To some, he’s a hero. To others, a treasonous saboteur. But of one thing, there is no doubt: former NSA contractor Edward Snowden changed the course of history by leaking a mountain of confidential documents detailing various NSA programs used to covertly monitor communications around the world. Whether or not you agree with what Snowden did, there has always been a bit of curiosity surrounding exactly how the huge NSA breach went down. As it turns out, reality is far less thrilling than you might imagine.
A movie about the events surrounding Snowden and the NSA documents he leaked might feature Mission:Impossible style covert operations where the protagonist narrowly escapes capture in dramatic fashion. In reality, Snowden stole many of the documents he leaked by asking a civilian NSA worker with a higher security clearance to log into his workstation. When the employee did, Snowden apparently stole his password.
A memo obtained by NBC detailed the humdrum event, and the worker whose password Snowden allegedly stole has resigned and is no longer with the NSA.
