Snowden's wiretapping statement was no surprise to Russia

Head of the committee for information policy, information technologies and communications under the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament Alexei Mitrofanov said the statement by former CIA agent Edward Snowden about U.S. secret services' access to personal data of users of popular Internet services was no surprise to Russia. "Americans have their own gateways for intelligence in social networks; they read and see everything. It's no secret to us," Mitrofanov told a news conference on Tuesday. He reminded that he "talked about it, as did many others, five years ago; it was clear to everybody." "Of course all the /Internet/ resources denied it, insisting that they were independent, but everything was absolutely clear," the lawmaker said. In the case with Snowden's whistle blowing, it is an insider's divulging information that is important. "He did it using facts, with certain tools in his hands," Mitrofanov explained. "This was a surprise, and as for the rest, he confirmed what we had said." In this situation, "the suspect was caught in the act," the lawmaker added.