Edward Snowden, the former U.S. security contractor living under asylum in Russia, defended his appearance on President Vladimir Putins annual call-in show, saying he wanted to force a discussion about Russian spying.

Snowden, in a comment published today in the Guardian, said he was seeking a baseline answer from Putin as a step toward holding the former KGB colonel publicly accountable and denied he was participating in a propaganda ploy.

Disclosures made by Snowden last year about U.S. spying set off a global debate about the trade-offs between privacy and security and hurt ties with European allies. President Barack Obama has imposed some surveillance limits as a result of the revelations.

There is a more obvious explanation for my question than a secret desire to defend the kind of policies I sacrificed a comfortable life to challenge: if we are to test the truth of officials claims, we must first give them an opportunity to make those claims, Snowden wrote in the Guardian.

Snowden wrote that he intentionally mirrored U.S. Senator Ron Wydens questioning of James Clapper last year, in which the director of national intelligence said the NSA doesnt wittingly collect records on millions of Americans.

In a surprise appearance yesterday through a video link from an unidentified location, Snowden asked Putin: Does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals?

Putin, addressing Snowden as a fellow former agent, said that Russias intelligence services are strictly regulated and the country cant afford such broad spying as the U.S.

Putins statement that society has some control over the security services is an outright lie, Andrey Soldatov, a researcher and author of books on Russias intelligence services, said yesterday by phone. Everything else Putin said was a half-truth.

The Guardian in London and the Washington Post shared a Pulitzer prize this week for journalism for their reporting on Snowdens leaked material about the U.S. top-secret spying programs.

To contact the reporter on this story: Torrey Clark in Moscow at tclark8@bloomberg.net

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Snowden Defends Putin Question as Mirroring U.S. Exchange

Edward Snowden Testimony At PACE, April 4, 2014
Edward Snowden Testimony At The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) - April 4, 2014.

By: Koos Jansen

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Edward Snowden Testimony At PACE, April 4, 2014 - Video

Mr. Snowden, you are a former agent, a spy, Putin said in greeting him. I used to work for an intelligence service. We can talk one professional language.

Snowden, posing his question in English, asked whether Russia collected the communications of millions of its citizens in a manner similar to the U.S. surveillance. Putin responded by saying that such surveillance is conducted under the law. You have to get court permission to stalk a particular person, he said.

Thank God, our special services are strictly controlled by the state and society, and their activity is regulated by law, Putin said. Besides, he added, We dont have as much money as they have in the States, and we dont have the technical devices that they have.

The response was quickly dismissed by Russia experts, who noted that Russian security services collect data from domestic telecommunications companies and Internet providers as a matter of course.

In a tweet in Russian, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow offered the former National Security Agency contractor its own answer: Snowden would probably be interested to know that Russian laws allow the control, storage and study of all data in the communication networks of the Russian Federation.

Snowdens question, submitted to Putin by video link, seemed to be aimed at putting Putin in the same rhetorical corner that caught U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. before the avalanche of National Security Agency leaks began.

When Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper during a congressional hearing whether the United States gathered data on millions of Americans, Clapper denied that it did so, an answer that was proved false by documents Snowden supplied to news organizations including The Washington Post.

Snowden has faced allegations that he was working on Russias behalf when he absconded with a massive trove of classified documents a charge that he has consistently denied. He has also been painted by some as a hypocrite for fleeing to a country known for all-encompassing surveillance of its citizens.

After the exchange with Putin, Snowdens critics scoffed at the episode.

Snowden celebrates Pulitzer by turning into Putins propaganda tool, former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker said in a comment posted on Twitter, referring to the Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The Post and the Guardian US this week for their Snowden coverage.

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Edward Snowden asks Vladi­mir Putin if Russia spies on its citizens

hide captionWhat motivated Edward Snowden to leak NSA secrets? Bryan Burrough, Suzanna Andrews and Sarah Ellison explore Snowden's background in an article for Vanity Fair.

What motivated Edward Snowden to leak NSA secrets? Bryan Burrough, Suzanna Andrews and Sarah Ellison explore Snowden's background in an article for Vanity Fair.

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has revealed some of the group's most carefully guarded secrets.

The reporting on the documents he leaked won a Pulitzer Prize for the Washington Post and The Guardian, announced on Monday.

But there's still a lot we don't know about Snowden himself and his motivation.

In a new article in Vanity Fair, Bryan Burrough, Suzanna Andrews and Sarah Ellison take a closer look at Snowden in an effort to explain how a high school dropout, a "seemingly aimless geeky kid from the Maryland suburbs," came to possess and expose secret NSA documents.

The trio spent six months researching their Vanity Fair article, "The Snowden Saga: A Shadowland of Secrets and Light." Burrough reflects on the article with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

On Snowden's background

He dropped out of high school at 15. ... What ensued is, for me, one of the most fascinating periods of his life this period from the age of 15 to the age of 20 where he didn't have anything like an actual job, nor was he doing anything other than occasional community college classes. What he appears to have done is spent five years on his computers, on the Internet.

While I think if we didn't know what we know now we'd say, "Ah, he's a virtual slacker," in fact, it seems to be a period of incredible self-education in which he became an expert on systems, became an expert on so many things to do with navigating the Internet. The amazing thing is [that] it appears to be largely self-taught. And whatever you may say or believe about Edward Snowden, he is an invention of himself.

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Edward Snowden: From 'Geeky' Drop-Out To NSA Leaker

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

MOSCOW -- Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who was granted asylum in Russia, made a surprise appearance at President Vladimir Putin's annual televised call-in session Thursday to ask whether the country conducts mass surveillance like the United States does.

Snowdens revelations about U.S. spying practices set off a national debate about the trade-offs between security and privacy.

Recently in the United States, two independent White House investigations, as well as the federal court all concluded that these programs are ineffective in stopping terrorism, Snowden said via video link from an undisclosed location.

They also found that they unreasonably intrude into the private lives of ordinary citizens -- individuals who have never been suspected of any wrongdoing or criminal activity -- and that these kinds of programs are not the least intrusive means available to such agencies for these investigative purposes.

Now, I've seen little public discussion of Russia's own involvement in such surveillance, Snowden continued. So Id like to ask you: Does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals, and do you believe that simply increasing the effectiveness of intelligence or law enforcement investigations can justify placing societies, rather than subjects, under surveillance?"

Putin, a former KGB officer, responded with a smile.

Dear Mr. Snowden, you are a former agent, and I used to work in intelligence, he said, a remark interrupted by massive studio applause and laughter. So we will talk in a professional language.

First of all, the use of special means by special services is strictly regulated by the law here, Putin said. And this regulation includes the need to get a court permission to [conduct surveillance on] a specific individual. And this is why it doesn't have a massive, unselective character here and cannot have in accordance with the law.

Of course, we proceed from the fact that modern means of communication are used by criminal elements, including terrorists, in their criminal activities, Putin continued. And special services, of course, must react accordingly using modern methods and means to struggle against their crimes, including terrorist crimes. And of course, we are doing it.

But, he added, We don't allow ourselves to do it on a massive and uncontrolled scale, and I hope very much we will never allow that.

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Edward Snowden asks Putin on live TV: Does Russia spy on millions?