USA TODAY International Edition
Snowden to Twitter: ‘ Can you hear me now?’
Edward Snowden has joined the Twittersphere.
Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked details of U. S. surveillance programs, tweeted, “Can you hear me now?” around noon ET Tuesday. Twitter verified the account.
Snowden was quickly greeted on social media by famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Snowden’s response: “@neiltyson Thanks for the welcome. And now we’ve got water on Mars! Do you think they check passports at the border? Asking for a friend.”
Former three- term New York governor George Pataki, running for the GOP presidential nomination, tweeted harsh words for Snowden: “Some say you have courage, I saw real courage on # Sept11 You are just a traitor who put American lives at risk.”
Snowden amassed more than 300,000 followers in two hours and has over 670,000 at day’s end. He was following one account — the NSA. Snowden, 31, once spent four months in the Army. He was a contractor for Booz Allen Ham- ilton when he leaked details of U. S. surveillance programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post. The first reports were published in June 2013.
He was in hiding in Hong Kong at the time but fled to Moscow. Facing charges of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property, he stayed in Russia when the United States revoked his passport. He works in IT in Moscow and consults for several U. S. companies, his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, said. Snowden’s lawyers have been trying to negotiate a deal that would allow him to return to the USA.