WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:11.480 Mr. Snowden, did you sleep well the last couple of nights? Because I was reading that you 00:11.480 --> 00:16.120 asked for a kind of police protection. Are there any threats? 00:16.120 --> 00:23.140 There are significant threats, but I sleep very well. There was an article that came 00:23.140 --> 00:29.000 out in an online outlet called BuzzFeed where they interviewed officials from the Pentagon, 00:29.000 --> 00:33.680 from the National Security Agency, and they gave them anonymity to be able to say what 00:33.680 --> 00:40.800 they wanted. And what they told the reporter was that they wanted to murder me. These individuals, 00:40.800 --> 00:45.920 and these are acting government officials, they said they wanted, they would be happy, 00:45.920 --> 00:52.440 they would love to put a bullet in my head, to poison me as I was returning from the grocery 00:52.440 --> 00:56.800 store and have me die in the shower. But fortunately you're still alive with us. 00:56.800 --> 01:04.440 Right, but I'm still alive. And I don't lose sleep because I've done what I feel I needed to do. It 01:04.440 --> 01:06.880 was the right thing to do and I'm not going to be afraid. 01:06.880 --> 01:11.740 The greatest fear I have, and I quote you, regarding these disclosures is nothing will 01:11.740 --> 01:17.000 change. That was one of your greatest concerns at the time. But in the meantime, there is a vivid 01:17.000 --> 01:23.360 discussion about the situation with the NSA, not only in America but also in Germany and in 01:23.360 --> 01:31.320 Brazil. And President Obama was forced to go public and to justify what the NSA was doing on 01:31.320 --> 01:37.040 legal grounds. What we saw initially in response to the revelations was sort of a circling of the 01:37.040 --> 01:43.840 wagons of government around the National Security Agency. Instead of circling around the public and 01:43.840 --> 01:50.800 protecting their rights, the political class circled around the security state and protected 01:50.800 --> 01:57.480 their rights. What's interesting is, though that was the initial response, since then we've seen 01:57.480 --> 02:01.880 a softening. We've seen the president acknowledge that when he first said we've drawn the right 02:01.880 --> 02:07.040 balance, there are no abuses. We've seen him and his officials admit that there have been abuses. 02:07.040 --> 02:11.920 There have been thousands of violations of the National Security Agency and other agencies, 02:11.920 --> 02:14.880 authorities every single year. 02:14.880 --> 02:20.880 Is the speech of Obama recently the beginning of a serious regulation? 02:20.880 --> 02:27.520 It was clear from the president's speech that he wanted to make minor changes to preserve 02:27.520 --> 02:33.520 authorities that we don't need. The president created a review board from officials that were 02:33.520 --> 02:40.800 personal friends, from national security insiders, former deputy of the CIA, people who had every 02:40.800 --> 02:47.040 incentive to be soft on these programs and to see them in the best possible light. But what they 02:47.040 --> 02:53.120 found was that these programs have no value. They've never stopped a terrorist attack in the 02:53.120 --> 02:58.080 United States and they have marginal utility at best for other things. The only thing that the 02:58.640 --> 03:04.800 Section 215 phone metadata program, actually it's a broader metadata program, a bulk collection, 03:04.800 --> 03:12.800 bulk collection means mass surveillance program, was in stopping or detecting $8,500 wire transfer 03:12.800 --> 03:18.320 from a cab driver in California. And it's this kind of review where insiders go, we don't need 03:18.320 --> 03:23.840 these programs. These programs don't make us safe. They take a tremendous amount of resources to run 03:24.400 --> 03:29.440 and they offer us no value. They go, we can modify these. The National Security Agency 03:29.440 --> 03:35.840 operates under the president's executive authority alone. He can end or modify or direct a change in 03:35.840 --> 03:42.000 their policies at any time. For the first time, President Obama did concede that the NSA collects 03:42.000 --> 03:48.080 and stores trillions of data. Every time you pick up the phone, dial a number, write an email, make 03:48.080 --> 03:54.720 a purchase, travel on the bus carrying a cell phone, swipe a card somewhere, you leave a trace. 