TORONTO: Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of mass U.S. surveillance programs, said on Wednesday he is not being offered a fair trial if he returns to the United States.

"I would love to go back and face a fair trial, but unfortunately ... there is no fair trial available, on offer right now," he said from Russia in a live question and answer discussion organised by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Toronto's Ryerson University and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"I've been working exhaustively with the government now since I left to try to find terms of a trial," he said.

On Tuesday, his Russian lawyer had said that Snowden has been working with American and German lawyers on a way to return to the United States.

During Wednesday's discussion, in which he took questions via Twitter and from a Toronto audience, Snowden said Canada falls well below other Western nations in the level of oversight it puts on its spy agencies.

"Canadian intelligence has one of the weakest oversight frameworks out of any Western intelligence agency in the world," he said.

He did not comment specifically on new legislation proposed by Canada's Conservative government that would expand the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the country's main intelligence service. Critics say the new bill provides little to no additional oversight.

In January, CBC News and news website The Intercept reported that 2012 documents sourced from Snowden showed that Canada's electronic spy agency, the Communications Security Establishment, had intercepted and analysed up to 15 million file downloads a day.

The Canadian media advocacy group that co-hosted Wednesday's event also launched an archive of all previously published documents released by media outlets working with Snowden. (https://cjfe.org/snowden)

(Additional reporting and writing by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Chris Reese and Peter Galloway)

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Snowden says US not offering fair trial if he returns

MOSCOW Tue Mar 3, 2015 4:29pm EST

Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden appears live via video during a student organized world affairs conference at the Upper Canada College private high school in Toronto, in this file photo taken February 2, 2015.

Credit: Reuters/Mark Blinch

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian lawyer for Edward Snowden said on Tuesday the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor who leaked details of the government's mass surveillance programs was working with American and German lawyers to return home.

In Washington, U.S. officials said they would welcome Snowden's return to the United States but he would have to face criminal charges which have been filed against him.

Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, who has links to the Kremlin, was speaking at a news conference to present a book he has written about his client. Moscow granted Snowden asylum in 2013, straining already tense ties with Washington.

"I won't keep it secret that he... wants to return back home. And we are doing everything possible now to solve this issue. There is a group of U.S. lawyers, there is also a group of German lawyers and I'm dealing with it on the Russian side."

The United States wants Snowden to stand trial for leaking extensive secrets of electronic surveillance programs by the National Security Agency (NSA). Russia has repeatedly refused to extradite him.

Snowden has said in the past he would like to return home if he was assured he would be given a fair trial.

A deeply divisive figure, he is praised by some as a civil rights campaigner and whistleblower and condemned by others as a traitor who compromised U.S. security. Kucherena said in August Snowden had been given a three-year Russian residence permit.

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Fugitive ex-U.S. spy Snowden in talks on returning home ...

Edward Snowden became a polarizing political figure after leaking thousands of U.S. government documents that exposed top-secret surveillance programs. A former employee of the National Security Agency, he was assailed as a traitor and celebrated as a hero for his actions, and now lives in Russia to avoid American legal authorities.

Laura Poitras Oscar-winning documentary, Citizenfour, captured Snowden at the intimate and pivotal moments when he decided to act, shaking the D.C. power structure and impacting the U.S.s relationships with friends and foes alike, and Hollywood didnt waited long to mount its own version of the story.Oliver Stone is currently directing Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Snowden, which Open Road Films will open on Dec. 25. In the first-look image, Gordon-Levitt wears Snowdens glasses, but hes also in uniform, a soldier. Before he was a whistle-blower, Edward was an ordinary man who unquestioningly served his country, Open Road says in a promotional statement.

Before working for the CIA and the NSA, Snowden joined the United States Army Reserve in 2004with hopes of joining Special Forces in Iraq. He was discharged after breaking both his legs in a training accident.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Oliver Stone's 'Snowden': First Look

Edward Snowden. Photo by NZ Herald.

