Edward Snowden timeline and July 16 update: Snowden applies for temporary asylum in Russia

Tuesday, July 16, 2013: Edward Snowden -- who has been at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport for the past three weeks -- applies for temporary asylum in Russia since the US has revoked his passport and he cannot go anywhere.

Monday, July 15, 2013: Snowden's lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who is Kremlin-friendly, met with Snowden for four hours and helped him complete his temporary asylum paperwork.  If Russia’s federal migration service (FMS) approves Snowden’s temporary asylum request, Snowden could leave the airport and live in Russia; possibly also travel to other countries.

Sunday, June 23, 2013: Snowden traveled to Moscow on the commercial Aeroflot flight SU213 from Hong Kong accompanied by Sarah Harrison of WikiLeaks after Hong Kong considered extraditing Snowden to the United States. Snowden had hoped to continue his travel to South America but was not able to do so without a passport.

June 14, 2013: U.S. federal prosecutors charged Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.

Post June 6, 2013: Edward Snowden becomes known as the ex-CIA and ex-NSA-contracted systems analyst who leaked secret NSA details.

June 6, 2013: Journalist Glenn Greenwald, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, and Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman met with Snowden in Hong Kong and began publishing information provided by Edward Snowden without initially revealing his identity.

May 20, 2013: Snowden, who was a computer technician for U.S. defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, leaves his residence and his job at the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in Hawaii and flies to Hong Kong.

So what are those revelations that got Snowden stranded in Russia?

• The NSA operates a complex web of spying programs which allow it to intercept internet and telephone conversations from over a billion users from dozens of countries around the world.

• Specific revelations have been made about China, the European Union, Latin America, Iran and Pakistan, and Australia and New Zealand.

• Many of the spying programs overlap and interrelate among one another and are often done with the assistance of US entities such as the DOJ and the FBI and are sanctioned by US laws such as the FISA Amendments Act.

• Many of NSA's programs are directly aided by national and foreign intelligence services, Britain's GCHQ and Australia's DSD, as well as by large private telecommunications and internet corporations, such as Verizon, Telstra, Google and Facebook. Microsoft and Silicon Valley are also participants.  

Some of these programs are:

PRISM – Cooperation between the NSA and internet companies, whereby the latter allow the former access (whether direct or indirect is disputed) to their servers.

Boundless Informant – the computer program that physically performs the data collection.

X-Keyscore – a program run out of Australia and New Zealand, which specifically targets foreign-language emails.

Dropmire – a program that specifically targets foreign embassies and diplomats

Fairview – a programme that targets mobile phone usage (particularly text messages) in foreign countries.

Upstream and Tempora – collecting data from fiber-optic cables and internet backbones.

MAINWAY (call records), Main Core (financial records) – storing the collected data

Stellar Wind – mining the collected data

ECHELON – intercepts commercial satellite trunk communications by all of the Five Eyes signatories

Turbulence – includes cyber-warfare capabilities, such as targeting enemies with malware

Insider Threat Program – policy requiring federal employees to report "high-risk persons or behaviors" from among co-workers, as well as to punish those who fail to report such colleagues.

As Edward Snowden is spending his days at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, he has the support of WikiLeaks and human rights activists. Edward Snowden allegedly has further and more devastating information than the ones already leaked. Much of that information has been put into the hands of people who, should something happen to Edward Snowden, might find its way into the press.

Historically, Edward Snowden’s saga is really no surprise. Following World War II, paranoia and fear have ruled many countries and spying by any means necessary deems to be fit for any country that wants to compete. Remembering that the internet originally was a military venture makes it no surprise that it has become a major means for governments to collect information. There is nothing private about the internet.

While historically there is nothing surprising about the Edward Snowden saga, Edward Snowden himself is a puzzle.

Edward Snowden, who was born on June 21, 1983, hasn’t completed anything (high school, college, a Special Forces recruit in the United States Army) and yet he is an ex-CIA and ex-NSA-contracted systems analyst with access to most sensitive information?

How effective can all of those secret international and national surveillance programs be if they cannot detect its own “traitor” or people that are capable of planning the Boston Marathon bombings?

Something does not add up.

CNN provides a clickable map on the Edward Snowden saga. Click on picture to enlarge.