Explained | Snowden leaks, a decade later: When no limits surveillance by US intelligence was exposed

A decade ago, much before the dawn of Artificial Intelligence emerged on internet's horizon,US whistleblower Edward Snowden stunned the world with revelations that the massive US spy apparatus was secretly monitoring communications and private data on people around the world.

His revelations, apart from triggering crucial debates about state surveillance programmes,led to advancing of privacy protections in Europe and the United States and accelerated the use of encryption.

A former consultant at theUS Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Snowden becameone of the world's most consequential whistleblowers of all time for the monumental exposé of US government, revealing that Washington was executinglarge-scale surveillance of its own citizens and abroad.

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Ten years later, Snowden lives in exile in Moscow as a naturalised Russian citizen. At the same time, the US intelligence still collectshuge amounts of private electronically stored and transmitted information.

Edward Snowden'sexposé: Top Revelations

Snowden revealed that no one was safe from the electronic prying by the US National Security Agency (NSA), least of all Americans, whose private communications are supposedly constitutionally protected.

At the age of 29, Snowden, who worked as an NSA systems administrator, downloaded thousands of classified documents from the NSA and CIA.

These documents provided evidence of a global data collection operation that had gained momentum after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Snowden shared these documents with journalists, which revealed how the US intelligence community collaborated with organisations like Britain's GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters] to compile dossiers on billions of individuals without any reasonable suspicion.

The documents also disclosed that the US had the capability to intercept the communications of theleaders of countries, including its allies.

The NSA's Prism programme was exposed, under which the US collected user data from internet giants like Google and Facebook, sometimes without their consent.

Also watch |Putin grants citizenship to Edward Snowden; exposed surveillance by NSA

Furthermore, the NSA obtained call records from major cell provider Verizon and routinely extracted data from public institutions such as companies, hospitals, and universities.

Edward Snowden's revelations: The No Limits intelligence collection

Snowden said that the problem lay not in justifying these activities for counter-terrorism purposes but in the fact that these were secretive programmes with virtually no limits. He emphasised the importance of public discourse in determining wheresuch programmes and policies were right or not.

The public response to Snowden's revelations was characterised by outrage, but it also sparked a backlash from US intelligence agencies.

They accused Snowden of severely compromising counter-terrorism efforts and assisting America's adversaries. However, the intelligence community refrained from providing a detailed account of the damage caused, instead highlighting the prevention of numerous attacks as a result of their surveillance activities.

Edward Snowden'sexposé: The impact

In 2016, James Clapper, the national intelligence director at the time, acknowledged that Snowden's actions had made the NSA's work more challenging by pressuring internet and mobile communication companies, as well as app developers, to enhance encryption in their services.

According to Ben Wizner, an attorney for Snowden and the American Civil Liberties Union, the leaks bolstered civil liberties, even though an increasing number of internet companies continue to collect user data.

Wizner told news agency AFP that Snowden's revelations compelled the White House, the US Congress, and the judiciary to reverse their course on secretive surveillance practices, leading to the revision and cancellation of certain programmes.

He pointed out that for the first time since the 1970s, Congress legislated to reduce rather than expand surveillance authorities.

The impact of Snowden's global surveillance revelations was particularly evident in Europe. The European Union implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, aiming to restrict the power of US companies like Google and Facebook in collecting and exploiting user data.

The impact of Snowden's global surveillance revelations was particularly evident in Europe. The European Union implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, aiming to restrict the power of US companies like Google and Facebook in collecting and exploiting user data.

Many ask, why did Snowden give up on information the US deemed confidential. In his past interviews, he has cited it to be a matter of principles. That's why, Snowden told Guardian once, he gave up his freedom in the United States and a comfortable lifestyle.

Transparency is important: Snowden

"There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich," he told The Guardian shortly after his revelations exposed the previously confidential realities of the US government.

"I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest," he said. "There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is."

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