfer of classified information to unauthorized persons.

Biography of Snowden

Studied computer science in college in Maryland. Since 2003 he served in armed forces USA, having left them after severely injuring his legs during a training exercise.

After military service, he began working for the NSA, guarding a secret facility on the territory of the University of Maryland. In this job, Edward Snowden received security clearance at the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level.

After the NSA, Edward Snowden joined the CIA's information security department. From March 2007 to February 2009 he worked under diplomatic cover of the US permanent mission in (Geneva).

In 2009, Edward retired from civil service and began working for consulting companies working with the NSA: Dell, and military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton (he worked at his last job for less than 3 months).

Edward Snowden says that during his service he gradually became disillusioned with it: “I realized that I was part of something that brought much more more harm than good” (from an interview with The Guardian).

At some point, he came to the conclusion that the process of creating the NSA surveillance network would soon become irreversible. “You can't wait for someone else to take action. I was looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.” “I don’t consider myself a hero because I act in my own interests: I don’t want to live in a world where there is no secret privacy, and therefore there is no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

Snowden's cooperation with the press

In January 2013, Edward Snowden wrote an anonymous email to Laura Poitras, a former film producer and co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. Snowden told Poitras that he had important classified information. He soon contacted Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and publicist Barton Gellman, who wrote for the Washington Post.

Snowden corresponded with journalists via encrypted e-mail messages. In the second half of May 2013, Snowden began transmitting key information about the PRISM program to Greenwald and Gellman, but asked not to disclose it immediately.

Secrets from Snowden

Big brother is watching...

Some of the most impressive data released thanks to Snowden was data about the PRISM program. It involves mass surveillance by American intelligence agencies of communications between Americans and foreign citizens via telephone and the Internet.

PRISM allows the US NSA to view email, listen to voice and video chats, view photos and videos, track files, get updates on social networks. The PRISM program involves corporations whose software products or gadgets are used by hundreds of millions of people around the world: Microsoft (Hotmail), (Google Mail), Yahoo!, AOL, Apple and Paltalk.

Diplomats under cover

Also thanks to Snowden, it became known that British intelligence services monitored computers and intercepted telephone calls of foreign politicians and officials participating in the G20 summit in London in 2009. The secret work was carried out by the UK Government Communications Center and the US NSA. In addition, British intelligence services intercepted telephone conversations President of Russia.

Fleeing the USA

• On May 20, 2013, Snowden took a leave of absence from work and flew to Hong Kong. There, from the hotel, he continued his email correspondence with journalists. On June 6, 2013, Snowden told journalist Gellman: "The police visited my home in Hawaii this morning." On the same day, with his permission, the Washington Post and The Guardian published revelations about the PRISM program.
• On June 9, Snowden invited journalists to Hong Kong for an interview. This video interview and his real name were published by The Guardian at his own request.
• On June 22, 2013, it became known that the US State Department appealed to the Hong Kong authorities with a demand to detain Snowden and extradite him to the United States. The Hong Kong authorities refused to do this, citing an incorrectly completed request.

Snowden in Russia

• On June 23, 2013, as reported in the media, Snowden, accompanied by Sarah Harrison, a representative of WikiLeaks, arrived at Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, on the evening of June 23, Snowden asked for asylum from this state (remember that another whistleblower of American secrets, Julian Assange, is already hiding in the embassy of this state in London). However, Snowden never flew to either Ecuador or Venezuela, whose president announced his readiness to grant him political asylum.
• On June 30, Snowden asked for political asylum in Russia. Sarah Harrison, who was accompanying him, filed the appropriate documents. A week later it became known that Edward Snowden had sent applications for political asylum to almost 20 countries. Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua gave a positive response.
• On July 12, Snowden held a meeting in the Sheremetyevo transit zone, where he had been living all this time, with representatives of international human rights organizations, some State Duma deputies and lawyers Anatoly Kucherena, Genrikh Padva and Henry Reznik. At the meeting, Snowden announced that he was asking for temporary asylum in Russia, and in the future he planned to settle in Latin America.
• On July 16, Snowden officially applied for temporary asylum in Russia.
• On July 24, 2013, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena reported that Snowden wants to stay in Russia forever, find work here and has already begun to learn Russian.

A former US intelligence officer who provided the media with classified materials about the global surveillance of US and British intelligence services on the Internet, Edward Joseph Snowden was born on June 21, 1983 in Elizabeth City (North Carolina, USA).

His family later moved to Maryland.

