Edward Snowden, the fugitive former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked secrets about America's spying operations, often hung out online with foreigners in Japan who shared his interests in anime, video games, martial arts, the stock market and the expat lifestyle.
Snowden, who learned Japanese as a teenager, was a Japanophile who had longtime connections to the country and several people here, who perhaps had no idea that their online friend was doing top-secret work for the U.S. government.
Born in 1983, Snowden studied Japanese for a year and a half as a teenager after moving to a city close to the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. He called himself "E-do-waa-do" using the Japanese pronunciation of his name. "I've always dreamed of being able to 'make it' in Japan," he wrote in 2001. "I'd love a cushy .gov job over there, but I hear they'll quarantine your pets for 6 freaking months. I have kitties."