Edward Snowden, the former Booz Allen employee and NSA contractor responsible for the leak of the PRISM documents, is reportedly on his way to Ecuador to claim asylum.
The 29-year-old IT administrator, who fled to Hong Kong in order to release the documents, was said to have left the Chinese territory for Moscow on Sunday 23 June.
Snowden has not been seen since leaving a hotel in Hong Kong two weeks ago.
He was expected to take an Aeroflot flight from the Russian capital to Havana, Cuba, and travel from there to Quito, the capital of Ecuador.
However, the flight on which he was booked this morning, 24 June, left without him on board.
It is now unclear where Snowden is, as he has not been seen since leaving a hotel in Hong Kong two weeks ago.
Snowden's travel was apparently permitted despite requests by the American government for Hong Kong to detain him pending extradition to the US to face espionage charges.
This latest twist in the whistleblower's saga comes shortly after the Guardian published in full two documents that showed judges had signed off on orders that allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
According to the newspaper, these orders allow the NSA to keep data that could contain the details of US citizens for up to five years and retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they are encrypted.
The Guardian also revealed that GCHQ has gained access to the network of cables that carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and is sharing and processing that information with the NSA.
-
Asus ZenScreen Fold OLED MQ17QH reviewReviews A stunning foldable 17.3in OLED display – but it's too expensive to be anything more than a thrilling tech demo
-
How the UK MoJ achieved secure networks for prisons and offices with Palo Alto NetworksCase study Adopting zero trust is a necessity when your own users are trying to launch cyber attacks
-
NSA issues guidance on encrypted DNS usageNews The US National Security Agency warns enterprises not to use third-party DNS resolvers
-
If you're surprised the NSA can hack your computer, you need a reality checkOpinion We’ve reached a situation where OSes are so complex, they're impossible to secure
-
Shadow Broker exploit dumps five million cyber attacksNews Kaspersky: Hacking tool leaks fuel cyber criminal activity
-
The NSA is sharing projects on GitHub
News Some of the projects are outdated, but could prove useful to some open source developers
-
Juniper Networks to ditch alleged NSA eavesdropping codeNews New security systems without the code will be shipped in first half of this year
-
AT&T and NSA collaborated on "vast" surveillance programNews Documents reveal the two organisations have been working together for decades
-
NSA phone spying was illegal, rules US courtNews Patriot Act does not cover bulk data collection, says Court of Appeals
-
Ex-NSA director: Support for insecure cryptography tool "regrettable"
News The solution was riddled with backdoors but was pushed to businesses regardless