03:54.720 --> 04:01.280 And the government has decided that it's a good idea to collect it all, everything, even if you've 04:01.280 --> 04:07.440 never been suspected of any crime. Traditionally, the government would identify a suspect. They 04:07.440 --> 04:13.760 would go to a judge. They would say, we suspect he's committed this crime. They would get a warrant 04:13.760 --> 04:17.840 and then they would be able to use the totality of their powers in pursuit of the investigation. 04:18.400 --> 04:23.680 Nowadays, what we see is they want to apply the totality of their powers in advance prior to an 04:23.680 --> 04:31.760 investigation. You started this debate. Edward Snowden is in the meantime a household name for 04:32.320 --> 04:37.840 the whistleblower in the age of the internet. You were working till last summer for the NSA and 04:37.840 --> 04:44.800 during this time you collected secretly thousands of confidential documents. What was the decisive 04:44.800 --> 04:50.480 moment or was there a long period of time or something happening? Why did you do this? I would 04:50.480 --> 04:57.040 say sort of the breaking point is seeing the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, 04:57.680 --> 05:06.800 directly lie under oath to Congress. There's no saving an intelligence community that believes 05:06.800 --> 05:15.840 it can lie to the public and the legislators who need to be able to trust it and regulate its 05:15.840 --> 05:22.640 actions. Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back. Beyond that, it was the creeping 05:22.640 --> 05:28.480 realization that no one else was going to do this. The public had a right to know about these 05:28.480 --> 05:36.240 programs. The public had a right to know that which the government is doing in its name and that which 05:36.240 --> 05:42.800 the government is doing against the public. But neither of these things we were allowed to discuss, 05:42.800 --> 05:48.960 we were allowed to know. Even the wider body of our elected representatives were prohibited from 05:48.960 --> 05:55.520 knowing or discussing these programs and that's a dangerous thing. The only review we had 05:56.160 --> 06:01.760 was from a secret court, the FISA court, which is a sort of rubber stamp authority. When you are on 06:01.760 --> 06:08.400 the inside, when you go into work every day, when you sit down at the desk and you realize the power 06:08.400 --> 06:14.640 you have, you can wiretap the President of the United States, you can wiretap the federal judge, 06:14.640 --> 06:20.240 and if you do it carefully, no one will ever know because the only way the NSA discovers abuses 06:20.240 --> 06:27.040 are from self-reporting. We are not talking only of the NSA as far as this is concerned. There is a 06:27.040 --> 06:33.680 multilateral agreement for cooperation among the services and this alliance of intelligence 06:33.680 --> 06:40.720 operations is known as the Five Eyes. What agencies and countries belong to this alliance and what is 06:40.720 --> 06:49.040 its purpose? The Five Eyes alliance is sort of an artifact of the post-World War II era, where the 06:49.040 --> 06:55.920 Anglophone countries of the major powers banded together to sort of cooperate and share the costs 06:55.920 --> 07:02.240 of intelligence gathering infrastructure. So we have the UK's GCHQ, we have the US NSA, 07:02.240 --> 07:08.400 we have Canada's CSEC, we have the Australian Signals Intelligence Directorate, and we have New 07:08.400 --> 07:16.240 Zealand's DSD. What the result of this was over decades and decades was sort of a supra-national 07:16.720 --> 07:22.880 intelligence organization that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries. In many countries, 07:22.880 --> 07:30.880 as in America too, the agencies like the NSA are not allowed to spy within their own borders on 07:30.880 --> 07:40.240 their own people. So the Brits, for example, they can spy on everybody but the Brits, but the NSA 07:40.240 --> 07:46.880 can contact surveillance in England. So at the very end, they could exchange their data and it would 07:46.880 --> 07:52.160 be, they would be strictly following the law. If you asked the governments about this directly, 07:52.160 --> 07:57.760 they would deny it and point to policy agreements between the members of the Five Eyes, saying that 07:57.760 --> 08:05.840 they won't spy on each other's citizens. But there are a couple key points there. One is that the way 08:05.840 --> 08:11.920 they define spying is not the collection of data. The GCHQ is collecting an incredible amount of 08:11.920 --> 08:17.760 data on British citizens, just as the National Security Agency is gathering enormous amount of 08:17.760 --> 08:23.760 data on US citizens. What they're saying is that they will