Edward Snowden has called Australia’s new data retention laws “dangerous” and insisted mass surveillance has allowed acts of terror to occur rather than foiled attacks.



Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the extent of surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency, told a Melbourne audience Australia is adopting data retention laws that “have been proven not to work”.

“Australia’s role in mass surveillance around the world is similar to the UK and the Tempora program,” Snowden said via satellite from Moscow.

“They’ll collect everyone’s communications, it’s called pre-criminal investigation, which means they are watching everyone all the time. They can search through that information not just in Australia but also share with overseas governments such as the US and UK. And it happens without oversight.”

Australia’s metadata laws were passed in March. They require telecommunications companies to store information on their customers for up to two years; a move the federal government has said will help combat terrorism.

Snowden, who was appearing at the Progress 2015 conference on Friday evening, said such laws are a “radical departure from the operation of traditional liberal societies around the world”.

“The impacts of metadata can’t be overstated, they are collecting data on everyone regardless of wrongdoing. When you have metadata, it’s a proxy for content, so when politicians split hairs about metadata you should be very sceptical.”

Snowden said mass surveillance had not stopped the Sydney siege, the Boston marathon bombings or the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France.

“These were people who have a long record and the reason these attacks happened isn’t because we didn’t have enough surveillance, it’s that we had too much,” he said. “We didn’t prioritise because we’d wasted too many resources watching people who didn’t present a threat.”

Snowden said governments needed to cooperate to avoid a world “where we choose between surveillance and security”.

The former NSA computer contractor, who first revealed details of mass surveillance to the Guardian in 2013, spoke on the same day a US federal court ruled mass storage of telephone data was illegal.

Snowden said the ruling was “very significant” and could lead to further legal challenges of mass surveillance.

He also criticised Australia’s attorney general, George Brandis, claiming he “doesn’t even know what metadata is”, and said people who say they don’t worry about their privacy because they have nothing to hide “is like saying I don’t care about free speech because I have nothing to say”.

Greens senator Scott Ludlam, who took part in a panel discussion with Snowden, said intelligence agencies in Australia operate with the “bare minimum of scrutiny”.

“The debate in Australia is so stifled,” he said. “In Australia we’re told these people are traitors, they are a national security threat and to just trust the government as everything will be fine.

“Civil society needs to be stronger on this stuff of we’ll be done over again.”