Edward Snowden Says ‘The Most Powerful Institutions In Society Have Become The Least Accountable’

Written by Ann Brown

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Edward Snowden, the whistleblower, recently declared: “The most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society.” Photo by Random Institute on Unsplash

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor turned whistleblower, recently declared: “The most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society.”

In 2013, Snowden copied and leaked highly classified information from the NSA when he was a CIA employee and subcontractor. He handed over documents to journalists that detailed surveillance programs run by the NSA. The documents revealed that the NSA has tapped cell phone and Internet communications of people in the general public.

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At a recent Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Snodwn asked the audience via video link: “What do you do when the most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society?”

He added: “That’s the question our generation exists to answer.”

Snowden, who was charged with espionage and theft of government property and had his passport revoked, is living in asylum in Russia. He recently released a memoir, “Permanent Record,” for which the U.S sued him, alleging he violated non-disclosure agreements he signed when he worked with the NSA and CIA.

“They don’t like books like this being written,” Snowden said. “We have legalized the abuse of the person through the personal,” he said, adding that the widespread collection of data by governments and corporations entrenches “a system that makes the population vulnerable for the benefit of the privileged.”

According to Snowden, there is too much attention being placed on data protection when it should be focused on data collection, which he says is the true problem. “The problem isn’t data protection, the problem is data collection,” he noted. “Regulation and protection of data presumes that the collection of data in the first place was proper, that it is appropriate, that it doesn’t represent a threat or a danger.”

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. Introduced last year, GDPR “threatens to impose fines of up to 4 percent of a company’s global annual revenues or 20 million euros ($22.3 million) — whichever is the higher amount,” CNBC reported.

“Today those fines don’t exist,” Snowden argued, “and until we see those fines every single year to the Internet giants until they reform their behavior and begin complying not just with the letter but the spirit of the law, it is a paper tiger.”