not then target people within that data. 08:23.760 --> 08:29.120 They won't look for UK citizens or British citizens. In addition, the policy agreements between them 08:29.120 --> 08:34.480 that say British won't target US citizens, US won't target British citizens, are not legally 08:34.480 --> 08:41.760 binding. The actual memorandums of agreement state specifically on that, that they're not intended 08:42.400 --> 08:48.400 to put a legal restriction on any government. They're policy agreements that can be deviated 08:48.400 --> 08:53.120 from or broken at any time. So if they want to spy on a British citizen, they can spy on a British 08:53.120 --> 08:58.080 citizen. And then they can even share that data with the British government that is itself 08:58.080 --> 09:04.960 forbidden from spying on UK citizens. So there is a sort of a trading dynamic there, but it's not 09:04.960 --> 09:11.600 open, it's more of a nudge and a wink. And beyond that, the key is to remember that the surveillance 09:11.600 --> 09:17.280 and the abuse doesn't occur when people look at the data, it occurs when people gather the data 09:17.280 --> 09:22.720 in the first place. How narrow is the cooperation of the German Secret Service BND with the 09:22.720 --> 09:27.520 NSA and the Five Eyes? I would describe it as intimate. As a matter of fact, the first way I 09:27.520 --> 09:32.960 described it in a written interview was that the German services and the US services are in bed 09:32.960 --> 09:38.960 together. They not only share information, the reporting, the results from intelligence, but they 09:38.960 --> 09:44.080 actually share the tools and the infrastructure. They work together against joint targets and 09:44.080 --> 09:51.680 services. And there's a lot of danger in this. One of the major programs that that faces abuse 09:51.680 --> 09:57.680 in the National Security Agency is what's called X-key score. It's a front end search engine that 09:57.680 --> 10:03.840 allows them to look through all of the records they collect through worldwide every day. What 10:03.840 --> 10:08.400 could you do if you would sit, so to speak, on their place with this kind of instrument? You could 10:08.400 --> 10:14.800 read anyone's email in the world. Anybody you've got an email address for, any website you can 10:14.800 --> 10:20.880 watch traffic to and from, any computer that an individual sits at, you can watch it, any lap 10:20.880 --> 10:25.680 top that you're tracking. You can follow it as it moves from place to place throughout the world. 10:25.680 --> 10:33.600 It's a one-stop shop for access to the NSA's information. And what's more, you can tag 10:33.600 --> 10:41.840 individuals using X-key score. Where, let's say I saw you once and I thought what you were doing was 10:41.840 --> 10:47.040 interesting. Or you just have access that's interesting to me. Let's say you work at a major 10:47.040 --> 10:53.840 German corporation and I want access to that network. I can track your username on a website, 10:53.840 --> 10:59.360 on a forum somewhere. I can track your real name. I can track associations with your friends. 10:59.360 --> 11:05.840 And I can build what's called a fingerprint, which is network activity unique to you. Which 11:05.840 --> 11:11.120 means anywhere you go in the world, anywhere you try to sort of hide your online presence, 11:11.120 --> 11:18.080 hide your identity, the NSA can find you. And anyone who's allowed to use this or who the NSA 11:18.080 --> 11:24.400 shares the software with can do the same thing. Germany is one of the countries that has access 11:24.400 --> 11:31.440 to X-key score. It sounds rather frightening. The question is, does the BND deliver 11:31.440 --> 11:42.160 data of Germans to the NSA? Whether the BND does it directly or knowingly, the NSA gets German data. 11:42.160 --> 11:48.960 Whether it's provided, I can't speak to until it's been reported because it would be classified. 