The terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, took a large toll on America’s sense of security. In the dawn of this new era, Congress moved to take swift action by creating the Patriot Act. The stated goal was to identify and strike back against terrorists, but in practice, the law had much wider-reaching effects.

But everything changed in 2013 when an intelligence contractor named Edward Snowden decided to expose the truth, leaking more classified documents than any whistleblower in American history.

This four-part series from American Scandal follows Edward Snowden’s transformation, from a respected intelligence officer, to the most wanted whistleblower in the world.

This is just a preview of Edward Snowden from American Scandal, but you can listen to the rest of this episode at wondery.fm/AS_MensRea