By Li Hongmei
Edward Snowden, who has become the most famous whistleblower in the US history and who was granted a temporary asylum in Russia, has been nominated as the "Person of the Year" 2013 by the Euronews.
More than 47% of the viewers have voted for him in the contest of the mass media. He was won over Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Edward Snowden became popular over six months ago when he leaked various information from the National Security Agency (NSA), revealing the spying details of the US officials over the world leaders. This story led to a huge world known scandal, which caused the worsening of relationship between the US and many European countries.
The leaks started with revelations of NSA spying on American citizens, tapping on their conversation and checking their Facebook information. It turned out that the major telephone companies had to provide the agency with personal information regarding their clients, such as telephone numbers, serial numbers of phones used and the time and duration of the calls. The information, however, did not include the content of the call or the callers' addresses.
Later on, the leaks proved that the espionage did not just happen inside the country, it also spread over Europe, South America and other parts of the world.
Soon after that, Snowden had to leave the country, seeking the asylum elsewhere until he was provided with the temporary one in Russia.
According to the whistleblower, his only desire was to "inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them".
During his first leaks, he sent the following note to the newspaper Guardian: "I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions. I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant. I don't want public attention because I don't want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing. 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."
Later on, he also stated: "There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich."
"The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to."
Despite the words, to the US officials he remains a traitor and a criminal and it doesn't seem that his safe return to the country is possible in the near future.
However, to the majority of Americans as well as a lot of other people he is a hero, a person who told the truth and was not being afraid of going through hardships for the better future for the Americans. And a lot of people are feeling grateful to him for that. The Euronews viewers named Edward Snowden the "Person of the Year" 2013.
