“You could watch entire villages and see what everyone was doing. I watched NSA tracking people's Internet activities as they typed. I became aware of just how invasive U.S. surveillance capabilities had become. I realized the true breadth of this system. And almost nobody knew it was happening.”

former United States National Security Agency contractor

Edward Joseph Snowden is a former United States National Security Agency contractor known for leaking classified documents that exposed global surveillance programs. His disclosures made him a central figure in debates over privacy, intelligence gathering, and government surveillance. Snowden worked as an intelligence contractor before releasing the material that brought his name into public view. Since then, he has been identified with criticism of mass surveillance and with arguments about the balance between security and civil liberties.