He pulled in more than 171,000 followers in about an hour but was following only one other Twitter account: his former employer, the NSA.
Can you hear me now?
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015
Snowden’s initial tweet was “Can you hear me now?” The message, a take-off on a cellphone provider television commercial, was retweeted 25,000 times in an hour. In his Twitter profile, Snowden described himself by saying, “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.”
.@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.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015
He had a brief exchange of tweets with prominent astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about the discovery of water on Mars and joked that his work for the Freedom of the Press Foundation keeps him busy, “but I still find time for cat pictures.”
.@neiltyson Hero, traitor — I’m just a citizen with a voice. [1/2]
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015
Supporters see Snowden as a whistleblower who boldly exposed government excess but the U.S. government wants to try him for leaking intelligence information.
.@neiltyson, @DanielEllsberg told me #labels never stopped progress. Neither in 1776 nor today. [2/2] pic.twitter.com/CzRZ6ur6xc
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015
Snowden left the United States in May 2013 and has been living in Russia since June of that year.
Meanwhile, a thousand people at Fort Meade just opened Twitter.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015
