Life and times of an intelligence leaker

2006: Snowden is hired by the Central Intelligence Agency as a technical expert. He is given top-secret clearance.

2007-09: Snowden is posted to Geneva, Switzerland, under diplomatic cover as an IT and cybersecurity expert for the CIA, a position that gives him access to a wide array of classified documents.

Late 2009-March 2012: Snowden's supervisor at the CIA places a critical assessment of Snowden's behavior and work habits in his personal file, and voices suspicion that he tried to "break into classified computer files to which he was not authorized to access". Snowden leaves the CIA and starts work as an NSA contractor assigned by Dell — one of 854,000 contractors with top-secret clearance working for the federal government. Over the next few years, he switches between assignments with the NSA and the CIA for Dell, including a stint at an NSA facility in Japan that lasts until March 2012.