Ten years ago today, twenty-nine-year-old Booz Allen contractor Edward Snowden identified himself as the source of a series of bombshell revelations about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) domestic surveillance. Those revelations were the source of stories published by the Guardian and Washington Post about how the NSA obtained US persons’ telephone records directly from a major telecoms company and worked with tech companies to access online communications.

In coming forward as the whistleblower, Snowden put a tremendous target on his back, though arguably it was just a matter of time before the US government discovered his identity. Snowden left the United States before any of his disclosures were public. A decade later, he remains in exile, as the United States continues to hold out hopes of prosecuting him under the draconian, antidemocratic Espionage Act.

The US government’s relentless pursuit of Snowden is indicative of how far the national security state is willing to go to keep its secrets, and it is therefore essential to understanding the historic nature of the revelations.