11:48.960 --> 11:54.800 And I prefer that journalists make the distinctions and the decisions about what is public interest 11:54.800 --> 12:01.840 and what should be published. However, it's no secret that every country in the world has 12:02.720 --> 12:07.520 the data of their citizens in the NSA. Millions and millions and millions of data connections 12:07.520 --> 12:13.520 from Germans going about their daily lives, talking on their cell phones, sending SMS messages, 12:13.520 --> 12:20.720 visiting websites, buying things online. All of this ends up at the NSA. And it's reasonable to 12:20.720 --> 12:28.400 suspect that the BND may be aware of it in some capacity. Now, whether or not they actively provide 12:28.400 --> 12:35.440 the information, I should not say. The BND basically argues if we do this, we do this 12:35.440 --> 12:41.840 accidentally actually and our filter didn't work. Right. So the kind of things that they're discussing 12:41.840 --> 12:48.640 there are two things. They're talking about filtering of ingest, which means when the 12:48.640 --> 12:54.640 NSA puts a secret server in a German telecommunications provider or they hack a German router 12:54.640 --> 12:59.840 and they divert the traffic in a manner that lets them search through things, they're saying, 12:59.840 --> 13:06.880 if I see what I think is a German talking to another German, I'll drop it. But how do you know? 13:06.880 --> 13:12.560 You could say, well, these people are speaking the German language. This IP address seems to be from 13:12.560 --> 13:18.080 a German company to another German company, but that's not accurate. And they wouldn't dump all of 13:18.080 --> 13:24.080 that traffic because they'll get people who are targets of interest, who are actively in Germany 13:24.080 --> 13:28.480 using German communications. So realistically, what's happening is when they say there's no 13:28.480 --> 13:34.800 spying on Germans, they don't mean the German data isn't being gathered. They don't mean that 13:34.800 --> 13:40.880 records aren't being taken or stolen. What they mean is that they're not intentionally spying on 13:40.880 --> 13:47.360 Germans. That means that they're not intentionally searching for German citizens. And that's sort of 13:47.360 --> 13:53.760 a fingers crossed behind the back promise. It's not reliable. What's about other European countries 13:53.760 --> 13:59.440 like Norway and Sweden, for example, because we have a lot of, I think, underwater cables going 13:59.440 --> 14:07.920 through the Baltic Sea? So this is sort of an expansion of the same idea. If the NSA isn't 14:07.920 --> 14:13.440 collecting information on German citizens in Germany, are they as soon as it leaves German 14:13.440 --> 14:18.960 borders? And the answer is yes. Any single communication that transits the Internet, the 14:18.960 --> 14:24.880 NSA may intercept at multiple points. They might see it in Germany, they might see it in Sweden, 14:24.880 --> 14:28.320 they might see it in Norway or Finland, they might see it in Britain, and they might see it in the 14:28.320 --> 14:35.360 United States. Any single one of these places that a German communication crosses, it'll be 14:35.360 --> 14:41.360 projected and added to the database. So let's come to our Southern European neighbors then. 14:41.360 --> 14:48.080 What's about Italy? What's about France? What's about Spain? It's the same deal worldwide. 14:48.080 --> 14:55.760 Does the NSA spy on Siemens, on Mercedes, on other successful German companies, for example, 14:55.760 --> 15:01.680 to prevail, to have the advantage of knowing what is going on in the scientific and the economic 15:01.680 --> 15:08.160 world? I don't want to preempt the editorial decisions of journalists. But what I will say 15:08.160 --> 15:15.120 is there's no question that the US is engaged in economic spying. If there's information at 15:15.120 --> 15:21.520 Siemens that they think would be beneficial to the national interests, not the national security of 15:21.520 --> 15:26.880 the United States, they'll go after that information and they'll take it. There is this old saying, 15:26.880 --> 15:32.960 you do whatever you can do. So the NSA is doing whatever is technically possible. 15:32.960 --> 15:37.920 This is something that the president touched on last year, where he said, just because we can do 15:37.920 --> 15:43.120 something, and this was in relation to tapping Angela Merkel's phone, just because we can do 15:43.120 --> 15:48.160 something doesn't mean that we should. And that's exactly what's happened. The technological 15:48.160 --> 15:54.480 capabilities that have been provided because of sort of weak security standards in internet 15:54.480 --> 16:02.480 protocols and cellular communications networks have meant that intelligence services can 16:04.480 --> 16:09.360 create systems that see everything. Nothing annoyed the German government more than the 16:09.360 --> 16:14.960 fact that the NSA taped the private phone of the German Chancellor Merkel over the last 10 years, 16:14.960 --> 16:22.240 obviously. Suddenly this invisible surveillance was connected with a known face and was not 16:22.240 --> 16:30.000 connected with a kind of watery, shabby terrorist background. Obama now promised to stop snooping 16:30.000 --> 