'She was not entirely pleased with me': Ed Snowden reveals more about being reunited with dancer girlfriend in Russia after he left her to go on the r

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'She was not entirely pleased with me': Ed Snowden reveals more about being reunited with dancer girlfriend in Russia after he left her to go on the run as NSA leaker - as they are pictured together



NSA leaker reunited with dancer Linsday Mills, with whom he lived in Hawaii
He revealed via webcam to New York audience 'she wasn't pleased'
The two are together again in Moscow, where Snowden is claiming asylum
Vladimir Putin has granted the wanted man permission to stay for 3 years
British government today revealed leaks have made their job much harder
GCHQ takes TRIPLE the time to crack messages thanks to Snowden tip-off

 

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Edward Snowden has revealed his long-term girlfriend was 'not entirely pleased' with the saga that forced them to flee their home in Hawaii.
The former National Security Agency contractor was finally reunited with pole dancer Lindsay Mills this July in Moscow, where he is claiming asylum.
In a new documentary, the couple are pictured together for the first time in more than a year, looking settled and homely in their Russian apartment.
But last night Snowden conceded that his other half did not take the life change lightly.
'She was not entirely pleased [with what happened],' he told an audience in New York from an undisclosed location via webcam.

 

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Reunited: A new documentary Citizen Four reveals footage (pictured) of Edward Snowden and Lindsay Mills cooking in their wood-paneled apartment in Moscow where the former NSA contractor has claimed asylum

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'Incredible reunion': The former NSA contractor gushed about the support he has received from his pole dancer girlfriend (pictured in 2012) since fleeing the United States in 2013 - although he concedes she wasn't pleased

 

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'But at the same time, it was an incredible reunion because she understood me, and that meant a lot to me.'
His words came as a documentary about his time on the run from US authorities, Citizen Four, was premiered.
It is more than a year since Snowden leaked classified details of the US government's surveillance programs - prompting a warrant for his arrest under the Espionage Act.




Mills had initially stayed behind in Hawaii, where the two had lived together, in the wake of the political firestorm unleashed last summer.
But now the couple look set to now stay in Russia for up to three years under the residency granted by Vladimir Putin who agreed to offer political asylum.
Snowden also admitted in the webcam interview at the New Yorker Festival that he misses America - a place he may never return to, Politico reported.
'The question is what don't I miss, whether it's my family, whether it's my home, whether it's my friends, whether it's my work at the agency, I was fulfilled and happy,' he responded.
'Things as simple as having my old beat-up car, there's a lot to miss. It's a great country.'

 

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Leaker: Snowden, left, who has claimed political asylum in Vladimir Putin's Russia, has been reunited with his pole-dancing girlfriend Lindsay Mills, right

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Leaker: Snowden, who handed over huge amounts of classified information from the National Security Agency, stars in a new documentary which reveals he is living with his girlfriend under Putin's protection in Russia

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Together again: The two, pictured on a Hawaiian beach before Snowden fled the U.S., have moved to Russia

 

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Mills had remained silent and her whereabouts were largely unknown after Snowden's release of tens of thousands of classified U.S. intelligence documents in 2013.


Citizen Four, made by U.S. film maker Laura Poitras, premiered on Friday in New York, revealing Mills's location in the process.
It shows the couple cooking in their wood-paneled Moscow apartment, which is decorated with plants.


The dramatic shift from his seemingly idyllic life in Hawaii was far greater than Snowden had predicted, he said last night.


'It was about getting the information back to people so they could decide if they cared about it, and on that account … I could not have been more wrong in thinking that people wouldn't care,' he explained.
Things as simple as having my old beat-up car, there's a lot to miss about America. It's a great country

Edward Snowden speaking to a New York audience via webcam


'NSA employees have used this surveillance power to spy on exes, to spy on lovers, and that’s a felony, however none of them were prosecuted because it was considered that the value of the programs was greater than the interests of justice.'
Incredibly, he also revealed he disagreed with a number of the articles written by the journalists he leaked the data to.
'Do I agree with all of the stories that the journalists have presented? I don't,' he said.
'I would draw those lines a little differently, and I think much more conservatively than some of the journalists have,' without identifying specific stories.
The film also suggests that there could be a second NSA leaker waiting in the wings, who had access to far more information that Snowden.
It came as a top spy revealed how Snowden's leaked documents have made the job of monitoring terrorists far more difficult.
Sir Iain Lobban, the outgoing head of the British government's NSA equivalent, GCHQ, revealed that since the revelations it now takes three times as long to complete routine monitoring tasks.
An unnamed employee made the revelation as part of the interview and profile of the GCHQ service in the Daily Telegraph.

 

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Moscow living: Snowden pictured on the Moscow river in Russia's capital where he sought asylum from the US

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In love: The pair are pictured frolicking together before he fled the United States

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Secrecy: Snowden hid his identity when speaking to journalists, using the name Citizenfour - now the film's title

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Hollywood treatment: The Snowden film will show in theaters later this month

 

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Dancer: Mills, pictured left and right in an online video, is filmed cooking with Snowden in the documentary

 

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The new film is a fly-on-the wall account of Snowden's tense days in a Hong Kong hotel and his encounters with journalists from the Washington Post and the Guardian as they prepared to print protected information on NSA activities.
It puts a Hollywood glamour on the former contractor, who is shown wearing contact lenses rather than his traditional glasses, and wearing mousse in his hair.
It also shows scenes of his relationship with Mills immediately after the links. She is shown telling him about agents showing up at their house after he didn't go to work - and also asking why his rent checks have stopped.
At one point he tells the camera 'she has no idea' - but claims he used the cover of going to Hong Kong on vacation to protect her.
Citizenfour takes its title from the email alias that Snowden used when he first approached Poitras in early 2013 through a series of encrypted emails - with a view to leaking details of the top-secret programs to the media.
Marketed as a 'real-life thriller,' it is the first of several films in the works about Snowden, who is wanted by the United States on charges brought under the Espionage Act.
Speaking in the film, Snowden says: 'I already know how this will end for me, and I accept the risk.

 

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Parents: Snowden's mother Karen, left, and father Lonnie, right, pose with director Laura Poitras, center, after the screening of the film

 

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Poitras, speaking after the screening, said: 'This was a film we had to make as privately and secretly as we could.'
'We very much wanted to communicate in this film that [it] was about people who take risks and come forward at huge personal sacrifice.'

Director: Citizenfour, the Snowden documentary, was made by Laura Poitras

Poitras, an American, now lives in Berlin, Germany. She has been stopped and questioned when entering the U.S. numerous times in the past 10 years.
Snowden's revelations sparked a global debate on the limits of privacy versus the needs of national security.
His critics view him as a traitor who refuses to face trial in the U.S. for his actions, while supports see him as a hero who spoke up for civil liberties.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who along with Poitras was Snowden's first points of contact with the media, said he hoped that Citizenfour would allow the public to form their own opinion about the man and his motives.
He said: 'So much has been said about Ed Snowden, a lot of it bad but a lot of it really good.
'I felt like this was really the first time that people got to see who he really is so that they could make up their own mind.
'I always felt... that the most powerful part of the story was not going to be the documents and the revelations but the power of the story and the acts of this very, kind of ordinary young man, who decided very consciously to sacrifice his whole life for a political principle.'
Poitras said she had shown the documentary to Snowden on a trip to Russia about three weeks ago, when the brief scenes with his girlfriend were filmed.
Read more:

• GCHQ: 'This is not Blitz Britain. We sure as hell can’t lick terrorism on our own’ - Telegraph
• Edward Snowden: It was worth it - POLITICO.com