The familiar voice on the hotel room phone did not waste words. “What time does your clock say, exactly?” he asked. He checked the reply against his watch and described a place to meet. “I’ll see you there,” he said. Edward Joseph Snowden emerged at the appointed hour, alone, blending into a light crowd of locals and tourists. He cocked his arm for a handshake, then turned his shoulder to indicate a path. Before long he had guided his visitor to a secure space out of public view.

The respected Russian newspaper Kommersant is reporting that NSA leaker Edward Snowden approached the Kremlin for support and spent a few days in the Russian consulate in Hong Kong before flying to Moscow in June. Russia hoped to be rid of the whistleblower a day later until the U.S. essentially blocked him from leaving Russia by threatening Cuba and other unnamed countries with “undesirable consequences” if they allowed him to land on their territory or helped him in any other way, Kommersant writes, citing Russian and U.S. diplomatic sources.

A leading German news magazine says the U.S. National Security Agency, NSA, has eavesdropped on the United Nations, penetrating the world body's internal video conference system to decode data. Der Spiegel, in a report Sunday, linked its latest U.S. spy claim to secret files released by fugitive former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. The report did not say when the magazine acquired the information, or whether it came directly from Snowden. It alleges the spying took place in mid-2012.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s volcanic revelations of ubiquitous US surveillance are in their third month. The aftershocks felt around the world continue. As Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum, the White House fell into anger and dismay. Computer scientist Nadia Heninger argued that leaking information is now becoming the “civil disobedience of our age”. The late historian and activist Howard Zinn described the act of civil disobedience as “the deliberate, discriminate, violation of law for a vital social purpose”.