Andrei Soldatov,a Russian investigative journalist known for his exposés of Moscow security services,said that “strictly speaking,[Snowden] could be drafted,strictly in theory.” But that would be bad PR for the Kremlin so it won’t happen,said Soldatov,who is on Russia’s wanted list for “spreading false information.” Russian authorities have also frozen his bank accounts and he lives in exile.
Snowden,who has kept a low profile in Russia and occasionally criticised Russian government policies on social media,said in 2019 that he was willing to return to the US if he’s guaranteed a fair trial.
Snowden has become a well-known speaker on privacy and intelligence,appearing remotely at many events from Russia. But he has been sharply criticised by members of the intelligence community,and current and former officials from both US political parties say he endangered global security by exposing important programs. A US damage assessment of his disclosures is still classified.
James Clapper,who served as US director of national intelligence at the time of the disclosures,said Snowden’s grant of citizenship came with “rather curious timing.”
“It raises the question – again – about just what he shared with the Russians,” Clapper said in an email on Monday.
Snowden has denied co-operating with Russian intelligence and was travelling through Moscow when the US revoked his passport.
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Snowden leaked documents on the National Security Agency’s collection of data passing through the infrastructure of US phone and internet companies. He also released details about the classified US intelligence budget and the extent of American surveillance on foreign officials,including the leaders of US-allied countries.
Snowden says he made the disclosures because he believed the US intelligence community had gone too far and wrongly infringed on civil liberties. He also has said he didn’t believe the administration of former president Barack Obama,which was in office when Snowden leaked the records to journalists,would act had he made an internal whistleblower complaint instead.
His decision to turn against the NSA came when he used his programming skills to create a repository of classified in-house notes on the agency’s global snooping and as he built a backup system for agency data,he wrote in his 2019 bookPermanent Record.
Reading through the repository,Snowden said he began to understand the extent of his government’s stomping on civil liberties and became “cursed with the knowledge that all of us had been reduced to something like children,who’d been forced to live the rest of their lives under omniscient parental supervision”.
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Snowden was charged in 2013 with unauthorised disclosure of US national security and intelligence information as well as theft of government property. The three charges each carry a maximum 10-year penalty.
The Justice Department also sued to stop Snowden from collecting profits on his memoir,saying he had violated his nondisclosure agreements with intelligence agencies.
The White House on Monday referred comment on Snowden’s citizenship to the Justice Department,citing the pending criminal charges.