How a student secured Edward Snowden for a chat at his high school

More than a thousand Toronto high school students are hanging out on Monday evening with Edward Snowden. The fugitive whistleblower will appear live for 90 minutes via video chat to speak and take students questions at Torontos Upper Canada Colleges World Affairs Conference (technical difficulties scuttled efforts to have him show up as a hologram), along with journalist Glenn Greenwald. Mr. Snowden, who exposed massive surveillance by government spy agencies, accepted an invitation from Conor Healy, an 18-year-old UCC student with a talent for singing opera and a knack for math, who chairs the conference.

How did the idea of inviting Snowden first come to you?

It was recommended to me by Upper Canada Colleges alumni relations department that I meet with a guy named Jameel Jaffer at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) while I was in New York in August. Hes the head of the democracy project there. I was basically asking him if he wanted to speak, or maybe if he could connect me with someone like Glenn Greenwald. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he would be able to put me in touch with Edward Snowden. What [Jaffer] said to me is, The best I can do is pass on a letter and make sure he reads it, and if theres a way you can make it distinct from the 50 other invitations he gets that day, then try your best.

How did you make it distinct?

Well, to a certain extent I was lucky. He hasnt spoken to high school students before and I think he was looking for an opportunity. But what I think came through is how much I thought the community would be fascinated by the opportunity to listen to him. I have peers who are right-leaning and left-leaning, I have peers who think hes a traitor, and others who think hes a hero. But everybody agrees the debate on privacy is the debate were having, and he is the foremost authority on one particular side of that debate.

Whats your impression of Snowden and what hes done?

It was complicated, to be honest. My general inclination is that I think he acted responsibly. And he started a debate worth having. But given how divisive he is, its something I think a lot about. [Inviting him] didnt really come out of an admiration for him, so to speak. It was just from a desire to expose people to an incredible perspective which, undeniably, he has.

You call him divisive. Why?

Let me put it this way: If you asked my dad, he would have him drawn and quartered. I think partially its a generational thing. Often the people who dont support him and dont care too much about whats being done to our privacy are older or of a different sort of mindset than I think is espoused by a lot of youth.

How did you set this up?

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How a student secured Edward Snowden for a chat at his high school