The whistleblower who leaked information about the massive US program to spy on the Internet has decided to go public and is hiding out in Hong Kong.

29-year old Edward Snowden used to work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and has been working inside the ultra-secret National Security Agency (NSA) for outside contractors for the past four years.  After giving information and interviews to The Guardian newspaper reporter Glenn Greenwald, he decided to come out.

Snowden revealed the PRISM program, which was set up to monitor potentially valuable foreign communications that might pass through Internet servers in the US.  But according to the documents provided by Snowden, PRISM’s scope was far greater.  In short, PRISM gave the government access to practically everything anyone has ever done on line since 2007.  And, dear reader, if your activity was done through a major US company like Google, the US government had access to it.

Snowden realizes the US government is not happy with him, and is awaiting reprisals.  He also says that he knows that hiding out in Hong Kong makes him vulnerable to Chinese government “inquiries”, not to mention organized crime.  But he says the risks, and never being able to return to the US, were worth it.

“I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in,” Snowden told The Guardian, adding, “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”