Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden was born in North Carolina on June 21, 1983, and grew up in Elizabeth City. His mother works for the federal court in Baltimore (the family moved to Ellicott City, Maryland, when Snowden was young) as chief deputy clerk for administration and information technology. Snowden's father, a former Coast Guard officer, lives in Pennsylvania.
Snowden dropped out of high school and studied computers at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland (from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2004 to 2005), later earning a GED. Between his stints at community college, Snowden spent four months (May to September 2004) in the Army Reserves in special-forces training. According to Army sources, he did not complete any training, and Snowden has said that he was discharged after he broke his legs in an accident.
Snowden dropped out of high school and studied computers at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland (from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2004 to 2005), later earning a GED. Between his stints at community college, Snowden spent four months (May to September 2004) in the Army Reserves in special-forces training. According to Army sources, he did not complete any training, and Snowden has said that he was discharged after he broke his legs in an accident.
Daniel Elsberg
Military analyst Daniel Ellsberg was born on April 7, 1931, in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up in Highland Park, Michigan. His father, Harry Ellsberg, worked as a civil engineer and his mother, Adele, worked as a fundraiser at the National Jewish Hospital but quit working upon her marriage. Both of Ellsberg's parents were Jewish by heritage but fervent converts to Christian Science. Neighbors and classmates remember young Daniel Ellsberg as an introverted and unusual child.
"Danny was just never one of the guys," one classmate recalled. "He wasn't like the rest of the boys." Another neighbor recalled: "I don't think we walked to school with him ever. He never fraternized with any of the young people in the neighborhood." However, Ellsberg was also an extraordinarily gifted child, excelling especially at math and piano. He read constantly and possessed phenomenal recall, once appearing on a Detroit radio station to recite the entire Gettysburg Address from memory.
Ellsberg received a full academic scholarship to attend the prestigious Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, just outside Detroit, Michigan, ultimately graduating first in his class in 1948 and thus earning another full academic scholarship to study at Harvard. There he majored in economics and wrote a senior honors thesis entitled "Theories of Decision-making Under Uncertainty: The Contributions of von Neumann and Morgenstern," which he later developed into journal articles published in the Economic Journal and American Economics Review.
"Danny was just never one of the guys," one classmate recalled. "He wasn't like the rest of the boys." Another neighbor recalled: "I don't think we walked to school with him ever. He never fraternized with any of the young people in the neighborhood." However, Ellsberg was also an extraordinarily gifted child, excelling especially at math and piano. He read constantly and possessed phenomenal recall, once appearing on a Detroit radio station to recite the entire Gettysburg Address from memory.
Ellsberg received a full academic scholarship to attend the prestigious Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, just outside Detroit, Michigan, ultimately graduating first in his class in 1948 and thus earning another full academic scholarship to study at Harvard. There he majored in economics and wrote a senior honors thesis entitled "Theories of Decision-making Under Uncertainty: The Contributions of von Neumann and Morgenstern," which he later developed into journal articles published in the Economic Journal and American Economics Review.