Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden announced plans to work with Russia, where he’s now residing, to develop anti-surveillance technology aimed at shuttering government spy operations around the globe.

Mr. Snowden called for attendees of the Hackers on Planet Earth conference from Moscow to support the endeavor, ZDNET.com reported.

“We the people — you the people, you in this room right now — have both the means and the capability to improve the future by encoding our rights into programs and protocols by which we rely every day,” he said, ZDNET.com reported. “And that’s what a lot of my future work is going to be involved in, and I hope you’ll join me in making that a reality.”

Mr. Snowden made the remarks to the New York City conference attendees via telelink. He also took time to defend his whistleblower activities.

“If we’re going to have a democracy and an enlightened citizenry, if we’re going to provide the consent of the governed, we have to know what is going on, we have to know the broad outlines of a policy, and we can’t have the government shut us out from every action that they’re doing,” he said, ZDNET.com reported.

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