Charlotte AtenI was quite interested in the fallout from Snowden's revelations about the National Security Agency's spying programs, which happened in my early adulthood. When I attended my first Joint Mathematics Meetings in 2017 I was lucky enough to get to hang out with some analysts from the NSA by way of a mututal friend. I did a "mock interview" (so just a real interview, basically) with some more senior people, which was neat. I remember finding the NSA's "secret theorems" tantalizing.
One night some of us went out drinking and I shared that I had not finished high school. I dropped out and got a GED. They said that was actually not uncommon or a mark against me. I didn't realize at the time that I had this experience in common with Snowden. After drinking a bit more, I asked the analysts whether they were in fact the shadow government. They told me that they could neither confirm nor deny that they were the shadow government, which I found hilarious.