Detective Edward Snowden has been granted Russian citizenship. It happened on Monday after President Vladimir Putin signed a special decree.
Snowden, 39, a former CIA agent and system administrator for the NSA, is accused of spying in the United States. He provided journalists with classified documents in 2013.
His discoveries showed that the NSA was collecting internet and phone data from citizens on a large scale. In doing so, the Secret Service would have violated US intelligence law and possibly the US Constitution Rule US court two years ago.
Snowden has lived in Russia since 2013, having married blogger Lindsey Mills in Moscow. He previously said that he did not want to return to his homeland unless he was guaranteed a fair trial.
Prior to Snowden’s revelations, top US intelligence officials had always denied that the data had been intentionally collected from US citizens. Later, these same officials argued that data collection is critical to fighting domestic terrorism.
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