![2A7XK59 Lisbon, Portugal. 4th Nov, 2019. Edward Snowden, former intelligence officer who served the CIA, NSA, and DIA for nearly a decade as a subject matter expert on technology and cyber security, speaks from Russia to the audience for an interview by James Ball, during the annual Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon. Credit: Henrique Casinhas/SOPA Images/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News](https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/30141627/SEI_141774061.jpg?width=300)
Whistle-blower Edward Snowden
Henrique Casinhas/SOPA Images/ZUMA Wire/Alamy
EDWARD SNOWDEN’s 2013 leaks from the US National Security Agency triggered a global debate around state surveillance – but even he couldn’t quite believe the scale of the story described to him in the summer of 2021.
Whistle-blowers had handed French investigative journalists Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud a list of 50,000 phone numbers. These belonged to people flagged for attack by a cybersurveillance software package called Pegasus.
The investigation that followed is the subject of Pegasus: The story of the …