Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has hired Jared Cohen. Cohen is a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, hired by Condoleezza Rice. Cohen focuses on counter-terrorism in his work and works under Hillary Clinton.

During the post-election Iran protests in 2009, Cohen reached out to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to reschedule their planned maintenance so that Iranians could continue to tweet.

Cohen is going to be building a division at Google called Google Ideas. Essentially Google Ideas will be a think tank within the company’s New York office.

[Fortune]