Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Russia Gives Citizenship to Ex-NSA Contractor Edward Snowden

Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden, according to a decree signed Monday by the Russian leader.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden, according to a decree signed Monday by the Russian leader.

Snowden is one of 75 foreign citizens listed by the decree as being granted Russian citizenship. The decree was published on an official government website.

Snowden, a former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency, has been living in Russia since 2013 to escape prosecution in the U.S. after leaking classified documents detailing government surveillance programs.

Edward SnowdenHe was granted permanent Russian residency in 2020 and said at the time that he planned to apply for Russian citizenship without renouncing his U.S. citizenship.

Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti that the former contractor’s wife Lindsay Mills, an American who has been living with him in Russia, will also be applying for a Russian passport. The couple had a child in December 2020.

Snowden, who has kept a low profile in Russia and occasionally criticized Russian government policies on social media, said in 2019 that he was willing to return to the U.S. if he’s guaranteed a fair trial.

He hasn’t commented on being granted Russian citizenship.

The move comes as Moscow is mobilizing reservists for what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. In Russia, almost every man is considered a reservist until age 65, and officials on Monday stressed that men with dual citizenship are also eligible for the military call-up.

Snowden, however, has never served in the Russian armed forces, so he is not eligible to be mobilized, his lawyer Kucherena told the Interfax news agency. Having previous combat or military service experience has been considered the main criteria in the call-up.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Snowden leaked documents on the NSA’s collection of huge amounts of data passing through U.S. internet companies. He also released details about the classified U.S. intelligence budget and the extent of American surveillance on foreign officials, including the leaders of U.S.-allied countries.

Snowden has said he made the disclosures because he believed the U.S. intelligence community had gone too far and wrongly infringed on civil liberties. He also has said he didn’t believe the administration of former President Barack Obama, which was in office when he leaked the records to journalists, would act had he made an internal whistleblower complaint instead.

Snowden’s decision to turn against the NSA came when he used his programming skills to to create a repository of classified in-house notes on the agency’s global snooping and as he built a backup system for agency data, he wrote in his 2019 book “Permanent Record.”

Reading through the repository, Snowden said he began to understand the extent of his government’s stomping on civil liberties and became sullen, “cursed with the knowledge that all of us had been reduced to something like children, who’d been forced to live the rest of their lives under omniscient parental supervision.”

He has since become a well-known speaker on privacy and intelligence, appearing remotely at many events from Russia. But he also remains controversial among members of the intelligence community, and current and former officials from both U.S. political parties say he endangered global security by exposing important programs.

Snowden was charged in 2013 with unauthorized disclosure of U.S. national security and intelligence information as well as theft of government property. The Justice Department also sued to stop Snowden from collecting profits on his memoir, saying he had violated his nondisclosure agreements with intelligence agencies.

The White House on Monday referred comment on Snowden’s citizenship to the Justice Department, citing the pending criminal charges.

Snowden’s acceptance of Russian citizenship is likely to drive more criticism against him from people who say he has remained silent on issues such as the conflict in Ukraine.

Written By

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cyberwarfare

Russian espionage group Nomadic Octopus infiltrated a Tajikistani telecoms provider to spy on 18 entities, including government officials and public service infrastructures.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.