{"id":12346,"date":"2020-08-10T01:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T05:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=12346"},"modified":"2020-08-18T14:47:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T18:47:00","slug":"snowden-case-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"The Snowden Case: Background and Current Status"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the status of the case of Edward Snowden? Was there ever an arrest? How did the Snowden case play out after he leaked and fled?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Snowden case is the result of Edward Snowden&#8217;s leak of government documents in 2013. Ed was in Hong Kong and ended up getting asylum in Russia to avoid extradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more about the Snowden case, how it unfolded, and where the current status of the case of Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Snowden Case Begins<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The <em>Guardian<\/em> released the first story from Ed\u2019s leak on June 5, 2013.<\/strong> It was about the NSA collecting data from Verizon, which the FISA Court had permitted. On June 6, a story about PRISM appeared in both the <em>Guardian<\/em> and <em>Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ed\u2019s office had tried to get in touch with him\u2014he was supposed to have returned to work May 31\u2014and he ignored their messages. The US government was working hard to identify the source of the leak and Ed knew that they\u2019d soon figure out it was him. Ed also knew that if they identified him, they\u2019d spin the story to misrepresent him so he looked crazy or morally suspect, and they\u2019d shift the focus from what they\u2019d done to <strong>The <em>Guardian<\/em> released the first story from Ed\u2019s leak on June 5, 2013.<\/strong> It was about the NSA collecting data from Verizon, which the FISA Court had permitted. On June 6, a story about PRISM appeared in both the <em>Guardian<\/em> and <em>Washington Post<\/em>.what he\u2019d done.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ed decided he\u2019d reveal himself as the source of the leak before the government could. <\/strong>Ewen wrote a story about him and Laura suggested doing a video statement. They didn\u2019t have time to polish a video statement, so Laura used footage from the first day they\u2019d met. The video went live on June 9. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Consequences of the Case of Edward Snowden: Arrest, Extradition, and More<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>For <strong>Snowden, arrest was always a possibility. <\/strong>He had shared top secret information with the media, which was illegal. Ed was charged with political crime\u2014crime against the state instead of against a person\u2014under the Espionage Act on June 14.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ed should have been exempt from extradition because the Snowden case was a political crime. (Often, those charged with \u201cpolitical crime\u201d haven\u2019t actually committed crimes; the charge is simply a way for an authoritarian government to control dissent.) However, the US government requested his extradition on June 21, expecting that Hong Kong, like most countries, wouldn\u2019t dare to defy them.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Snowden case resulted in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Public outcry and national conversations about surveillance.<\/li><li>Congress\u2019s investigation of the NSA.<\/li><li>Court cases about the NSA\u2019s programs. Some of the cases restricted the NSA\u2019s future activity.<\/li><li>The USA Freedom Act, which forbids \u201cbulk collection\u201d (mass surveillance) of American\u2019s phone records.<\/li><li>Companies and individuals using tighter security, such as encryption.<\/li><li>EU whistleblower and privacy protections, notably the General Data Protection Regulation, which states that data isn\u2019t owned by the person who collects it; it\u2019s owned by the person it\u2019s about.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Ed got in touch with 27 countries, asking for political asylum, but none of them would take him, or said they\u2019d only consider if after he\u2019d already traveled there, which was impossible. Eventually, he was granted asylum by Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the status of the case of Edward Snowden? Was there ever an arrest? How did the Snowden case play out after he leaked and fled? The Snowden case is the result of Edward Snowden&#8217;s leak of government documents in 2013. Ed was in Hong Kong and ended up getting asylum in Russia to avoid extradition. Learn more about the Snowden case, how it unfolded, and where the current status of the case of Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,39],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-12346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethics","category-history","tag-permanent-record","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Snowden Case: Background and Current Status - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Snowden case is the result of Edward Snowden&#039;s leak of government documents in 2013. Ed currently has Russian asylum and is avoiding extradition there.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Snowden Case: Background and Current Status\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Snowden case is the result of Edward Snowden&#039;s leak of government documents in 2013. Ed currently has Russian asylum and is avoiding extradition there.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-10T05:22:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-18T18:47:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-snowden-case-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1708\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"The Snowden Case: Background and Current Status\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-10T05:22:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T18:47:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/\"},\"wordCount\":560,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-snowden-case-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Permanent Record\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Ethics\",\"History\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/\",\"name\":\"The Snowden Case: Background and Current Status - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/snowden-case-arrest\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-snowden-case-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-10T05:22:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T18:47:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"The Snowden case is the result of Edward Snowden's leak of government documents in 2013. 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