Snowden offered Asylum

Edward Snowden, the former contractor who leaked classified information while working for the National Security Agency (NSA), has now been offered asylum by Venezuela now among a small group of other countries.  He has been in the Moscow airport since late June.

BACKGROUND:

• Snowden left the US for Hong Kong in May before the leaked information was published in early June.
• The US issued an extradition order which China claimed was insufficient.
•  When he arrived in Moscow he was  denied entry past their holding area although Russia did not arrest him either.
• Snowden has admitted he intentionally gained employment at the NSA contractor explicitly to leak information on surveillance programs although he considers himself a vigilante
• The information leaked has led to an uproar from many US allies, especially concerning the NSA’s collection of millions of U.S. telephone records as well as the NSA and the FBI tapping into the servers of American internet companies