In Shadows, Hints of a Life and Even a Job, for Snowden
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Edward J. Snowden’s lawyer said the former N.S.A. contractor agreed to
take a job at an Internet company in Russia, but he declined to discuss
Mr. Snowden’s life in exile.
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: October 31, 2013
MOSCOW — On very rare occasions, almost always at night, Edward J.
Snowden leaves his secret, guarded residence here, somewhere, in Russia.
He is always under close protection. He spends his days learning the
language and reading. He recently finished “Crime and Punishment.”
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Accompanying him is Sarah Harrison, a British activist working with
WikiLeaks. With far less attention, she appears to have found herself
trapped in the same furtive limbo of temporary asylum that the Russian
government granted Mr. Snowden three months ago: safe from prosecution,
perhaps, but far from living freely, or at least openly.
Andrei Soldatov, a journalist who has written extensively about the
security services, said that the F.S.B., the domestic successor to the
Soviet-era intelligence service, clearly controlled the circumstances of
Mr. Snowden’s life now, protecting him and also circumscribing his
activities, even if not directly controlling him.
“He’s actually surrounded by these people,” said Mr. Soldatov, who, with
Irina Borogan, wrote a history of the new Russian security services,
“The New Nobility.”
Hints of his life nonetheless flitter in and out of the public eye. On
Thursday, his lawyer, Anatoly G. Kucherena, said that Mr. Snowden had
agreed to take a job with one of the country’s major Internet companies,
beginning Friday. Mr. Kucherena would not disclose the company or any
other details, and he declined to discuss Mr. Snowden’s life in exile
“because the level of threat from the U.S. government structures is
still very high,” he said in a telephone interview.
At the same time, a news agency believed to have contacts within Russia’s security services, Life News, published a photograph that it said showed Mr. Snowden on a cruise on the Moscow River beside the Kremlin.
A previous, far less convincing photo showed a man resembling him
pushing a cart of groceries in what appeared to be a shopping center
parking lot. A spokeswoman for Life News said that both pictures had
been submitted through its website, and that the senders were paid
100,000 rubles, or slightly under $3,000.
Mr. Soldatov and others cautioned that the hints themselves could be
attempts at misdirection or even propaganda, creating the impression of a
happy, open asylum. The security services now protecting Mr. Snowden,
he said, might not even try to question him soon on what he knows —
perhaps the greatest worry of American officials — but rather simply let
him live in such circumstances and become increasingly dependent on
them.
“He’s free, but he’s not completely free,” said Ray McGovern, a former
C.I.A. official and a member of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity
in Intelligence, which met with Mr. Snowden three weeks ago in his only
verified public appearance since he received asylum on July 31. Even
those who attended were not exactly sure where the meeting took place,
having been driven in a van with darkened windows.
The possibility that Mr. Snowden might work openly here could not be
verified, though the conditions of his asylum would in theory allow it,
and some experts doubted the notion, given Mr. Snowden’s evident desire
to keep a low profile. Other claims about Mr. Snowden’s surreptitious
life here — his whereabouts, his social activities, even his dating —
are unsubstantiated. Nonetheless, interviews with those who have met
with him here have provided some clues to an unintended life in exile in
a country that was not his intended destination when he fled the United
States.
On the day that Russia’s migration agency granted him a one-year temporary asylum,
he was publicly offered a job by the founder of Russia’s most prominent
social network, VKontakte, who said his expertise would help protect
the personal data of the site’s users. A spokesman for the company,
Georgy Lubushkin, declined to comment, and a technology site, Digit.ru,
quoted the company’s technical director, Nikolai Durov, as saying he was
not aware that Mr. Snowden had accepted a job.
Two other prominent Internet companies here, Yandex and Mail.ru, said that Mr. Snowden was not working for them.
“The job offer rumors have been floating around out there,” said
Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department official, who attended the
meeting with Mr. Snowden last month. In a telephone interview on
Thursday, she expressed doubt that he had taken a job. “When I met with
Snowden, his priorities were learning Russian, acclimating to his new
home and helping be involved in surveillance reform.”
Aside from Mr. Kucherena, a bearish man who has handled many prominent cases
here, Mr. Snowden’s main conduit to the world and the efforts to
challenge the extent of American eavesdropping has been Ms. Harrison, a
trusted lieutenant of WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange.
She arrived with Mr. Snowden on a flight from Hong Kong in June that
left them unintentionally stranded in a transit zone at Sheremetyevo
International Airport in Moscow. When Mr. Snowden received permission to
stay in Russia, despite intense American pressure, she was photographed
with him as they left the airport and climbed into a taxi, headed for
the underground existence they have since managed to maintain.
It was through Ms. Harrison and WikiLeaks that the members of the Sam
Adams Associates organized their meeting with Mr. Snowden — possibly,
though not certainly, here in Moscow — to present an award to him for
his leaks.
In an interview
with The New York Times conducted by encrypted email and published two
weeks ago, Mr. Snowden declined to discuss his life here, except to say
that he had not taken any of the secret National Security Agency
documents with him to Russia, that he was not under the control of the
Russian government, and that he was free to move about.
It seems clear that he has access to the Internet, said Mr. McGovern,
the former C.I.A. official, because Mr. Snowden was “thoroughly
informed” about the debate he had started, including testimony by
officials on Capitol Hill trying to explain the operations that his
disclosures have unveiled. “He’s in touch with folks through Sarah
Harrison,” Mr. McGovern said.
Mr. Soldatov said that Mr. Snowden’s life in Russia reminded him not so
much of the defectors from the West who in Soviet times disappeared into
lonely lives of isolation and alcohol, but of the more recent example
of the 10 “sleeper spies” exposed by the United States
in 2010 and expelled to Russia. They were honored on their return and
given medals, and one young woman, Anna Chapman, was celebrated as much
for her looks as for her spy craft.
For all the attention at the time, though, the other spies slipped
incognito back into the furtive world for which they had spent their
lives training.
“When the F.S.B. actually got him, they started to handle it their own
way,” Mr. Soldatov said of Mr. Snowden’s situation now. “This is the way
the security services operate all the time.”
Those who have seen him in Russia say Mr. Snowden appears aware of the
gravity of the situation he has created, but also at peace with his
choice to disclose secrets.
His father, Lon Snowden, who visited him recently, said he was working
“to try to normalize his life.” His son, he said, had no interest in
writing a book or otherwise seeking monetary gain from the disclosures.
He said he did not know if his son would soon begin working, as Mr.
Kucherena said.
“He is safe, secure and happy,” the elder Mr. Snowden said, “and committed to the choice he made.”
Even so, he said he knew very little about his son’s life in Russia and
would not discuss what he did know in detail. “The story isn’t really
about him at this point,” he said.Copy http://international.nytimes.com/
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