Carly Mallenbaum, and Natalie DiBlasio

USA TODAY

Guess who called in to a live Russian TV show to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin a question?

None other than the National Security Agency leaker and fugitive Edward Snowden, appearing on a video link.

During a televised question-and-answer session Thursday, Snowden,who exposed U.S. government collection of phone records, asked Putin if Russia spies on its citizens. He said: "Does Russia intercept, store or analyze, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?"

Putin replied that Russia does not have a mass surveillance system but that the country does use technology in criminal cases.

"Mr. Snowden, you are a former agent, a spy, I used to be working for an intelligence service. We are going to talk one professional language," Putin said, according to a translation by news channel Russia Today. "First of all, our intelligence efforts are strictly regulated by our law ... We don't have as much money as they have in the States, and we don't have these technical devices that they have in the States. Our special services, thank God, are strictly controlled by the society and by the law and regulated by the law."

Just a day earlier, Pavel Durov, founder of Russia's main social network, VKontakte, posted online what appeared to be security agency documents requesting personal information from the accounts of 39 groups, all of them linked to the Ukrainian protest movement.

Aftter Putin's comments Thursday, independent Moscow-based security analyst Andrei Soldatov wrote on Twitter, "First, there is no parliamentary oversight of secret services. Second, the FSB (Russia's security agency) is not required to show a warrant to anyone."

Snowden has been charged with espionage and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted for leaking classified documents. He is living in Russia, which granted him asylum for one year.

Contributing: Associated Press