The Herald -- with investigative journalist Nicky Hager -- is working on stories based on files from the United States National Security Agency (NSA), taken by whistleblower Edward Snowden in the biggest intelligence breach in history.

Internationally, the information obtained by Snowden has sparked concerns about the behaviour of the intelligence agencies in the grouping of Five Eyes nations, of which New Zealand is a member.

Fierce debate has raged over diplomatic breaches, the intrusion into citizens' privacy and a shift towards a "collect it all" policy.

Hager obtained access to files from the Snowden trove through a partnership with the news site The Intercept, set up by campaigning journalist Glenn Greenwald after he revealed Snowden as a whistleblower who took a vast number of files from his former employer because he was concerned by the extent of the agency's actions and reach.

Hager said the information would show New Zealand was "far more involved than most people realise".

"The discussion about GCSB [Government Communications Security Bureau] in New Zealand has always been about GCSB spying on New Zealanders. What this is going to be about is all the other countries New Zealand spies on.

"Some of that won't be a surprise and some of it will be a great surprise."

Hager said the information would not only surprise the public but also "people all through the foreign policy and intelligence bureaucracy who will know much more about this subject at the end of these revelations than they did before.

"When I read through this material and see that New Zealand is doing these things, it seems bizarre to me -- like it is from another era."

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Snowden files expose NZ's part in America's spy network

Depending on your point of view (or maybe on whether you're Neil Patrick Harris), Edward Snowdens actions could be read very differently: The former NSA contractor is either, in the end, a dangerous traitor or a laudable hero.

It's that split that makes the 32-year-old a compelling--and increasingly popular--cinematic figure. That popularity is demonstrated by the doc phenomenon "CitizenFour" this season, and now by Snowden, the new Oliver Stone drama that recently began production in Europe with Joseph Gordon Levitt in the title role and Zachary Quinto as muckraking journalist Glenn Greenwald.

How Snowden's decision to leak scores of documents about national surveillance should be interpreted is one of the key moral mysteries of the national security debate, and hardly a clear matter even for some of those telling his story.

FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2015

"Im endlessly fascinated by Snowdens decision, his process, his motivation, Quinto told Movies Now. "The vast majority of accounts had it one way or anotherhes either one more traitor or a righteous whistleblower. And the question is, which one is it? Or maybe it's something more complicated than that."

Contemporary news figures in the Snowden vein can make for some weak cinematic sauce (see: Julian Assange movie The Fifth Estate in 2012). Perhaps it's that we grow tired of the cult-of-personality aspects of the story; maybe were just worn out by all the cable-news volleying.

But Snowden is proving resistant to the rule. CitizenFour," in which Laura Poitras offers an unusually intimate look at Snowden and Greenwald in the now-famous Hong Kong hotel room where documents were leaked, scored best documentary at the Oscars on Sunday, notched strong ratings in its initial airing on HBO Monday and was one of the highest-grossing documentaries of 2014 when distributor Radius released it in theaters.

Sony, meanwhile, has bought the rights to Greenwalds book No Place to Hide in the hope of making its own movie, and has set James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli for the project, though whether it still moves forward in the wake of Stones take is an open question.

Stones Snowden"--which is backed by a group of U.S and European companies and will be released by Open Road in December--has plenty going for it. The film features an all-star supporting cast that includes Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Nicolas Cage and Shailene Woodley, and takes matters beyond the hotel room setting of CitizenFour to the sanctuary Snowden sought in Russia. Basically its about the battle for freedom (for him) and for extradition and prosecution (for the U.S. government).

To tell the tale, the director and producing partner Moritz Borman have acquired the rights to several books, including Luke Hardings The Snowden Files, a Guardian reporters look at the pursuit of Snowden as the story was boiling over in the summer of 2013.

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Edward Snowden emerges as a film star

Adrees Latif / ReutersDirector Laura Poitras (C) accepts the award for best documentary for her film "Citizenfour" at the 2015 Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California on Feb. 21, 2015.

