Thanks to Golden Age of Gaia.
sage: A busy man is our Mr Snowden. In Story 1 he accepts a job maintaining Russia’s largest website and, in Story 2, Snowden contacts Germany offering to testify in the case of NSA wiretapping of German PM Angela Merkel.
Story 1 – NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden to Work For One of Russia’s Most Popular Websites
By Alec Luhn, The Independent – October 31, 2013
The former National Security Agency contractor exposed wide-reaching American surveillance programmes like Prism.
US spy agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has found a job at a major Russian website and will start work on Friday, his lawyer said, in another indication he will stay in the country long-term.
Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who has been the only public link to Mr Snowden in Russia, told Russian news outlets that the former National Security Agency contractor had found IT-related work.
“He’ll be working at one of the largest companies, maintaining the largest website in our country,” Mr Kucherena said.
The lawyer refused to name the website out of concern for Mr Snowden’s safety, noting only that it was not a government agency.
Mr Snowden was stranded in a Moscow airport in June after his leaks began exposing wide-reaching US surveillance programs like Prism.
He received a year’s temporary asylum in Russia on 1 August and since then has been residing in an undisclosed location outside Moscow, learning Russian and travelling in the country, according to Mr Kucherena. Life News, which first reported news of Mr Snowden’s new job, also published a photograph of the whistleblower with Moscow’s iconic Christ the Saviour Cathedral in the background, apparently on a boat cruise down the Moscow River.
Mr Kucherena’s ambiguous comments set off speculation over where the whistleblower might be working. The search engine Yandex is reportedly the most popular website in Russia, but the most popular social network, VKontakte, offered Mr Snowden a job soon after he received asylum.
The chief executive and founder Pavel Durov sent an invite to Mr Snowden, via his VKontakte page, to join his staff and work on “protecting the personal data of millions of users”. Yandex and Russia’s most popular email service, Mail.ru, both denied that Mr Snowden would be working for them, while VKontakte declined to comment on the news.
A statement from Ecuador President Rafael Correa on Tuesday that the country would still consider an asylum application from Mr Snowden is “not relevant” right now, Mr Kucherena said. Asked if Snowden might stay in Russia for the long term and obtain Russian citizenship, Mr Kucherena said that he doesn’t think his charge “currently has any wish to travel to some other country”.
Photo: Snowden with Hans-Christian Stroebele, German MP
Story 2 - Snowden Ready to Testify in Merkel Tapping Case – German Lawmaker
Russia Today – October 31, 2013
Whistleblower Edward Snowden has met with a German MP in Moscow. He passed a letter addressed to the German government and federal public prosecutor where he allegedly said he is ready to testify over Washington’s probable wiretapping of Merkel’s phone.
During the meeting, Snowden made it “clear that he knows a lot,” Greens lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele told ARD channel.
“He expressed his principle readiness to help clarify the situation. Basis for this is what we must create. That’s what we discussed for a long time and from all angles,” the MP said. “He is essentially prepared to come to Germany and give testimony, but the conditions must be discussed.”
Stroebele, 74, is a member of the German parliament’s control committee which is responsible for monitoring the work of intelligence agencies.
Snowden was told that he could potentially give evidence from Moscow. More details about the meeting are expected on Friday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has dispatched the country’s top foreign affairs and intelligence advisers to Washington this week to further investigate the allegations that her cell phone was tapped by the NSA, the report which caused fierce outrage in Germany.
The scandal initially broke when journalists working with Snowden’s leaked documents contacted the German government for clarification. German politicians subsequently suggested involving Snowden as a witness in the wiretapping case.
The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office may summon Snowden to be a witness in the case, German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Deutschlandfunk radio on Sunday.
“If our suspicions prove correct and a case is opened, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office will have to consider the possibility of interrogating Snowden as a witness,” she said.
If Snowden were to come to Germany for the case, the EU country could breach US’ requests for extradition, the minister added.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger also said that the phone tapping is illegal and constitutes a crime, therefore those responsible should be held accountable.
A parliamentary session will be held on November 18 to discuss the phone tapping. The Greens, along with the far-left Die Linke party, previously asked for a public inquiry into the matter. They were the ones to call on witnesses, including Snowden.
In June, Edward Snowden, a former NSA (National Security Agency) contractor who disclosed secret US surveillance programs, fled to Hong Kong and then to Russia.
President Vladimir Putin rejected US demands to extradite Snowden to face charges including espionage.
In early August, Snowden was granted temporary asylum, which can be extended annually.
