An employee, Edward Snowden, working for a contractor who provides services to the National Security Agency (NSA) fled to Hong Kong with enormous amount of secret data and the news dominated headlines in print media as well as the Internet. He then released some secret information that the U.S. government is collecting on individuals and organizations including phone conversations and e-mails. Many supported the action calling Snowden as a “whistle blower,” but the government as well as many others quickly condemned Snowden as a traitor as well as a security threat.
The program involved is known as Prism program. It is a massive electronic data mining program operated by the NSA since 2007. Until Snowden leaked information about the program its existence was not widely known. It was gathering information under an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court which was established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Edward Snowden was offered asylum in several South American countries and on the way from Hong Kong he got stuck at the Moscow airport transit area due to cancellation of his passport by the U.S. government. He still continues to release U.S. secret data and his final destination and the future is unclear at this time.