Edward Snowden did not graduate from high school. In 1999-2005, he periodically studied at a local college. Snowden later took tests to test his knowledge of high school(General Educational Development).

On August 1, 2013, an ex-CIA agent was granted temporary asylum in Russia for a period of one year, provided that he ceases his activities against the United States. After that it is Sheremetyevo Airport. Snowden claimed that he was going to Moscow.

In the summer of 2016, CNN reported that Edward Snowden was developing a model of a case for the iPhone 6 smartphone, which would completely block the transmission of the GPS signal and thereby avoid surveillance by intelligence services. He carried out this work in collaboration with American hacker Andrew Huang, who lived in Singapore.

At the end of December 2017, Snowden, allowing owners to remotely monitor the integrity of their home and property. The project is co-authored by the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Edward Snowden was, including a symbolic award named after the German judge and prosecutor Fritz Bauer public organization"Humanistic Union" (Humanistische Union) for civil courage (2014), and (Ridenhour prize) in the nomination "for truth" (2014), awards International Fund"Behind correct image life" also known as "

Former US National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden said Financial Times about how he lives in Moscow. The interview appeared on the publication’s website on Friday, September 9.

The journalist’s meeting with Snowden took place in one of the hotels in the center of the Russian capital. The former Secret Service man showed up 20 minutes late, dressed all in black and wearing dark glasses.

Snowden admitted that he moves freely around Moscow, but his knowledge of the Russian language is only enough to place an order in a restaurant, and he speaks mainly in English. “All my work is in English. I speak English with everyone I talk to,” said the former US Secret Service employee.

“I sleep in Russia, but I live all over the world. There is little that connects me with Russia. That's because, as crazy as it sounds, I still hope to leave," he explained.

According to him, life in Moscow is getting better. "I'm more open now than I was in 2013," Snowden said.

The former NSA employee also noted that he rarely meets people. He divides his time between online public speaking (for which he receives royalties) and developing programs to ensure the digital safety of journalists.

In addition, Snowden mentioned that he had seen a film about him directed by Oliver Stone and the performer leading role Joseph Gordon-Levitt made a good impression on him.

According to Snowden, he met with the actor in Moscow, but did not immediately understand that he was pursuing his own goals. Levitt later admitted that he watched him closely during lunch, trying to catch his mannerisms. Snowden generally liked the image he created on screen, except for his voice - he found it too low and hoarse.

Snowden did not admit to the journalist whether he actually hid micro SD memory cards with documents from the NSA in a Rubik's cube, as shown in the film. But he said that he actually gave a puzzle to everyone in his office.

The film about Edward Snowden will be released in Russian theaters on September 15, and in American theaters the day before.

In June 2013, Snowden gave secret data to The Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers proving that US and British intelligence agencies were spying on people on the Internet. He then flew to Hong Kong, and later to Moscow, where he spent some time in the transit area of ​​the airport.

Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum for a year, and from August 1, 2014, a three-year residence permit.

Edward Snowden's book "Permanent Record" ("Personal Matter" in the Russian interpretation) is not the first he has written. But this one was awaited with particular impatience, both by those who consider the 36-year-old technical specialist of the American intelligence services to be a noble exposer of their secrets, and by those who call him a traitor or, at best, a naive simpleton who was fooled by the Chinese and Russian intelligence.

Instructions for dummies

In May 2013, Snowden began leaking classified information from the US National Security Agency (NSA) to The Guardian and The Washington Post. Soon he withdrew all the money from his bank account and secretly, without even telling his fiancee, flew to Hong Kong, and from there later to Russia, where he received temporary asylum. According to the Pentagon, Snowden stole almost two million secret files and is facing trial in the United States on charges of espionage and theft of government property.

Context

Snowden says very little about what happened to him after 2013 in the book (which will appear in Russian only in November). But there is a lot of general discussion about the immorality of electronic surveillance, the dangers of the Internet, the dubious effectiveness of the work of intelligence services (of course, American ones), and so on. Parts of the book read like a long-winded computer security manual for dummies. The Internet is full of such instructions and warnings: that traces remain when you erase files, that you should not open applications to suspicious emails and so on.

The intelligence services have themselves to blame

True, Edward Snowden is happy to describe some specific things: how he copied information using old computers written off by the NSA, how he took it out, one might say, from under the noses of security, by hiding SD cards in a Rubik’s cube, or even just putting memory cards in your pocket... They really take up very little space (microSD - 15x11 mm in size), and Snowden constantly carried the Rubik's Cube with him, twirled it in his hands, assembled and disassembled it on the go, gave the toy to colleagues, so they got used to it . But Snowden is silent about technical details (for example, how he encoded data and masked traces of copying on the NSA’s internal network) - allegedly because, as he notes, “so as not to completely destroy the National Security Agency.”

