At the time, just a few weeks into the publication of documents that the 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor had siphoned from his workstation in Hawaii, that prophetic statement might have seemed like grandstanding. But close to three months later, the collection of Snowden’s revelations has grown to the megaleak proportions of WikiLeaks’ Cablegate or Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, with no end in sight. For those who watch the watchers, Snowden may well have become the most important leaker of the 21st century.

Snowden himself has managed to take refuge in Russia and disappear from the headlines, putting the full spotlight back onto his bombshell documents.