His family is all fedgov. From infogalactic:
dward Joseph Snowden was born on June 21, 1983,[7] in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.[8] His maternal grandfather, Edward J. Barrett,[9][10] was a rear admiral in the United States Coast Guard who became a senior official with the FBI and was at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 when it was struck by an airliner hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists.[11] Snowden's father, Lonnie Snowden, was also an officer in the Coast Guard,[12] and his mother, Elizabeth B. Snowden, is chief deputy at the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.[13][14][15] His older sister, Jessica, was a lawyer at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington. Snowden said that "in one way or another", his entire family has been employed by the federal government, and that he "expected to pursue the same path".
Also from infogalactic:
Snowden was reportedly interested in Japanese popular culture, had studied the Japanese language,[24] and worked for an anime company that had a resident office in the U.S.[25][26] He also said he had a basic understanding of Mandarin Chinese and was deeply interested in martial arts.
He was very disillusioned (so he said) and did what he did. He was China's boy. Hong Kong. That is why he was allowed to leave. Unless I am wrong, which is very likely.