There is no doubt in my mind that former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden should have been Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2013. So I was quite surprised when the editors announced on Wednesday their choice was Pope Francis. Not because I am not Catholic or even religious. But if the Person of the Year is someone who has done the most to influence the world in 2013 for better or worse, then Snowden should have had no competitor this year.

Snowden's revelations since early June awakened the whole world - government, corporations and ordinary people alike.

People have realized that they are under massive surveillance, through various NSA programs, such as PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora, and the mining of telephone metadata. They have had to redefine the word privacy.