By Joe Sterling, CNN <\/p>\n
updated 8:10 AM EDT, Thu August 7, 2014 <\/p>\n
Edward Snowden gets three more years of residency in Russia. <\/p>\n
STORY HIGHLIGHTS <\/p>\n
(CNN) -- Edward Snowden, who leaked secret information about U.S. spying programs, has been granted an extension to stay in Russia for three more years, his attorney said in a televised press conference in Moscow Thursday. <\/p>\n
Snowden recently formally requested that Russia's government extend his temporary asylum, and Snowden attorney Anatoly Kucherena said the request had been accepted. <\/p>\n
\"As of August 1, 2014, Snowden has received residency for three years,\" Kucherena told reporters Thursday. <\/p>\n
Snowden's temporary asylum in Russia ended on July 31. He'd been holed up at a Moscow airport for five weeks before the Russian government granted asylum for one year on August 1, 2013. <\/p>\n
Snowden has kept busy working for a Russian website and speaking out on the disclosures about the U.S. government's spying programs and processes that he helped make public. <\/p>\n
Snowden's disclosures in 2013 made him an icon among those who praised him for risking his future to expose these secrets and a villain among those who accused him of being a lawbreaker who betrayed the United States. <\/p>\n
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