The famed whistleblower continues to garner international praise even as the US government continues to claim that he is a traitor who must be punished.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden received several standing ovations in the Swedish parliament after being given the Right Livelihood award for his revelations of the scale of state surveillance.

Snowden, who is in exile in Russia, addressed the parliament by video from Moscow. In a symbolic gesture, his family and supporters said no one picked up the award on his behalf in the hope that one day he might be free to travel to Sweden to receive it in person.

His father, Lon, who was in the chamber for what was an emotional ceremony, said: “I am thankful for the support of the Right Livelihood award and the Swedish parliament. The award will remain here in expectation that some time – sooner or later – he will come to Stockholm to accept the award.”
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The awards jury, in its citation, said Snowden was being honoured “for his courage and skill in revealing the unprecedented extent of state surveillance violating basic democratic processes and constitutional rights”.

Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor of the Nation magazine) and Stephen F. Cohen (professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton) published the results of a long interview that they had with Edward Snowden in Russia and it offers interesting glimpses of what his life is like now.
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Micah Lee has a fascinating account about the role he played as an intermediary in enabling Edward Snowden to contact Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald and thus breaking the huge story. He was the initial contact for Snowden who had been unable to communicate securely with Poitras and Greenwald. Lee was a staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the chief technology officer of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, his public encryption key was available and had solid digital signature guarantees. Snowden thought that Lee could be trusted and would know the public key for Poitras, which he did
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Jane Mayer of the New Yorker magazine, one of the best national security reporters in the US, has a video interview with Edward Snowden where he says that he would be delighted to return to the US and face a trial provided that it were held in open court.
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The so-called ‘Five Eyes’ group of English-speaking nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) have been revealed to have a secret agreement to spy on each other’s people and exchange information, thus enabling them to claim they do not spy on their own while getting whatever information they want. Up to now, this charade has been ripped open by the Snowden documents explicitly for the first four countries.
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James Bamford is a writer specializing in security issues. After great effort he managed to arrange an interview with Edward Snowden in Moscow for Wired magazine. The writer spent three full days spread out over three weeks interviewing Snowden for a cover story as to what made him do what he did, a question that continues to fascinate observers despite Snowden having seemingly answered it many times. The article is accompanied by several photographs that were take just before Bamford arrived in Moscow and the story of that photo shoot is itself pretty interesting.
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Edward Snowden’s Russian lawyer Analtoly Kucherena says that Russia has given permission for him to stay there for three more years. It is not clear whether he has applied for asylum.
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