Snowden says mass collection must end

The Guardian via AP, file

By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor whose leaks revealed previously classified information about the extent of U.S. surveillance practices, made an argument for the end of mass data collection Thursday but said not all spying is bad.

The comments emerged from a live chat held on the freesnowden.is website Thursday.

Questions were submitted on Twitter using the #AskSnowden hashtag. The website hosting the Q&A wrote Snowden was "expected to give his first reaction" to President Barack Obama's national security speech last week, in which the president announced a series of proposals that would reduce some of the latitude given to the NSA in the name of homeland security.

In reply to a question regarding the timing of Obama's speech last week, Snowden yet again attacked the NSA's mass collection practices, indicating they are illegal and should be ended.

"When even the federal government says the NSA violated the constitution at least 120 million times under a single program, but failed to discover even a single 'plot,' its time to end 'bulk collection,' which is a euphemism for mass surveillance," he wrote. "There is simply no justification for continuing an unconstitutional policy with a 0% success rate."

However, Snowden explained that while he takes issue with "indiscriminate mass surveillance," not all intelligence collection practices are bad.

"Not all spying is bad," Snowden wrote, adding: "The NSA and the rest of the U.S. Intelligence Community is exceptionally well positioned to meet our intelligence requirements through targeted surveillance the same way weve always done it without resorting to the mass surveillance of entire populations."

In reply to a different question, Snowden emphasized his argument: "Collecting phone and email records for every American is a waste of money, time and human resources that could be better spent pursuing those the government has reason to suspect are a serious threat."

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Snowden says mass collection must end