John Oliver grilled NSA leaker Edward Snowden about surveillance tactics and national security and also asked him about lighthearted topics in an interview that aired on Sundays episode of the HBO satirical news show Last Week Tonight.

Oliver traveled to Russia to secure the interview, and then humorously waited more than an hour for Snowden to arrive. The former NSA contractor has been in exile, living in Russia for nearly two years after his security disclosures.

During the segment, Oliver asked Snowden how many of the documents he actually read from classified information he leaked to the media.

Ive evaluated all of the documents that are in the archive, Snowden said.

Youve read every single one? Oliver said.

Well, I do understand what I turned over, Snowden replied.

But theres a difference between understanding whats in the documents and reading whats in the documents, Oliver said.

I recognized the concern, Snowden said.

Oliver specifically mentioned an improperly redacted document included in a New York Times report that contained sensitive information.

That is a problem, Snowden conceded.

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Edward Snowden Discusses Surveillance Tactics, Hot Pockets ...

A monument to Edward Snowden was erected in Fort Greene on Monday morning.Photo: Justine Williams

Edward Snowden has made it to the Big Apple.

Two anonymous artists brought a 100-pound plaster monument, which features a 4-foot-tall replica of Snowdens head with his signature square glasses, to Fort Greene Parks Prison Ship Martyrs Monument early Monday morning.

We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies, the artists wrote in a statement to ANIMAL New York.

It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here to not laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSAs 4th-Amendment-violating surveillance programs to light, they added. All too often, figures who strive to uphold these ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze.

A West Coast sculptor spent a year helping the two New York artists create the 4-foot-tall replica of Snowdens head, complete with his signature square glasses.

Snowden fled the US two years ago after he passed on classified documents to journalists that revealed the NSA was spying on Americans. Hes currently living in Moscow, where he is protected by temporary asylum following espionage charges from the US.

The infamous whistleblower was back in the news Monday before the statue was installed thanks to his appearance on HBOs Last Week Tonight, which aired Sunday evening.

Funnyman John Oliver sat down with the 31-year-old former government contractor for an in-depth interview last week in Moscow, where he asked him about why he did the data dump, his future plans and if Americans should stop sending racy pictures.

The good news is theres no program named The Dk Pic Program, Snowden said. The bad news is that they are still collecting everyones information, including your dk pics.

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Snowden monument erected in NYC park

Edward Snowden and John Oliver share a laugh.

HBO

HBO talk show host John Oliver on Sunday landed his biggest interview yet since leavingThe Daily Show: famed National Security Agency document leaker Edward Snowden.

The interview, which followed a lengthy Last Week Tonightmonologue about American Internet surveillance, took place in Snowden's current home ofMoscow. It began with a comedic, tone-setting declaration: "Holy shit, he actually came! Edward fucking Snowden!" After jokes about whether Snowden missed American icons like truck nuts and Florida, however, Oliver got to work asking about Snowden's motives and the dichotomy between domestic and foreign surveillance.

"How many of those documents have you actually read?" Oliver eventually asked. When Snowden said he'd "evaluated" them, Oliver pressed: "There's a difference between understanding what's in the documents and reading what's in the documents. When you're handing over thousands of NSA documents, the last thing you want to do is read them."

Snowden sat in awkward silence after the latter sarcastic comment.

Oliver then criticized Snowden for handing complicated documents over to journalists who are less tech-savvy than he is and possibly putting people in danger as a result of publishing them, adding, Thats a fuck-up. Snowden pressed on the importance of his leaks in spite of Oliver's complaints, not to mention the personal cost he paid for loosing those secrets: "You will never be completely free from risk if you're free. The only time you can be free from risk is when you're in prison."

Shortly afterward, Oliver played a reel of a dozen Americans who couldnt correctly answer exactly who Snowden wasincluding a mention of WikiLeaks that Snowden incredulously laughed at. Oliver joked about the complicated nature of the leaksthe kind of thing that makes it hard for average Americans to comprehend their scale of the leaksand then he encouraged Snowden to get people's attention by talking more abouthow frequently the NSA had seen peoples naked photos sent via SMSand e-mail.

