Whistleblower Edward Snowden wants Australians to care more about protecting their privacy, describing it as “the right to individuality.”

In a satellite talk, with a Melbourne audience on Sunday night, from where he lives in exile in Russia, Snowden was also (unsurprisingly) scathing of the new-ish Australian metadata laws.

Even with the new laws, it might still surprise Australians to know that Snowden thinks the intelligence services in Australia are “much more unrestrained than the are in the United States, despite how dire the situation is there.”

In October last year the Government passed the metadata legislation, with bipartisan support, that forces all telecommunications companies to keep the records of their customers for two years.

“We have seen intelligence services in Australia become more aggressive. We have seen the Australian Government pass new laws, indiscriminate dragnet surveillance laws,” he told the crowd.

It means no matter who you are, no matter what you’re doing, no matter how innocent your life may be, you’re being watched."

In 2013, Snowden revealed the full extent of the US Government’s systematic surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA), which ranged from them collections the phone records of tens of millions of its own citizens to bugging foreign embassies around the world.

Australia was also implicated in the leaks when it was revealed it shared information with the US and other countries under the 'Five Eyes' alliance (composed of Australia, the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand).

In the wake of Snowden’s leaks in 2013, the America reigned in the surveillance powers of the NSA, if only modestly, while Australia has gone in the other direction.

Snowden rolled onto the stage via a screen on a segway to join host, the Chaser’s Julian Morrow for the Think Inc event, and apologised for not making it in-person.

“Malcolm Turnbull I do not believe had a favourable opinion in regards to providing a visa, but hey, we're still talking,” he joked.

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The former NSA worker explained why everyone should push back against any loss of privacy, arguing it’s the basis for every other right.

“Privacy is the right to the self.

“What’s the point of freedom of speech if you don’t have the space to think about what it is you want to say?”

“What is the point of freedom of religion if you simply inherit a religion from someone else but did not decide it for yourself, if you didn’t have the space to decide what the truth of the universe really is for you.”

He called on people to read up about privacy issues and start using things like end-to-end encryption.

"On the individual level, there’s awareness. You need to understand, you need to read about this, you need to care about this and you need to understand how this affecting you.”

But, terrorism?

When the talk was opened up to audience questions, the first one was literally, “You’ve seen a lot of secret documents, do you know who did 9/11?”

That aside, Snowden was fairly skeptical of the argument used by governments around the world that mass surveillance programs are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.

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Whatsapp The Guardian newspaper has revealed 29-year-old Edward Snowden is the CIA worker behind the controversial NSA leaks.

Instead, Snowden reckons the information gathered on individuals and groups is mostly used for political and diplomatic advantage.

He pointed to examples of governments spying on journalists, human rights groups and other world leaders.

“These programs were never really about terrorism. Terrorism is the justification for these programs.

"These programs are about economic espionage, diplomatic advantage.”

Snowden pointed out the case in Australia last month where the AFP admitted to using the metadata of Guardian Australia journalist Paul Farrell to find the sources of his stories on asylum seekers.

He also commented on the AFP raids last week of the Labor party offices over leaked NBN documents, questioning the audience about whether they thought it was an appropriate use of police power.

“Is it the role of the AFP to be uncovering the private sources of parliamentarians, of journalists that are revealing issues about scandals, about waste fraud and abuse, about information about abuses of government authority or just revealing matters of public importance?”

If you're not doing anything wrong...

A common argument defending mass surveillance programs is the idea that if you’re not doing anything wrong then you’ve got nothing to hide. It’s an excuse Edward Snowden has no time for.

For starters, it comes from a pretty dark place in history.

“That is literally a piece of Nazi propaganda perpetuated by their minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. I would rather not hear that in Australia, thank you,” Snowden said to applause.

“It’s like saying ‘I don’t care about free speech because I don’t have anything to say.'”

He said people should let politicians know that privacy is something they care about.

“If you ever see a politician talk about this ‘if you have nothing to hide’ kinda language, mark them off your list forever.”

Metadata is just 'the front of the envelope'

Edward Snowden used his own experience as a security analyst to explain how useful metadata is and how much it reveals about a person.

Skip Twitter Tweet FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. George Brandis explains metadata #auspol pic.twitter.com/76NlIveGDp — The Shovel (@TheShovel) August 7, 2014

“For everyone in the room right now that has a cell phone on them, the government knows you are in this room.”

Snowden reckons the metadata is more useful to intelligence analysts than the “content” of your communications.

He used the analogy of a spy who tracks you to clock your movements and who you're meeting with, but doesn’t get close enough to overhear your conversation.

“They know everywhere you’ve been, they know everyone you’ve been in contact with. On the basis of this they know all your associations.

"They know who you talk to the most, they know when you talk to them, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re working, they know how you get to work, they know where you go shopping.

“All of these things are what as an intelligence analyst we call your Pattern of Life.”

Edward Snowden will also speak at a Think Inc event in Sydney on Saturday 28th May.