Snowden speaks of his colleagues at the NSA, CIA and FBI employees with open ridicule: they are stupid, vain, spit on the US Constitution, everyone watches porn on the Internet and, moreover, they dress tastelessly, sloppily - in general, they do not match him. Snowden says he met one such sloppy boss one day in the hallway, when he was carrying an old computer under his arm, on which he was copying secret documents. The boss asked why he needed this long-decommissioned computer and what he was doing with it. “I steal secrets,” answered the resourceful Snowden. And they laughed and went their separate ways.

The spy whistleblower accuses the American secret services of all mortal sins, even of leaking classified information that he himself collected, secretly carried out of the NSA building and handed over to journalists. They say that these secrets were poorly guarded and, in addition, it was impossible to allow him, Edward Snowden, to these secrets, young man without higher education, even without a bachelor's degree... They say it is their own fault, and not he, but they, have caused so much damage to national security. The line of reasoning is approximately the same as if a pickpocket accused the owner of the wallet he stole of entering a crowded bus with the wallet in his trouser pocket.

Seven years of intelligence work and a sudden epiphany

In addition, Snowden constantly, I would even say, persistently assures the reader of his naivety: he did not know, did not understand, what he would do in the CIA and NSA. But he worked there for seven years! And only at the end did the epiphany come?! True, Snowden claims that he had been nurturing the decision to declassify information about global surveillance for a long time, but the chronology of the events he described in the book does not confirm this. In general, quite a few things that Edward Snowden said and is telling about himself, including even before the release of this book, are very contradictory. Does he really have epilepsy? Is he a practicing Buddhist? How did the American bride find him in Moscow? Even after reading “Personal File,” many questions remain.

Including one of the main ones: did Snowden convey the secrets he stole only to journalists or collaborate (at least after escaping from the United States) with Russian and Chinese intelligence services? According to Snowden, he ended up in Russia completely by accident. He expected to fly from Hong Kong via Moscow further - to Havana, Caracas, Kyoto... But he was delayed in Russia because the Americans revoked his passport.

At the same time, he himself talks about how he tried to get asylum in the most different countries, - and the passport seemed to have nothing to do with it. And the tickets he took from Hong Kong (by the way, for Aeroflot flights) required an intermediate stop at Sheremetyevo for almost a day! What was he going to do in Moscow at this time with his lawyer, who was flying with him? In general, we must take his word that he proudly refused to cooperate with the FSB and destroyed a cryptographic key back in Hong Kong that gave him access to secret documents of the American intelligence services.

Which, however, also raises certain questions. If he destroyed it, then why only in Hong Kong, and not before his escape, back in the USA, because there was a danger that the key would fall into the hands of the Chinese, with whom Snowden allegedly also did not want to cooperate? And why was it necessary to destroy the key at all if they already knew about Snowden’s escape and his access to secret files, of course, was blocked?

Snowden likes Russia, but would like to live in the West

Be that as it may, Snowden stayed in Russia for six years (six so far). About my present life he writes very little: in total, about a dozen pages out of more than four hundred are devoted to this. He lives in a three-room apartment with his American wife, with whom he married in Moscow, goes to museums, to the opera - and, by the way, is surprised at how easily his lawyer Kucherena can get tickets to a box at the Bolshoi Theater. Snowden's circle of friends is very limited; they practically do not communicate with Russians.

Snowden writes that his life now is not much different from his previous life in the USA: he sits for hours at the computer, plays computer games, communicates on the Internet, goes to Burger King... But at the same time, when he leaves the house, he changes his glasses, wraps himself in a scarf, pulls up his hood, tries not to raise his face where video cameras are installed... In general, he disguises himself . What is he afraid of? Unclear. After all, in his own words, he is firmly convinced that Russia will not hand him over to the Americans.

One day, at the Tretyakov Gallery, a young tourist who spoke English with a German accent recognized him and asked Snowden to take a selfie with him. He was so confused that he agreed, but then immediately ran away from the Tretyakov Gallery, and, as he says, for a long time he was afraid that this photograph would appear somewhere in in social networks. But she did not appear - much to his relief. This is how life is.

Snowden likes it in Russia. But at the same time, he still does not give up trying to get asylum in some western country. In this regard, they name France, Germany... If only they wouldn’t extradite them to the United States.