NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden plans to work on easy-to-use privacy tools

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden doesn't yet know whether he'll be spending the next year in a U.S. prison or an undisclosed location in Russia. Nevertheless, Snowden hopes to work on anti-surveillance technologies in the future.

During a nearly 90-minute discussion at the Hackers on Planet Earth Conference (HOPE) on Saturday, in which Snowden participated via Google Hangouts, the whistle blower said he wants to work on tools that help people better protect their privacy.

"I think we the peopleyou the people, you in this room right now, have both the means and the capability to help build a better future by encoding our rights into the programs and protocols upon which we rely every day," Snowden said. "And that's what a lot of my future work is going to be involved in, and I hope you'll join me."

Snowden didn't specify what shape his work would take: Whether he would be involved with producing code for new encryption and privacy-protecting technologies, or whether he would focus on promoting tools already under development for the average user.Nevertheless, he had some definite ideas about what kind of tools were needed to protect an individual's privacy online.

"Generally, when I talk about this I say encryption. I say encryption, encryption, encryption," Snowden said. "Because it's an important first step that denies the government access to anything more typically than a suspicion, which is drawn from association [metadata]."

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NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden plans to work on easy-to-use privacy tools