Ex-CIA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Missing In Hong Kong

Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old ex-employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) who leaked details of the U.S. secret surveillance operation PRISM to The Guardian, is missing in Hong Kong after checking out of the Mira hotel Monday at noon.

One day after making his identity public to the world through interviews with The Guardian, Snowden's whereabouts are unknown, though many believe the former CIA securities analyst is still in China. Hong Kong and the United States have a long history of extradition and share a treaty to support the process, leading legal analysts at the New York Times to claim that his safety in that foreign city was tenuous at best.

The leaks that Snowden let out — released in a Guardian story last Thursday, June 6 — provided details to government surveillance efforts that have, until now, been kept classified from the American people. One effort allows the intelligence agencies to check cell phone record "metadata", including all numbers dialed to and from, the duration of calls, and where cell phone calls are placed. Another program allows the government to go through international records of major information websites like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook and Skype.

According to Snowden's interview with The Guardian, he was motivated by a moral obligation, based on the world he saw himself help create.

"The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything," Snowden said. "With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards."

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things ... I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded."

One of the most damaging national security leaks in American history, President Barack Obama has found his administration in full-on damage control after a month of battling scandals.

"If [congressional] debate were to build to a consensus around changes [to the surveillance law] the president would look at that," White House spokesman Jay Carney told The Guardian. "Although this is hardly the manner of discussion we hoped for, we would still like to have the debate."