Snowden: NSA data-collection ‘setting fire’ to Internet future

AUSTIN National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden blasted the U.S. government Monday for "setting fire to the future of the Internet" with its massive data-collection program that has triggered a worldwide debate over online snooping.

"The result has been an adversarial Internet," Snowden, speaking by video link from Russia where he was granted asylum from pending U.S. espionage charges last year, told attendees at the South by Southwest Interactive conference. "It's nothing we asked for. ... It's not something we wanted."

"The people in this room are all firefighters," Snowden said. "We all need your help to fix this."

Snowden challenged the tech community to bolster encryption software that will make Internet communications more secure, criticizing companies such as Google, Yahoo and others for not doing enough to protect customers' privacy because their business models were based on unsecured networking. "The good news is that there are solutions," he said.

Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union and a panelist at the forum, said U.S. firms that transmit "need to lock things down ... We need to make services secure out of the box. It's going to require a rethink from developers."

Speaking in front of a backdrop displaying the U.S. Constitution, Snowden challenged U.S. lawmakers who claim his leaks of secret documents have damaged U.S. security. Instead, he insisted that his actions have improved it, along with championing the online privacy of U.S. citizens who he said should be able to open e-mails or take cell phone calls without fear of being monitored.

Snowden contended U.S. interests have suffered "tremendous intelligence failures because we've been monitoring everybody's communications rather than suspects," including tips concerning accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab that were never followed-up by authorities.

"What did we get from bulk collections?" Snowden said. "We got nothing."

Snowden specifically criticized U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper for "cheering" on the NSA's data-collection program, rather than holding it accountable. "The overseers aren't interested in oversight," he said.

The session moderated by Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project and Snowden's legal advisor had been criticized in recent days by U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, who claimed Snowden's "only apparent qualification is his willingness to steal from his own government and then flee to that beacon of First Amendment freedoms, the Russia of Vladimir Putin."

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Snowden: NSA data-collection 'setting fire' to Internet future