We can call him Galileo of the Information Age in 2013. US Administration is pursuing Snowden for damaging revelation on equally damaging and unexpected surveillance of nations and their citizens.
For daring to draw the line in the use of the Computer and Communications and using his technical skills to prod a sleeping world to an apparent misuse of power and technology.
He is living in restrictive conditions in Russia, his temporary asylum up for renewal in the summer.
If Vladimir Putin was to decide his propaganda value has dwindled, he might even find himself in a few years traded for a prominent Russian held in the US.
And yet he was prepared to swap a well-paid job and relatively comfortable life with his girlfriend in Hawaii for this uncertain life.
For him, it was a price worth paying. He believes state surveillance had expanded well beyond a point that is acceptable and that people needed to know about it.
The US is not sure what to make of Snowden, who in his Xmas message said that he felt that all that the US needed for information from anybody was to ask and not to spy on them.