16:38.240 on Merkel, which raises the question, did the NSA tape already previous governments in Germany, 16:38.240 --> 16:42.240 previous chancellors? And when did they do that? And how long did they do this for? 16:43.760 --> 16:49.600 This is a particularly difficult question for me to answer because there's information that I very 16:49.600 --> 16:54.720 strongly believe is in the public interest. However, as I've said before, I prefer for 16:54.720 --> 17:01.520 journalists to make those decisions in advance, review the material themselves, and decide whether 17:01.520 --> 17:09.840 or not the public value of this information outweighs the sort of reputational cost to the 17:09.840 --> 17:17.760 officials that ordered the surveillance. What I can say is we know Angela Merkel was monitored by 17:17.760 --> 17:24.720 the National Security Agency. The question is, how reasonable is it to assume that she's the only 17:24.720 --> 17:31.920 German official that was monitored? How reasonable is it to believe that she's the only prominent 17:31.920 --> 17:40.000 German face who the National Security Agency was watching? I would suggest it seems unreasonable 17:40.000 --> 17:46.720 that if anyone was concerned about the intentions of German leadership, that they would only watch 17:46.720 --> 17:54.560 Merkel and not her aides, not other prominent officials, not heads of ministries, or even local 17:54.560 --> 18:05.360 government officials. How does a young man from Elizabeth City in North Carolina, 30 years old, 18:06.400 --> 18:13.680 get in such a position in such a sensitive area? That's a very difficult question to answer. 18:13.680 --> 18:21.200 In general, I would say it highlights the dangers of privatizing government functions. 18:21.200 --> 18:27.040 I worked previously as an actual staff officer, a government employee for the Central Intelligence 18:27.040 --> 18:34.720 Agency, but I've also served much more frequently as a contractor in a private capacity. 18:35.440 --> 18:43.440 What that means is you have private for-profit companies doing a lot of the work that you 18:43.440 --> 18:51.680 do, doing inherently governmental work like targeted espionage, surveillance, compromising foreign systems. 18:56.000 --> 19:03.120 Anyone who has the skills, who can convince a private company that they have the qualifications 19:03.120 --> 19:09.760 to do so, will be empowered by the government to do that. There's very little oversight, 19:09.760 --> 19:15.440 there's very little review. Have you been one of these classical computer kids sitting red-eyed 19:15.440 --> 19:20.800 during the nights in the age of 12, 15, and your father was knocking on your door and saying, 19:20.800 --> 19:24.960 you switch off the light, it's too late now. Did you get your computer skills from that side, 19:24.960 --> 19:30.400 or how did it work? When did you get your first computer? Right, I definitely have had a, 19:30.400 --> 19:39.680 shall we say, a deep informal education in computers and electronic technology. 19:39.680 --> 19:41.760 They've always been fascinating and interesting to me. 19:45.280 --> 19:49.280 The characterization of having your parents telling you to go to bed, I would say is fair. 19:49.280 --> 19:56.240 If one looks to the little public data of your life, one discovers that you obviously wanted to 19:56.240 --> 20:03.360 join in May 2004 the special forces to fight in Iraq. What did motivate you at the time? 20:03.360 --> 20:08.400 You know, special forces looking at you in the very moment means grim fighting and it means 20:08.400 --> 20:15.600 probably killing. And did you ever get to Iraq? No, I didn't get to Iraq. One of the interesting 20:15.600 --> 20:21.680 things about these special forces are that they're not actually intended for direct combat. They're 20:21.680 --> 20:28.160 what's referred to as a force multiplier. They're inserted behind enemy lines. It's a squad that has 20:28.160 --> 20:36.640 a number of different specialties in it, and they teach and enable the local population to resist or 20:36.640 --> 20:43.520 to support U.S. forces in a way that allows the local population a chance to help determine their 20:43.520 --> 20:49.120 own destiny. And I felt that was an inherently noble thing at the time. In hindsight, some of 20:49.120 --> 20:54.000 the reasons that we went into Iraq were not well-founding and I think did a disservice to 20:54.000 --> 20:58.880 everyone involved. What happened to your adventure then? Did you stay long with them or what happened 20:58.880 --> 21:04.080 to you? No, I broke my legs when I was in training and was discharged. So it was a short adventure? 