The former CIA employee who leaked details of the US government’s highly classified and broad-scope Internet surveillance program has himself gone missing in Hong Kong.

29-year old Edward Snowden was a relatively low-level employee of a subcontractor of the National Security Agency (NSA), a government spy nest so secretive that until recently most federal employees joked the acronym meant “No Such Agency”.  He came forward because he wanted the world to know that the PRISM surveillance program exists, and to start a debate in America about whether it should even have such a program.

Snowden went to Hong Kong after leaking the story to The Guardian newspaper, ostensibly because of what he thought was its commitment to free speech.

But he checked out of his hotel room and has apparently dropped out of sight.

Meanwhile a petition posted on the White House website calling for Snowden's immediate pardon has gathered several thousand signatures.