The good news is, theres no program named the dick pic program, Snowden said in response. The bad news is, they are still collecting everyones information, including your dick pics. Oliver followed that up by showing Snowden a picture of my dickviewers didnt see the pic, just Snowdens alarmed reaction to seeing it. Snowden proceeded to explain how the NSA, using the FISA Amendment Act of 2008, has almost certainly put your junk in a database, thanks to common data transfers between domestic and international servers on services like Gmail.

"Google moves data from data center to data centerinvisibly to you without your knowledge," Snowden said, at which point Oliver groaned."Your data could be moved outside the borders of the United States temporarily." Snowden explained programs like Prism, Upstream, and Mysticto Oliver in the context of his "junk" being spied upon as well.

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Edward Snowden faces John Oliver’s semi-tough questions

John Oliver grilled NSA leaker Edward Snowden about surveillance tactics and national security and also asked him about lighthearted topics in an interview that aired on Sundays episode of the HBO satirical news show Last Week Tonight.

Oliver traveled to Russia to secure the interview, and then humorously waited more than an hour for Snowden to arrive. The former NSA contractor has been in exile, living in Russia for nearly two years after his security disclosures.

During the segment, Oliver asked Snowden how many of the documents he actually read from classified information he leaked to the media.

Ive evaluated all of the documents that are in the archive, Snowden said.

Youve read every single one? Oliver said.

Well, I do understand what I turned over, Snowden replied.

But theres a difference between understanding whats in the documents and reading whats in the documents, Oliver said.

I recognized the concern, Snowden said.

Oliver specifically mentioned an improperly redacted document included in a New York Times report that contained sensitive information.

That is a problem, Snowden conceded.

Read this article:
Snowden Talks Surveillance, Hot Pockets with John Oliver

When Edward Snowden revealed the depth and breadth of the National Security Agencys domestic surveillanceto journalists a few years ago, the public was shocked sort of. On one hand, the idea that our government had a bottomless appetite for e-mails, phone calls and textswe once thought private was disturbing. On the other, it was really hard to understand what the NSA was doing and how it wasdoing it. PRISM? FISA? Somewhere in this alphabet soup was something contrary to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it seemed, if only the common man could bother to be outraged by it.

This was a point driven home by John Oliver, host of HBOs Last Week Tonight, in an interview with Snowden broadcast Sunday. Oliver traveled to Moscow to ask the most famous hero and/or traitor in recent American history, as Oliver put it, why he had leaked sensitive government documents.

The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities in American history, Snowden said, warming up to a subject he has been asked aboutad nauseum since he went on the lam. The real problem is that theyre using these capabilities to make us vulnerable.

But Oliver wasnt there to be lectured to. Veering from profane penis jokes to Edward R. Murrow-mode from moment to moment, he challenged Snowden on storiesthat mistakenly revealed the namesofU.S. intelligence agents. It was improper redactions that led to the revelations but was Snowden, leaker of the information the stories were based on, responsible for what Oliver called a fkup?

You have to own that thing, Oliver said. Youre giving documents with information you know could be harmful which could get out there.

You will never be completely free from risk ifyoure free, Snowden said. The only time you can be completely free from risk is when youre in prison.

Oliver then played Snowden some man-on-the-street interviews that must have depressed the 31-year-old man who acted, he said, in the name of his ideals. The upshot, as one interviewee put it: I have no idea who Edward Snowden is.

You might be able to go home, Oliver said, because it seems like no one knows who the f you are and what the f you did.

Snowden, laughing, kept his cool and spoke up for himself.

I did this to give the American people achance to decide for themselves thekind of government they want to have, Snowden said. Thatis a conversation that I think the American people deserve.

Read more here:
John Oliver’s hilarious interview with Edward Snowden

The comedian surprised viewers on Sunday night by revealing that he visited Russia last week and met with Snowden, who leaked a trove of documents about the American government's mass surveillance programs to journalists in 2013.

