Snowden asks Putin about surveillance on Russian TV

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Months after accepting asylum in Russia, fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Thursday asked Russian President Vladimir Putin about Moscow's own surveillance practices.

"Does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals?" Snowden asked in English via a video link during Putin's annual question-and-answer program, which was broadcast on state television. "And do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than their subjects, under surveillance?"

Putin responded that Russia has a special service that bugs telephone conversations and Internet communications to fight crimes, including terrorism, but only with court permission and only "for specific citizens."

"So, the mass character is something we do not have and cannot have," Putin said in Russian.

"On such a mass scale ... we do not allow ourselves to do this, and we will never allow this. We do not have the money or the means to do that," he said.

Putin, a former intelligence agent, noted that his questioner, a former National Security Agency contractor, shares that background. "So, we can speak in professional language," he said.

Snowden last year disclosed details of the vast U.S. surveillance network put in place after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including the government's record keeping on billions of phone calls.

Anticipating legal consequences, he fled to Moscow.

U.S. authorities have charged him with espionage and theft of government property.

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Snowden asks Putin about surveillance on Russian TV