"Citizenfour," amovie about former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's exposure ofthe U.S. government's mass surveillance programs, has won anAcademy Award award forbest documentary film.

Directed byLaura Poitras, "Citizenfour" recounts Snowden's exposure ofNational Security Agency (NSA) surveillance practices andpresents live interviews with Snowden inHong Kong, where he handed classified NSA documents toPoitras andjournalist Glenn Greenwald.

Poitras who shared aPulitzer Prize forPublic Service journalism with TheGuardian andThe Washington Post forpublicizing Snowden's documents had been working ona film about surveillance when Snowden contacted her inJan. 2013 using "CITIZENFOUR" as analias inencrypted e-mails.

"When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant," Snowden said Sunday ina statement published via theAmerican Civil Liberties Union. "I'm grateful that I allowed her topersuade me. Theresult is abrave andbrilliant film that deserves thehonor andrecognition it has received.

"My hope is that this award will encourage more people tosee thefilm andbe inspired byits message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change theworld," he added.

Poitras, editor Mathilde Bonnefoy andproducer Dirk Wilutzky accepted theOscar onSunday atHollywood's Dolby Theatre, alongside Greenwald andLindsay Mills, who is Snowden's girlfriend.

"The subject of'Citizenfour,' Edward Snowden, could not be here forsome treason," joked theceremony's host Neil Patrick Harris, according toReuters.

Snowden has been living inexile inRussia since thesummer of2013 toescape theespionage charges he faces inthe U.S. Last year, Russian authorities issued Snowden athree-year residency permit.

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Edward Snowden Film 'Citizenfour' Wins Best Documentary Oscar

Did Edward Snowden actually damage national security? There's no way in hell to tell from official documents released to the pressthey've been thoroughly redacted to the point of uselessness.

Well, that's not true: They're useful in showing that the government isn't exactly eager to reveal concrete proof that the revelations about its surveillance abuses have harmed America.

The idea that Snowden has jeopardized national security and the lives of troops is the linchpin for arguments that the ex-NSA contractor is a treasonous villain, not a whistleblower. That's why Vice sought out proof of this jeopardy in government documents:

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) recently released to VICE News more than 100 pages of internal reports prepared by a task force made up of two dozen DIA analysts that examined the alleged damage to national security resulting from Snowden's leaks.

The pages are largely blanked out (save for the Vice watermark slapped on to let everyone know that Vice knows how to file an FOIA). They reveal nothing about the impact of Edward Snowden's decision to reveal information about widespread state surveillance programs targeting wide swathes of the population or than the fact that there were internal documents about it.

They're so redacted, they're pointless to look through unless you have a fetish for oddly aggressive media watermarks:

The only ways these documents could be more redacted is if they were simply not released.

If the Snowden leaks have caused grave damage to national security, it'd make sense if the government wanted proof of the damage in the public view, to back up its assessment that Snowden should be punished for his crimes, to back up the assessment that his actions were treasonous. The party line here is that the government can't reveal more because any additional information will screw up national security even further. (Yet it selectively leaked parts of a report to Congress to shore up anti-Snowden sentiment.)

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The Government Refuses to Prove Snowden Damaged National Security

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden didnt mince words during a Reddit Ask Me Anything session on Monday when he said the NSA and the British spy agency GCHQ had screwed all of us when it hacked into the Dutch firm Gemalto to steal cryptographic keys used in billions of mobile SIM cards worldwide.

When the NSA and GCHQ compromised the security of potentially billions of phones (3g/4g encryption relies on the shared secret resident on the sim), Snowden wrote in the AMA, they not only screwed the manufacturer, they screwed all of us, because the only way to address the security compromise is to recall and replace every SIM sold by Gemalto.

Gemalto is one of the leading makers of SIM cards used in billions of mobile phones around the world to secure the communications of telecom customers of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and more than 400 other wireless carriers in 85 countries. Stealing the crypto keys essentially allows the spy agencies to wiretap and decipher encrypted phone communications at will without the assistance of telecom carriers or the oversight of a court or government. The keys also allow the agencies to decrypt previously intercepted messages they hadnt been able to crack.

