Edward Snowden, who grabbed eyeballs when he acted as the whistleblower leaking highly classified United States surveillance programs to British and United States newspapers, remains at large with his present location unknown.
The ex-CIA agent was located in Hong Kong when the highly relevant National Security Agency (NSA)'s programs were leaked to Guardian and Washington Post.
However, Snowden continues to roam free as the US government has released no extradition request yet. His current whereabouts is presently unknown but is believed to be in Hong Kong.
The 29-year-old agent, who was thrown out of his $122,00,00 job after the controversial programmes were leaked, is reported to have sought refuge in Iceland though its Interior minister denied receiving any such request from Snowden.
Meanwhile, there were reports that Russia was ready to provide asylum to the former secret agent.
"Promising Snowden asylum, Moscow takes upon itself the defense of people persecuted for political reasons," tweeted Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the international affairs committee in the lower house of parliament of Russia.
On the other hand, attorney Kevin Egan, specialising in extradition cases told Reuters, "If I was him, I'd be getting out of here and heading to a sympathetic jurisdiction as fast as possible and certainly before the United States issues a request for his extradition."
This is in tune of the limited autonomy that Hong Kong enjoys as the crucial matters are reported to Beijing and China takes the final call.
Another lawyer, Jonathan Acton-Bond reiterated similar advice saying, "In strictly legal terms he's free to go, but government bodies can always find an excuse to temporize, or stop him."
Snowden had revealed the highly controversial information of US government snooping into the privacy of commoners by a direct access to personal information through social network, e-mails and phone records.
Ever since the leak happned, there have been heated debates since the US surveillance goes against the amendments of US constitution which "protect citizens' right to speak and associate anonymously and guard against unreasonable searches and seizures that protect their right to privacy."
Google, Microsoft and Facebook were among the nine major companies which aided the government in accessing information of individuals, thus invading their privacy.
