The piece is a unique portrait shot by photographer Platon of Edward Snowden. The NFT is made entirely out of the pages of a US Court of Appeals decision that the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance violated the Patriot Act and did not allow the agency to surveil American’s phones.
The NFT was sold for 2,224 ETH, this sets a new record for the Foundation platform and is one of the top five NFT auction sales. It was bought by a decentralized autonomous organization called, PleasrDAO. The DAO is a group of NFT collectors that came to be when they purchased the pplpleasr’s collab piece with Uniswap “x*y=k.”
FIVE POINT FIVE MILLION from @PleasrDAO. It feels like the whole staff of @FreedomOfPress is watching live, and we've never seen anything like this. This is more than a spectacle -- this is drama. All eyes turn to the dark horse. https://t.co/GOcrOiraXS
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 16, 2021
The NFT sale was set up as a charity auction for a non-profit he is a part of, Freedom of the Press Foundation.
All proceeds will go to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit that strives for a free press and provides journalists with tools to develop open and secure communications with their contacts. Snowden is the president of the board of directors for this non-profit.
Edward Snowden: American government contractor turned most wanted man in the world.
Edward Snowden is an American whistleblower known for his leaks about the NSA’s surveillance program on the public. He was a former US contractor working in various jobs within the US Intelligence community. In 2013 he released documents to the press showing the NSA was spying on regular civilians. His leak showed the US government was operating without any public oversight and outside the limits of the US Constitution.