Snowden Asks Putin Live On TV If Russia Carries Out Mass Surveillance; But Why?

from the what-on-earth-was-he-thinking? dept

Edward Snowden has generally been staying out of the limelight so that the NSA story is about the surveillance not the whistleblower. He's given occasional interviews and delivered a few short speeches via videolink, but usually of a fairly low-key nature. That makes his unexpected appearance today on a marathon televised question-and-answer session with Vladimir Putin -- again by videolink -- extremely odd. Here's his question, as reported by The Guardian: Snowden asked: "Does Russia intercept or store or analyse the communication of millions of individuals?" He went on to ask whether increasing the effectiveness of internal security systems could ever justify such actions. To which Putin replied: "Mr Snowden you are a former agent, a spy, I used to work for a intelligence service, we are going to talk the same language."



He said Russia did not have a comparable programme, stating: "Our agents are controlled by law. You have to get court permission to put an individual under surveillance. We don't have mass permission, and our law makes it impossible for that kind of mass permission to exist."



He said he was aware that "criminals and terrorists" relied on this kind of [technology], and that their actions demanded a response from the security services. "We have to use technical means to respond to their crimes, including those of a terrorist nature, we do have some efforts like that. We don't have a mass control. I hope we [w]on't do that," he said.

It's really hard to know why Snowden asked this question. Perhaps he wanted to emphasize the disproportionate nature of NSA spying by contrasting it with Russia's approach; perhaps he thought his appearance would jolt a jaded public and focus renewed attention on the key issues. But surely he must have guessed that Putin would answer as he did -- whether or not it is true -- that Russia uses surveillance strictly according to the law, that there is no massive, disproportionate spying of the kind practiced by the NSA, etc. etc. He must have known that Putin would easily turn Snowden's question into a wonderful opportunity to score points against the US.

Inevitably, then, this appearance will be leapt on by those who have maintained that Snowden is some kind of Russian spy, and that he has been working for Putin all along. As Techdirt has noted, that story doesn't stand up, but this unexpected intervention by Snowden certainly doesn't do anything to dispel it. For someone who until now has judged when and how to make public statements so skilfully and effectively, this seems like an incredible misstep. It really makes you wonder what might lie behind it.

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Filed Under: ed snowden, fsb, mass surveillance, nsa, russia, surveillance, vladimir putin