Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been honored with a Swedish human rights award for leaking classified documents that revealed the NSA vast intelligence gathering operations throughout the world. Snowden will receive the Right Livelihood Award -- often referred to as the "alternative Nobel" -- alongside Alan Rusbridger, editor of British newspaper The Guardian who published a series of articles based on the cache of documents leaked by Snowden to media outlets around the world.

In an in-depth interview with Wired former NSA contractor Edward Snowden said that the most damaging and damning information about the NSA's spying activities have yet to be revealed. He says that there could be a "smoking gun" hidden within those unrevealed secrets from the cache of classified documents he took from NSA computers.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been approved by the Russian government for another three years, according to Politico, Snowden could return to the United States if he's willing to face charges for leaking thousands of classified documents to the media, but the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

A new story has emerged based on more leaked documents from the cache of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden concerning how much the data the NSA collects is related to American citizens.

A federal judge has ruled that the United States government must immediately halt the destruction of classified documents and file a brief explaining its actions today. The federal government must not destroy any more documents and file a brief by noon today on its spying activities, a federal judge ruled, responding to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's request for an emergency hearing.

Sony Pictures Entertainment announced yesterday that it has purchased the movie rights to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's story. Snowden is currently hiding out in Russia for fear of being prosecuted for leaking classified NSA documents related to the agency's vast surveillance operations around the world. The movie will apparently be based on the award-winning national security journalist Glenn Greenwald's book "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State."

Edward Snowden was inspired by video games, according to what one of the key journalists responsible for releasing the details contained in the classified documents leaked by the former NSA contractor tells GQ. Greenwald says that Snowden saw himself as video game hero fighting against an seemingly insurmountable force, much like a video game protagonist does.

When the Daily Caller and the San Francisco Gate report a positive in the same story, it doesn't mean that the apocalypse is in full swing; it generally means that something particularly interesting and possibly good has occurred.

Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor that is the source of a cache of leaked internal NSA documents who is now hiding out in Russia to avoid espionage charges promises that more revelations about the agency's vast international and domestic spying programs will be revealed. He calls these upcoming revelations "big" and notes that reporting these revelations is not a crime. Snowden made his comments remotely during a recent TED event.

In a statement to NBC News former NSA contractor (currently in exile in Russia after leaking classified NSA documents about domestic and international spying programs) called Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA.) hypocritical for complaining about the CIA allegedly spying on the Senate while strongly supporting the NSA's spying programs and bills like CISPA.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made headlines again this week when he intimated that certain unnamed journalists were accomplices in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

An ACLU attorney serving as a legal advisor to former NSA contractor and leaker Edward Snowden says that he would only take a plea deal with the U.S. government if the terms of the deal were solidified prior to his landing on U.S. soil.

"I can tell you now he is not going to return to the country and take his chances on what the details of a plea bargain might be or what might await him at a trial," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ben Wizner said in an interview on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports."

In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R) said that National Intelligence chief James Clapper and NSA leaker Edward Snowden should "share a jail cell," intimating that Clapper is as much a criminal as the former NSA contractor turned whistleblower (or traitor depending on what school of opinion you subscribe to). Clapper testified before Congress denying that the NSA was not engaging in supposed dragnet surveillance of American citizens.

Earlier this week we reported that Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of Finland-based antivirus provider F-Secure, had publicly canceled a talk (entitled, "Governments as Malware Authors") at the upcoming RSA Conference USA 2014 in protest of news that the RSA received $10 million to make an NSA-favored random number generator the default setting in its BSAFE crypto tool.

Earlier in the week we briefly mentioned former NSA contractor and leaker Edward Snowden's interview with the Washington Post where he noted that his mission "was already accomplished" because the press and the public are talking about the spy agency's various intelligence gathering operations.

Speaking to The Washington Post, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said that his "mission's already accomplished" after leaking NSA secrets that have caused a reassessment of U.S. surveillance policies. Snowden told the publication in a recent interview published online Monday night that he was satisfied with the results of his disclosure because it has enabled journalists to tell the story of the government's collection of bulk Internet and phone records.

Yesterday we reported that one of the executives attending a meeting between President Barack Obama and the country's top tech company executives suggested that the administration should pardon former NSA contractor Edward Snowden for leaking classified documents about the spy agency's broad spying activities. The president told the executive that he could not pardon Snowden.

In a rare public statement yesterday, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (now exiled in Moscow) urged American citizens to take part in a protest in Washington D.C. this weekend being put on by the members of the Stop Watching Us coalition. The group includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mozilla Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, social news website Reddit, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Demand Progress, Students for Liberty and the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA).

In the latest issue of The Advocate, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald talks about his work on unearthing the massive domestic surveillance programs run by the Nation Security Agency and how it has affected his and his husband David Miranda's life.

More importantly (for us at least), the article reveals what inspired former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden (now exiled in Moscow) to reveal information on the NSA's questionable activities.