Snowden to Critics: Questioning Putin Has Opened Conversation About Surveillance

The Guardian carries Edward Snowden's detailed rebuttal to critics who say that his recent live-TV interaction with Vladimir Putin, in which Snowden asked whether the Russian government was engaged in spying on Russian citizens' communications, was a scripted moment intended to curry or maintain favor with Putin. After all, Snowden is currently living in Russia, where he has been granted only temporary harbor, goes this argument, so he is at the mercy of the Russian government, and has just gamely thrown Putin a softball. (Slashdot reader Rambo Tribble said the exchange had a "canned quality," a sentiment widely echoed.) Snowden writes that, far from being a whitewash of actual policies by the Russian government, his question ("Does [your country] intercept, analyse or store millions of individuals' communications?") "was intended to mirror the now infamous exchange in US Senate intelligence committee hearings between senator Ron Wyden and the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, about whether the NSA collected records on millions of Americans, and to invite either an important concession or a clear evasion"; he decribes Putin's answer as a combination of inconsistent denial and evasion. Snowden writes: "I blew the whistle on the NSA's surveillance practices not because I believed that the United States was uniquely at fault, but because I believe that mass surveillance of innocents – the construction of enormous, state-run surveillance time machines that can turn back the clock on the most intimate details of our lives – is a threat to all people, everywhere, no matter who runs them. Last year, I risked family, life, and freedom to help initiate a global debate that even Obama himself conceded 'will make our nation stronger.' I am no more willing to trade my principles for privilege today than I was then. I understand the concerns of critics, but there is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials' claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims."

Comments

Speechless ...

[Taco Cowboy]

We are talking about Snowden, a person who spilled the beans of the tyrannical secret program of a supposedly democratic country and thus, helped hundreds of millions (if not billions) to aware of the evil surveillance program that had trespassed on their privacy and this guy ...

I'm speechless !!

Imagine for a minute, an associate of Alan Turing escaping Bletchely Park in 1944 with files recording the facility's activity â" and with details of its capability to decrypt Enigma traffic.

He is outraged about the government's attempts â" often successful â" to intercept other people messages (some intercepts leading to deaths of hundreds) and is smart enough to envision the future, where such ungentlemanly conduct will become common place. And so he goes public with the materials he took with him, holding a press-conference somewhere â" say, in Switzerland.

Because none of the UK allies will have him, and he fears the Allies' long hand in neutral Switzerland, he takes refuge in Germany, where he is promptly drained of all the information he carries (in files and head)? Germans modify their encryption practices and Bletchley Park is no longer able to decode the communications.

Should the man's life not be hell after that? Or should he simply be hung for treason?

Snowden / Putin

[Suffering Bastard]

Snowden has exercised great courage and fortitude throughout this process. I think it's fair to say that most of us here cannot imagine how we'd hold up under the conditions he's living with. It would seem reasonable to assume that Putin has thought long and hard about how to use Snowden as a political pawn. He basically has Snowden by the (rather large) balls and could theoretically leverage that any way he chooses.

So to see that all that's happened so far is that Snowden has "lobbed a softball," asking a semantically consistent and valid, if politically weak, question for Putin to prop himself up a little is to me fairly remarkable. Why not force Snowden to ask more questions and fawn over Putin's greatness? You know, say things like "I am so impressed with the upholding of law and order in Russia. Putin is truly a great statesman." Does Snowden hold some card(s) that keeps Putin somewhat at bay?

Moreover, Putin must have read this latest article by Snowden, and Snowden would be expecting that. He's free enough -- or courageous enough -- to continue to speak his mind.

Like the way Snowden (okay, the press) has handled the release of information against the NSA, I'm highly impressed with his skillful handling of what must be a very difficult situation. He has shown heroism for his actions in service to his country, while showing brilliance in surviving his circumstances. My hat -- heck all my hats -- are off to him.