Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has a new gig, working as a technical support for a Russian website.
Edward Snowden has a new gig.
The 30-year-old former NSA contractor, who blew the lid off the agency's surveillance programs over the summer, has found a job in Russia– working, ironically, as technical support at a major website there.
Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Snowden will begin working at one of Russia's largest websites on Nov. 1.
“I can’t say the name of the website now for security reasons,” Kucherena added.
After fleeing to Hong Kong, Snowden was eventually granted temporary asylum in Russia in August. He faces espionage charges in the U.S. for leaking documents about the NSA’s phone-records grab and internet data-mining operations.
Snowden’s exact location in Russia is unknown.
There is some speculation Snowden may be working for VKontakete.ru, the Russian version of Facebook. After Snowden was granted asylum, Pavel Durov, the founder of the social networking site, publicly offered him a job.
Earlier this month, the fugitive’s father, Lon Snowden, visited his son in Russia. He told reporters at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport that his son is “comfortable, he is independent, he is happy.”
His father added, “My feeling is that, unless the attitude within our government changes dramatically – and that at a minimum is going to require a change of administration and that’s going to be in several years -- that Russia is the place for him to be at the current time."