21:05.760 --> 21:13.680 In 2007 the CIA stationed you with a diplomatic cover in Geneva in Switzerland. Why did you join 21:13.680 --> 21:18.240 the CIA by the way? I don't think I can actually answer that one. Okay, if it's what you have been 21:18.240 --> 21:24.400 doing there, forget it, but why did you join the CIA? In many ways I think it's a continuation of 21:24.400 --> 21:31.040 trying to do everything I could to prosecute the public good in the most effective way. 21:31.680 --> 21:37.840 And it's in line with the rest of my government service where I tried to use my technical skills 21:38.560 --> 21:43.200 in the most difficult positions I could find in the world and the CIA offered that. 21:43.200 --> 21:51.600 If we look back, special forces, CIA, NSA, it's not actually the description of a human rights 21:51.600 --> 21:57.840 activist or somebody who becomes a whistleblower afterwards. What happens to you? I think it tells 21:57.840 --> 22:04.320 a story and that's no matter how deeply an individual is embedded in the government, 22:05.200 --> 22:11.760 no matter how faithful to the government they are, no matter how strongly they believe 22:11.760 --> 22:15.360 in the causes of their government as I did during the Iraq war. 22:18.960 --> 22:26.480 People can learn, people can discover the line between appropriate government behavior 22:27.760 --> 22:34.480 and actual wrongdoing and I think it became clear to me that that line had been crossed. 22:34.480 --> 22:40.640 You worked for the NSA through a private contractor with the name Booth Allen Hamilton, 22:40.640 --> 22:46.400 one of the big ones in the business. What is the advantage for the US government or the CIA 22:46.400 --> 22:52.800 to work through a private contractor to outsource a central government function? 22:52.800 --> 22:59.600 Contracting culture of the national security community in the United States is a complex topic. 23:00.400 --> 23:09.920 It's driven by a number of interests between primarily limiting the number of direct government 23:09.920 --> 23:17.760 employees at the same time as keeping lobbying groups in Congress, typically from 23:19.040 --> 23:26.000 very well-funded businesses such as Booth Allen Hamilton. The problem there is you end up in a 23:26.000 --> 23:38.000 situation where government policies are being influenced by private corporations who have 23:38.000 --> 23:46.560 interests that are completely divorced from the public good in mind. The result of that is 23:47.840 --> 23:53.200 what we saw at Booth Allen Hamilton where you have private individuals who have access to 23:53.200 --> 23:58.640 what the government alleges were millions and millions of records that they could walk out 23:58.640 --> 24:02.880 the door with at any time with no accountability, no oversight, no auditing. The government didn't 24:02.880 --> 24:07.440 even know they were gone. At the very end you ended up in Russia. Many of the people 24:07.440 --> 24:15.520 in the intelligence community suspect you made a deal, classified material for asylum here in Russia. 24:15.520 --> 24:21.680 The chief of the task force investigating me as recently as December said that their investigation 24:21.680 --> 24:28.480 had turned up no evidence or indications at all that I had any outside help or contact or had made 24:28.480 --> 24:36.320 a deal of any kind to accomplish my mission. I worked alone. I didn't need anybody's help. I don't 24:36.320 --> 24:42.960 have any ties to foreign governments. I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for 24:42.960 --> 24:50.080 that matter. If I am a traitor who did I betray? I gave all of my information to the American public, 24:50.080 --> 24:55.520 to American journalists who were reporting on American issues. If they see that as treason I 24:55.520 --> 25:01.200 think people really need to consider who do they think they're working for. The public is supposed 25:01.200 --> 25:10.800 to be their boss not their enemy. Beyond that as far as my personal safety I'll never be fully safe 25:10.800 --> 25:16.560 until these systems have changed. After your revelations none of the European countries really 25:16.560 --> 25:22.400 offered you asylum. Where did you apply in Europe for asylum? I can't remember the list of countries 25:22.400 --> 25:28.880 with any specificity because there were many of them but France, Germany were definitely in there 25:28.880 --> 25:37.600 as was the UK. A number of European countries all of whom unfortunately felt that doing the right 25:37.600 --> 25:48.000 thing was less important than supporting