But in stealing the keys with the aim of targeting the communications of specific customers, the spy agencies undermine the security of billions of other customers.

Our governments should never be weighing the equities in an intelligence gathering operation such that a temporary benefit to surveillance regarding a few key targets is seen as more desireable than protecting the communications of a global system Snowden wrote.

As The Intercept reported last week, the spy agencies targeted employees of the Dutch firm, reading their siphoned emails and scouring their Facebook posts to obtain information that would help the agencies hack the employees. Once on employee systems, the spy agencies planted backdoors and other tools to give them a persistent foothold on the companys network. We believe we have their entire network, the author of a PowerPoint slide, leaked by Snowden to journalist Glenn Greenwald, boasted about the hack.

Snowden commented on the story after being asked what he thought about recent revelations from Kaspersky Lab that it had uncovered a spy module, believed to belong to the NSA, designed for hacking the firmware of hard drives. Snowden said the firmware hacking was significant but even more significant was the theft of the crypto keys.

[A]lthough firmware exploitation is nasty, Snowden responded, its at least theoretically reparable: tools could plausibly be created to detect the bad firmware hashes and re-flash good ones. This isnt the same for SIMs, which are flashed at the factory and never touched again.

Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute shared Snowdens sentiments about the crypto theft.

We hear a great deal lately about the value of information sharing in cybersecurity, he wrote in a blog post about the hack of Gemalto. Well, heres a case where NSA had information that the technology American citizens and companies rely on to protect their communications was not only vulnerable, but had in fact been compromised.[T]his is one more demonstration that proposals to require telecommunications providers and device manufacturers to build law enforcement backdoors in their products are a terrible, terrible idea. As security experts have rightly insisted all along, requiring companies to keep a repository of keys to unlock those backdoors makes the key repository itself a prime target for the most sophisticated attackerslike NSA and GCHQ.

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Snowden: Spy Agencies ‘Screwed All of Us’ in Hacking Crypto Keys

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Edward Snowden can take a joke.

The star of the Oscar-winning documentary "Citizenfour" was not able to attend the glitzy bash on Sunday "for some treason," host Neil Patrick Harris quipped after the filmmakers thanked the whistleblower for his courage.

Snowden has been living in Russia for more than a year after he was granted asylum. He is wanted in the United States under the federal Espionage Act for revealing classified National Security Agency information, meaning a return to the United States would likely be out of the question unless he wanted to surrender.

In a Reddit Ask Me Anything interview with the team behind "Citizenfour," Snowden said he "laughed at NPH."

"I don't think it was meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that's not so bad," Snowden said of the Oscar host's clever play on words. "My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough."

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Oscars 2015: Edward Snowden Responds to 'Treason' Joke ...

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Lindsay Mills, the girlfriend of Edward Snowden, made an appearance at Sunday's Oscars -- part of the group accepting the Best Documentary Feature Award for Citizenfour, a film about the National Security Agency whistleblower.

Mills joined director Laura Poitras, producer Dirk Wilutzky and journalist Glenn Greenwald onstage.

Poitras film documents her initial meeting in Hong Kong with Snowden.

Snowden was charged under the federal Espionage Act and is currently living in asylum in Russia. Because of the sensitive nature of the footage, Poitras made "Citizenfour" under intense secrecy and edited it in Germany.

"Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage, and for the many other whistleblowers, and I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth," Poitras said when accepting the award.

Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris mentioned Snowden as Poitras and her collaborators walked offstage.

"The subject of 'Citizenfour,' Edward Snowden, could not be here tonight for some treason," Harris said.

Snowden released a statement through the American Civil Liberties Union, congratulating Poitras on the Oscars win.

When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant, the statement read. Im grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honor and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.

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Edward Snowden's Girlfriend Makes an Oscars Appearance