Snowden: His NSA leaks leave world ‘in a more secure place’ (+video)

Fugitive Edward Snowden, speaking via webcast to Americans in Austin, Texas, said Monday his leaks about NSA surveillance programs led to better communications security, whereas NSA leaders' actions jeopardized national security.

An unrepentant Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who during the past year leaked thousands of top-secret documents to news organizations, on Monday refuted US officials' assertions that his revelations about America's mass-surveillance apparatus had damaged national security and said his acts had benefited the public worldwide.

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Mr. Snowden, a fugitive who has been granted temporary sanctuary in Russia, made his comments during his first live discussion with a US audience, conducted via Internet webcast. He said he would leak the information again, despite his exile.

Presumably speaking from Russia, Snowden also urged greater use of encryption in everyday online communications so as to combat mass surveillance by governments worldwide, and said his actions had already helped to buttress such efforts.

His immediate audience was a group of US technologists meeting in Austin, Texas, at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival. They interrupted Snowden with applause at several points as he laid out a defense of his actions, familiar to anyone who has read his "manifesto" or his recent testimony to the European Union.

When I went public with this, it wasnt so I could single-handedly change the government or tell them what to do or override what the public thinks is proper, he said. I wanted to inform the public so they could make a decision, [so] they could provide their consent for what we should be doing.

Two representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union, Ben Wizner and Chris Soghoian, tossed questions some of them softballs to Snowden via Twitter. At the start,Mr. Wizner noted that US Rep. Mike Pompeo (R) of Kansas had asked SXSW organizers to revoke their invitation to Snowden on grounds it would "encourage lawlessness." Conference organizers declined the request, Wizner said.

Snowden used the occasion to pointedly rebut congressional testimony by current National Security Agency director Keith Alexander and former NSA director Michael Hayden that his actions and news stories resulting from the document leaks had damaged US national security. They, not he, are the ones who harmed it, Snowden said.

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Snowden: His NSA leaks leave world 'in a more secure place' (+video)