Talking to an audience at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) gathering of tech industry experts, filmmakers and musicians, former government contractor Edward Snowden said that reform plans at the US National Security Agency had vindicated his action to publish classified documents for public viewing. Reuters said Snowden conducted a talk about privacy and security via a video link from a secret location purportedly in Russia.
"I saw that the Constitution was violated on a massive scale. The government has gone and changed their talking points. They have changed their verbiage away from public interest to national interest. We've got the most to lose from being hacked," Snowden has said.
Snowden came into public conscience when he leaked secret documents that detailed a complex and wide-reaching government system that monitors phone and Internet data of individuals and entities. Reuters said the scandal was a deep embarrassment for the Obama administration, and immediately issued a ban on surveillance of the heads of their allies and friendly countries. Big companies also had tightened security measures in light of the revelation as well.
In the tech conference, Snowden emphasized that there is still much to do by the US government, and that a shift of emphasis from collection of information to protection of intellectual property that support the country's economy should have been done.
Republican and Kansas Representative Mike Pompeo attempted to ban Snowden from talking in the conference by writing a request to withdraw their invitation to the former government contractor, Reuters said. Pompeo also stated in his letter that Snowden was a traitor for his act of deception against his employer.
"Rewarding Mr. Snowden's behavior in this way encourages the very lawlessness he exhibited," Pompeo wrote in his letter.
Creative director Roeland Stekelenburg at the Dutch Internet firm Infostrada, like many others at the conference, believed otherwise and said, "To me, Snowden is a patriot who believed that what he did was in the best interests of his country."
