The 29-year-old systems administrator who proudly admitted Sunday to one of the largest breaches of government secrecy in American history appeared to come out of nowhere: He spent his short career in the secret government, not the front lines of the civil liberties fight.

But Edward Snowden's political views, his value system, and his earnest commitment to seeing those values through appear to take at least some of their inspiration from the vast community site Reddit, a place Snowden mentioned in passing in a Sunday interview.

Snowden cited a movement to restore the Fourth Amendment — which bars unreasonable searches and seizures — organized on a subreddit, r/RestoreTheFourth. He voted for libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul. And the Reddit community has already begun to embrace Snowden as one of its own.