Edward Snowden, who worked for a company that is a contractor for the National Security Agency, says he leaked information about top secret US surveillance programs because the American public has a right to know about government's broad reach into their private communications. The British newspaper The Guardian first published his revelations. The Guardian/AP
NSA leaker Edward Snowden (c.) attends a news conference at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport with Sarah Harrison of WikiLeaks (l.) on July 12, 2013. Snowden wants to seek temporary asylum in Russia, according to a Parliament member who was among about a dozen activists and officials to meet with him in the Moscow airport, where he's been marooned for weeks. Tanya Lokshina//Human Rights Watch/AP
Journalists gather around Genri Reznik, a prominent lawyer and head of the Moscow bar association, at Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow on July 12, 2013. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
Journalist Glenn Greenwald speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Rio de Janeiro on July 14, 2013. Greenwald, The Guardian journalist who first reported Edward Snowden's disclosures of US surveillance programs, says the former National Security Agency analyst has 'very specific blueprints of how the NSA do what they do.' Silvia Izquierdo/AP
Russian supporters of NSA leaker Edward Snowden rally in Moscow on July 12, 2013, holding posters that protest total surveillance. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden wants temporary asylum in Russia and is willing to stop sharing information as a tradeoff for such a deal. Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/AP
Genri Reznik, a prominent lawyer and head of the Moscow bar association, speaks to the media at Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow on July 12, 2013. He attended a meeting with Edward Snowden, who leaked US national security secrets to the public and who is believed to have been holed up in the transit zone of the airport since June 23. Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
The picture of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping US surveillance programs, is displayed on the front page of a newspaper in Hong Kong, June 12, 2013. The whereabouts of Snowden remained unknown two days after he checked out of a Hong Kong hotel. Kin Cheung/AP
Russian policemen stand outside the embassy of Ecuador in Moscow, June 24, 2013. Russia defied White House pressure to expel former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to the US before he flees Moscow on the next stop of his globe-crossing escape from US prosecution. Nikolay Asmolovskiy/Reuters
Denise Harwood diagnoses an overheated computer processor at Google’s data center in The Dalles, Ore. Google uses these data centers to store email, photos, video, calendar entries, and other information shared by its users. These centers also process the hundreds of millions of searches that Internet users make on Google each day. Connie Zhou/Google/AP
The US Courthouse in Washington, where the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court resides, is seen in a parking garage safety mirror at left. A top-secret order was granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25, good until July 19, for the National Security Agency (NSA) to secretly collect telephone records of US customers of Verizon, according to the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cliff Owen/AP
Employees stand at the entrance of the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong. Edward Snowden checked out of the hotel on June 10, 2013, and his whereabouts are unknown. Kin Cheung/AP
Demonstrators hold signs supporting Edward Snowden in New York's Union Square Park, June 10, 2013. Richard Drew/AP
Mark Klein looks through documents while interviewed at his home in Alameda, Calif., June 11, 2013. Before there was Edward Snowden revealing secrets about widespread government eavesdropping, there was Mark Klein, a San Francisco telecommunications technician who alleged that AT&T was allowing government spies to siphon vast amounts of customer data without warrants. Jeff Chiu/AP
Documents Edward Snowden leaked about sweeping NSA surveillance programs have emboldened privacy advocates and government watchdog groups to file a new round of lawsuits challenging the programs' constitutionality.
Cracks are appearing in a legal wall that since 9/11 has shielded from open-court review the US government’s claim that it has constitutional authority for its secret antiterrorism surveillance programs, some legal experts say.
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