John Oliver lands Edward Snowden interview from Russia

The comedian surprised viewers on Sunday night by revealing that he visited Russia last week and met with Snowden, who leaked a trove of documents about the American government's mass surveillance programs to journalists in 2013.

The result was a half humorous, half serious R-rated conversation about surveillance, centering around one specific possibility: Can the government secretly access Americans' naked selfies?

Snowden's answer was, Yes.

"If you have your email somewhere like Gmail, hosted on a server overseas or transferred overseas or [if it] at anytime crosses outside the borders of the United States, your junk ends up in the database."

He added, "Even if you send it to somebody within the United States, your wholly domestic communication between you and your wife can go from New York to London and back and get caught up in the database."

Oliver's show "Last Week Tonight" has become known for its lengthy examinations of under-covered but critically important topics. The Snowden interview is another example of what some have called "investigative comedy."

HBO is owned by Time Warner (TWX), which also owns this web site.

The interview almost certainly took months to arrange. Only a handful of American journalists have traveled to Russia to meet Snowden in person. (Snowden has been living there in exile while his lawyers seek a way for him to return to the United States.)

Snowden's ACLU attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the interview came about.

With Oliver, Snowden spoke frankly about his fears that the initial reports by The Guardian, The Washington Post and other news outlets would not get sustained attention.

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John Oliver lands Edward Snowden interview from Russia