In what might be regarded as having the fox guard the henhouse, a leading Russian website has hired fugitive secrets-leaker Edward Snowden to oversee its data protection.
Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Russian news service RIA Novosti that the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor starts his new job today.
Kucherena declined to identify the social media site where Snowden will be working, citing “security reasons.” Snowden’s Russian guardians have expressed fears that U.S. intelligence operatives might snatch Snowden from Russia, if they can find him, and spirit him back to the U.S. to face espionage charges.
Snowden, 30, has stirred global outrage with his disclosures of massive NSA surveillance of phone calls, emails, text messages and other personal communications. In the nearly six months since he left his high-tech job with the NSA, he has released details of secret U.S. counter-terrorism operations that swept up millions of domestic and foreign communications for “data mining.”
The RIA Novosti-related Digit.ru reported that “the only major net resource not to deny hiring” Snowden is VKontakte.ru, a Russian social media site akin to Facebook.
