MOSCOW (Reuters) - Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of U.S. intelligence eavesdropping, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin a question on Thursday during a televised call-in show. The exchange was the first known direct contact between Putin and Snowden since Russia granted the American asylum last summer after he disclosed widespread monitoring of telephone and internet data by the United States and fled the country. Snowden, who has been given refuge in Russia, was not in the studio where Putin was speaking. He submitted his question in a video clip, and it was not immediately clear if he was speaking live or if it had been recorded earlier. Snowden, wearing a jacket and open-collar shirt and speaking before a dark background, asked Putin: "Does Russia intercept, store or analyze, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?" He also asked whether Putin believes improving the effectiveness of investigations justifies "placing societies .. under surveillance". He was speaking in English, and Putin had to ask the anchor for help with a translation of the question. Putin, a former spy during Soviet rule, raised a laugh among the studio audience when he said: "You are an ex-agent. I used to have ties to intelligence." Turning to Snowden's question, Putin said Russia regulates communications as part of criminal investigations, but "on a massive scale, on an uncontrolled scale we certainly do not allow this and I hope we will never allow it." He said the Russian authorities need consent from a court to conduct such surveillance on a specific individual "and for this reason there is no (surveillance) of a mass character here and cannot be in accordance with the law". The televised exchange allowed Putin to portray Russia as less intrusive in the lives of its citizens than the United States and enabled Snowden to suggest that he is concerned about surveillance practices not only in the United Sates but in other countries, including the one that is sheltering him. Putin's refusal to hand Snowden over to the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges, added to strained ties between Russia and the United States that have now been even more badly damaged by turmoil in Ukraine and Russia's annexation of Crimea. Snowden was granted asylum for at least a year. (Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Additional reporting by Polina Devitt, Andrey Kuzmin, Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Steve Gutterman)
Poster Comment:
Nick Honestly'I don't think Snowden made much of a difference.No matter what the Government is still going to do it.Simply because they can.I am not trying to sound jerk.I am just looking at it from what I preseve a logical manner.Today I heard one of my friends say this(if they do this their is gonna be a war).I simply told him that they have tanks,sub,soilders,assault rifles,missels,rockets,and people to use them.Honestly if a cival war does happen to break out I am sorry to say the Government would win easly.
Peet Two things to note(without protecting any government or misuse of powers): 1. The ability to look at personal info(cellular calls or listen in etc) and the mass collection of everyone's personal activities are two different things and should be treated as such. 2. It is obvious why the ability to get a warrant to listen in on cellular calls to bust some is important, but the mass collection has its pros and cons just as well. To spot a #$%$ or terrorist is hard and then to prove it takes time also, in the mean time people lives are on the line. If you have mass data collection, as soon as you have a potential #$%$/terrorist identified, from the mass data it is fairly easy to narrow down if it is provable and if really a #$%$ or not immediately. Potentially saving tons of time and possibly human lives and being proactive in avoiding a terrorist event. So which would you prefer... an absolute privacy, but potential that the government can't protect you from an avoidable disaster, or push for better security on personal data that is made available to the government for research to possibly avoid terrorist events? To some it maybe an easy question.. to some it isn't so easy. If you reply, give your reasoning please... Pro privacy or pro national security...and why +2-1
Guy What do you mean by terrorist? That is a broad term which could mean anyone. People in the white house, D.C., Israeli dual citizens in influential policymaking positions, international banking cabals, wall street money launderers, congressmen ... I think somewhere at the very bottom of the list are the people you're thinking of ... random foreigners who blow things up, but which never seems to happen ... hmmm maybe terrorism doesn't really exist?+4-3
E The fact that he had right of free speech in Russia in front of millions of viewers worldwide and he seemed not under threat was a win for Putin The fact that the subject of discussion was spying on ones owns citizens indicated that in Russia they are not frightened to speak freely about spying and Putins answer sets the precedent that the people of Russia are not under the same regimen as the USA The fact that millions of Americans and millions of EU citizens believe and agree with Snowdens act of valor and that he acted in defense of the people and their right to be the final judge of what is acceptable and what not in their own countries and not some hidden elite pretending to have been given the power by the people when the people were never asked is a testament that the concept of the western free world is dead in America Americans vote in only candidates that bind themselves to major points in their election campaigns One of them is to get them to sign that they will return the privacy to the people or a referendum will be done so the democratic people of the USA will reassert their control of what is right and what not +5-2
