Throughout the eight years that Snowden worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency contractors, he posted hundreds of messages on a public Internet forum under a pseudonym. 

 

"I can't hope to change the way things are going by overtly complaining, writing letters, or blowing things up," Snowden wrote in 2003 in response to a discussion about corporate greed on the Ars Technica online forum.  "That's not the way a good person does things. I will, however, do what I can with the tools that are available to me."