SXSW: Edward Snowden Talks Privacy and Security – TIME

Tech Security Edward Snowden speaks via video conference from Russia at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Tex. on March 10, 2014 Harry McCracken / TIME

Of all the hundreds of interviews, panels and other conversations happening at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, perhaps the most newsworthy one features somebody who didnt make the trek to Austin. He had a good excuse: Hes NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who landed in Russia after releasing documents to reporters.

Snowden appeared via a videocast with Ben Wizner and Chris Soghoian of the ACLU, with questions submitted from the public via Twitter. It was also broadcast in two overflow rooms as well as over the Internet via livestream.

Technically, the video conference wasnt impressive the image was choppy and the audio was muddy, perhaps because they were routed through multiple proxies in the interest of security but it was still compelling. It was, after all, one of the few opportunities weve had to hear from Snowden directly. And he appeared before a green-screen image of the U.S. Constitution a tart, unspoken response to his critics.

Why did Snowden choose to speak before SXSW Interactives audience of techies? Theyre the folks who really fix things, who can enforce our rights through technological standards, even when Congress hasnt taken steps, he told Wizner. The NSA and its counterparts in other countries, he said, are setting fire to the future of the internet. You guys that are in the room are all the firefighters. We need you to help fix this.

Snowden emphasized that he isnt opposed to government monitoring of individuals suspected of crimes, but he said that mass surveillance makes such targeting harder, not easier. He pointed out that the U.S. government failed to adequately act on warnings it received about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombings, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber.

We didnt actually investigate this guy, he said of Abdulmutallab. We spent all of this time hacking into Google and Facebooks back ends. What did we get? We got nothing.

The tone of the discussion wasnt all bleak. Snowdens revelations have led companies such as Google and Yahoo to bolster their security measures, which helps protect online data from being watched by government eyes. But he said that encryption is still too tricky a subject for average consumers, especially when it involves nerdy products and services such as the Tor encrypted browser.

Speaking of the difficulty that reporter Glenn Greenwald had installing and using PGP encryption software when Snowden wanted to provide him with documents, Snowden said, We want secure services that arent opt-in it has to pass the Glenn Greenwald test. This is something that people have to be able to access, and really the way we interact with it isnt good.

Its a really complicated subject matter today, and thats the difficulty, Snowden said.

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SXSW: Edward Snowden Talks Privacy and Security - TIME