The result was a half humorous, half serious R-rated conversation about surveillance, centering around one specific possibility: Can the government secretly access Americans' naked selfies?

Snowden's answer was, Yes.

"If you have your email somewhere like Gmail, hosted on a server overseas or transferred overseas or [if it] at anytime crosses outside the borders of the United States, your junk ends up in the database."

He added, "Even if you send it to somebody within the United States, your wholly domestic communication between you and your wife can go from New York to London and back and get caught up in the database."

Oliver's show "Last Week Tonight" has become known for its lengthy examinations of under-covered but critically important topics. The Snowden interview is another example of what some have called "investigative comedy."

HBO is owned by Time Warner (TWX), which also owns this web site.

The interview almost certainly took months to arrange. Only a handful of American journalists have traveled to Russia to meet Snowden in person. (Snowden has been living there in exile while his lawyers seek a way for him to return to the United States.)

Snowden's ACLU attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the interview came about.

With Oliver, Snowden spoke frankly about his fears that the initial reports by The Guardian, The Washington Post and other news outlets would not get sustained attention.

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John Oliver lands Edward Snowden interview

The comedian surprised viewers on Sunday night by revealing that he visited Russia last week and met with Snowden, who leaked a trove of documents about the American government's mass surveillance programs to journalists in 2013.

The result was a half humorous, half serious R-rated conversation about surveillance, centering around one specific possibility: Can the government secretly access Americans' naked selfies?

Snowden's answer was, Yes.

"If you have your email somewhere like Gmail, hosted on a server overseas or transferred overseas or [if it] at anytime crosses outside the borders of the United States, your junk ends up in the database."

He added, "Even if you send it to somebody within the United States, your wholly domestic communication between you and your wife can go from New York to London and back and get caught up in the database."

Oliver's show "Last Week Tonight" has become known for its lengthy examinations of under-covered but critically important topics. The Snowden interview is another example of what some have called "investigative comedy."

HBO is owned by Time Warner (TWX), which also owns this web site.

The interview almost certainly took months to arrange. Only a handful of American journalists have traveled to Russia to meet Snowden in person. (Snowden has been living there in exile while his lawyers seek a way for him to return to the United States.)

Snowden's ACLU attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how the interview came about.

With Oliver, Snowden spoke frankly about his fears that the initial reports by The Guardian, The Washington Post and other news outlets would not get sustained attention.

See the original post:
John Oliver lands Edward Snowden interview from Russia

A trio of anonymous artists and helpers installed a bust of Edward Snowden in Brooklyn Monday morning.

The 100-pound statue was hauled into Fort Greene Park just before dawn, according to ANIMALNewYork, which originally reported the story.

The idea for the statue came from two artists and was made by a West Coast sculptor.

The statue was fused to part of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a memorial to Revolutionary War Soldiers, in Fort Greene Park. The monument marks the site of a crypt for more than 11,500 people known as the prison ship martyrs, who were held captive by the British during the Battle of Long Island and died of disease, overcrowding and starvation.

We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies, the artists told ANIMALNewYork in a statement about the project. It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here to not laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSAs 4th-Amendment-violating surveillance programs to light. All too often, figures who strive to uphold these ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze.

As for the fate of the statue, it likely wont stay.

The erection of any unapproved structure or artwork in a city park is illegal, said NYC Parks spokesperson Maeri Ferguson. In terms of removal, we are currently looking into it.

A video on Vine shows officials covering the sculpture with a blue tarp.

In other weekend Snowden news, John Oliver of Last Week Tonight flew to Russia and did an interview with him. Oliver is one of a handful of journalists who has met Snowden in person in Russia.

Snowden was an hour late to the interview and, just before he arrived, Oliver realized the building was located across the street from Russias Federal Security Bureau headquarters, former home to the KGB. Oliver quipped, Weve just been told they know were here. So, um, so that happened.

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The Margin: Edward Snowden statue appears in Brooklyn overnight