National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has finally left the transit area of the Moscow airport, after Russia granted him temporary asylum, his lawyer told The Wall Street Journal. The news comes after further revelations published in The Guardian uncovered another surveillance programme, XKeyscore, which can be used to track Internet communications by content as well as metadata without the need for a warrant.
Snowden (pictured) had been branded a liar by Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee over his comments that he could "wiretap anyone, from you to your accountant to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal e-mail". It would appear security contractors did have this capability.
Wikileaks, the whistleblowing website that has been handling some asylum negotiations for Snowden, reported the news via Twitter.
"Edward Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia for a year and has now left Moscow airport under the care of WikiLeaks’ Sarah Harrison," it said in a tweet.
Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the Journal that he had seen his client to a taxi, but did not know where he was going.
For the last five weeks, Snowden had been stuck in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. He had fled there from Hong Kong in a bid to avoid extradition to the US, where he is wanted on charges related to his leaking of documents about the US National Security Agency’s surveillance activities.
Snowden has four other offers of asylum from Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
IDG News Service
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