Edward
J Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor, opened
his Twitter account with a joke on Tuesday. "Can you hear me now?" he
wrote, in a short message that electrified the social network and made
reference to his revelations about the agency's spying on phone calls.
Snowden's first words on his verified account were borrowed from an old television commercial for Verizon, in which an actor playing a technician tested the range of the company's wireless network.
When Snowden disclosed the scope of NSA surveillance and the role of American communications companies by leaking a trove of classified documents in 2013, the first revelation was a secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, which was published by The Guardian, a British daily newspaper.
As word spread that Snowden's account was genuine, and he racked up more than 160,000 followers in his first hour on the social media network, several users noted that he was following only one account: that of the NSA.
Among those welcoming Snowden was Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist who revealed Verizon's role in the NSA's bulk domestic phone records program after meeting the former contractor in Hong Kong and obtaining the documents.
According to Dan Froomkin of The Intercept, Snowden was prodded to join Twitter by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and television host, during an interview on his "Star Talk" radio show. The interview unfolded "via robotic telepresence from Moscow."
Snowden has been living in Moscow since winning temporary asylum in Russia in 2013.
Tyson was among the many users of the network to welcome the whistleblower, and the first to whom Snowden responded, striking up a brief conversation.
Snowden's short Twitter biography reads: "I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public."
It also mentions his role as a director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization "helping support and defend public interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption and lawbreaking in government."
Snowden's first words on his verified account were borrowed from an old television commercial for Verizon, in which an actor playing a technician tested the range of the company's wireless network.
When Snowden disclosed the scope of NSA surveillance and the role of American communications companies by leaking a trove of classified documents in 2013, the first revelation was a secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, which was published by The Guardian, a British daily newspaper.
As word spread that Snowden's account was genuine, and he racked up more than 160,000 followers in his first hour on the social media network, several users noted that he was following only one account: that of the NSA.
Among those welcoming Snowden was Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist who revealed Verizon's role in the NSA's bulk domestic phone records program after meeting the former contractor in Hong Kong and obtaining the documents.
According to Dan Froomkin of The Intercept, Snowden was prodded to join Twitter by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and television host, during an interview on his "Star Talk" radio show. The interview unfolded "via robotic telepresence from Moscow."
Snowden has been living in Moscow since winning temporary asylum in Russia in 2013.
Tyson was among the many users of the network to welcome the whistleblower, and the first to whom Snowden responded, striking up a brief conversation.
Snowden's short Twitter biography reads: "I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public."
It also mentions his role as a director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization "helping support and defend public interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption and lawbreaking in government."
One of the organization's founders was Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War.
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