US political concerns. One reaction to the NSA 25:48.000 --> 25:54.560 snooping is in the very moment that countries like Germany are thinking to create national 25:54.560 --> 26:01.120 internets and attempt to force internet companies to keep their data in their own country. Does this 26:01.120 --> 26:08.720 work? It's not going to stop the NSA. Let's put it that way. The NSA goes where the data is. If the 26:08.720 --> 26:14.400 NSA can pull text messages out of telecommunication networks in China they can probably manage to get 26:14.400 --> 26:21.360 Facebook messages out of Germany. Ultimately the solution to that is not to try to stick everything 26:21.360 --> 26:29.040 in a walled garden. Although that does raise the level of sophistication and complexity of taking 26:29.040 --> 26:35.840 the information it's also much better simply to secure the information internationally against 26:35.840 --> 26:41.360 everyone rather than playing let's move the data. Moving the data isn't fixing the problem. 26:41.360 --> 26:48.240 Securing the data is the problem. President Obama in the very moment obviously doesn't care too much 26:48.240 --> 26:58.240 about the message of the league and together with the NSA they do care very much more about catching 26:58.240 --> 27:04.480 the messenger in that context. Obama asked the Russian president several times to extradite you 27:04.480 --> 27:10.960 but he did not. It looks that you will stay till the rest of your life probably in Russia. How do 27:10.960 --> 27:18.640 you feel about Russia in that context? Is there a solution to this problem? I think it's becoming 27:18.640 --> 27:25.040 increasingly clear that these leaks didn't cause harm. In fact they serve the public good. Because 27:25.040 --> 27:31.200 of that I think it'll be very difficult to maintain sort of an ongoing campaign of persecution against 27:31.200 --> 27:38.240 someone who the public agrees serves the public interest. The New York Times wrote a very long 27:38.240 --> 27:45.200 comment and demanded clemency for you. The headline Edward Snowden whistleblower and I quote from that 27:45.200 --> 27:50.480 the public learned in great detail how the agency has extended its mandate and abused its authority 27:50.480 --> 27:56.960 and the New York Times closes. President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to 27:56.960 --> 28:03.440 end Mr Snowden's vilification and give him an incentive to return home. Did you get a call in 28:03.440 --> 28:10.080 between from the White House? I've never received a call from the White House and I'm not waiting by 28:10.080 --> 28:17.360 the phone but I would welcome the opportunity to talk about how we can bring this to a conclusion 28:17.360 --> 28:23.200 that serves the interests of all parties. I think it's clear there are times where what is lawful 28:23.200 --> 28:29.120 is distinct from what is rightful. There are times throughout history and it doesn't take long for 28:29.120 --> 28:34.800 either an American or a German to think about times in the history of their country where the law 28:35.600 --> 28:40.880 provided the government to do things which were not right. President Obama obviously is in the 28:40.880 --> 28:47.280 very moment not quite convinced of that because he said to you are charged with three felonies 28:47.280 --> 28:54.720 and I quote if you Edward Snowden believe in what you did you should go back to America 28:54.720 --> 29:00.640 appear before the court with a lawyer and make your case. Is this the solution? It's interesting 29:00.640 --> 29:06.640 because he mentions three felonies. What he doesn't say is that the crimes that he's charged me with 29:07.520 --> 29:14.240 are crimes that don't allow me to make my case. They don't allow me to defend myself in an open 29:14.240 --> 29:22.560 court to the public and convince a jury that what I did was to their benefit. The espionage act 29:22.560 --> 29:31.280 was never intended. It's from 1918. It was never intended to prosecute journalistic sources, people 29:31.280 --> 29:36.800 who are informing the newspapers about information that's of public interest. It was intended for 29:36.800 --> 29:43.600 people who are selling documents in secret to foreign governments who are bombing bridges, 29:43.600 --> 29:51.200 who are sabotaging communications, not people who are serving the public good. So it's I would say 29:51.200 --> 30:01.920 illustrative that the president would choose to say someone should face the music when he knows 30:01.920 --> 30:21.760 the music is a show trial. Edward Snowden thank you very much for the interview. Thank you.