Though the WikiLeaks founder and critics like Edward Snowden were forced into exile, they took advantage of the previously silent NSA's lack of experience at spinning public opinion, Assange told SXSW.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaking by Skype at SXSW today.

AUSTIN, Texas -- National security reporters are a new kind of political refugee, but for the first time they've had an extremely powerful opponent without an effective public relations strategy.

Those were two of the main points delivered by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during a teleconference interview at South by Southwest today.

Assange, speaking over Skype from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, said that while the Internet had, over the last few years, been co-opted by the US National Security Agency, the Pentagon, and other government organizations in what could amount to the "most aggressive form of state surveillance" ever created, critics had in some ways gotten lucky.

In the past, Assange said, the NSA had run a public relations strategy that relied on radio silence, to essentially not exist. But, he said, it appears the intelligence agency was not prepared for the worldwide outcry that resulted from the release by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of documents revealing the organization's massive surveillance efforts. "The Pentagon has [always had] that strategy of trotting out soldiers wrapped in flags trying to demonstrate bravery, but the NSA didn't have that strategy," Assange said. "We got lucky, because we ended up with an opponent that didn't have a PR strategy."

What that's meant, he suggested, is that while the NSA has almost certainly not curtailed its surveillance actions, it has come under much brighter scrutiny than ever before, with substantial coverage of what it does, and intense criticism both at home and abroad. And that, though change may be slow, can only be a good thing.

To be sure, many of the leading voices in the community of critics of national-security surveillance have had to run from prosecution. Assange, for example, has been forced to hole up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for nearly two years to avoid prosecution. Similarly, Snowden is in exile in Russia, and four other vocal critics, Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Applebaum, Sarah Harrison, and Laura Poitras are all living outside the United States and Britain. Greenwald is in Brazil, while Applebaum, Harrison, and Poitras are all living in Berlin.

Those critics have lost much of their personal freedom, at least insofar as where they live and work, and as such have become what Assange called "a new type of [political] refugee."

In addition to Assange, both Snowden and Greenwald will be speaking to SXSW by teleconference.

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: NSA critics got lucky because agency had no PR strategy

AUSTIN, Texas Speaking over Skype from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fugitive WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his living situation is a bit like prison -- with a more lenient visitor policy.

He also hinted that new leaks are coming from WikiLeaks, though he gave no specifics on what these might be.

Assange, who has been confined to the embassy since June 2012, discussed government surveillance, journalism and the situation in Ukraine on Saturday in a streaming-video interview beamed to an audience of 3,500 attendees of the South By Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

Assange's hourlong remote appearance was spiked with technical glitches. As the audio cut out, he sometimes asked audience members to raise their hands if they could hear him. Benjamin Palmer, the co-founder of marketing firm The Barbarian Group who interviewed Assange, at one point resorted to texting his questions.

Looking well-groomed in a white shirt, scarf and a black blazer, Assange blasted President Barack Obama's administration, saying it was not taking fellow secret leaker Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA's surveillance activities seriously.

"We know what happens when the government is serious," he said. "Someone is fired, someone is forced to resign, someone is prosecuted, an investigation (is launched), a budget is cut. None of that has happened in the last eight months since the Edward Snowden revelations."

Assange's appearance at this five-day conference -- which will host Snowden in a similar remote interview Monday -- signal the growing concern in the tech community around issues of online privacy, surveillance and security, even as Internet giants like Google and Facebook reap billions in advertising revenue from collecting information about their users.

"Now that the Internet has merged with human society and human society has merged with the Internet, the laws of the Internet become the laws of society," he said, adding that through the NSA's "penetration of the Internet" has led to a "military occupation" of civilian space.

Assange has taken asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault charge, which he has said would be merely a first step in efforts to move him to the U.S. to face charges over publishing hundreds of thousands of secret documents.

Asked if he was afraid, Assange said he is, like any normal person.

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WikiLeaks' Julian Assange talks NSA, hints at more leaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange AP Photo/Max Nash

Speaking over Skype from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fugitive WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his living situation is a bit like prison -- with a more lenient visitor policy.

He also hinted that new leaks are coming from WikiLeaks, though he gave no specifics on what these might be.

Assange, who has been confined to the embassy since June 2012, discussed government surveillance, journalism and the situation in Ukraine on Saturday in a streaming-video interview beamed to an audience of 3,500 attendees of the South By Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

Assange's hourlong remote appearance was spiked with technical glitches. As the audio cut out, he sometimes asked audience members to raise their hands if they could hear him. Benjamin Palmer, the co-founder of marketing firm The Barbarian Group who interviewed Assange, at one point resorted to texting his questions.

Looking well-groomed in a white shirt, scarf and a black blazer, Assange blasted President Barack Obama's administration, saying it was not taking fellow secret leaker Edward Snowden's revelations about the NSA's surveillance activities seriously.

"We know what happens when the government is serious," he said. "Someone is fired, someone is forced to resign, someone is prosecuted, an investigation (is launched), a budget is cut. None of that has happened in the last eight months since the Edward Snowden revelations."

Assange's appearance at this five-day conference -- which will host Snowden in a similar remote interview Monday -- signal the growing concern in the tech community around issues of online privacy, surveillance and security, even as Internet giants like Google and Facebook reap billions in advertising revenue from collecting information about their users.

"Now that the Internet has merged with human society and human society has merged with the Internet, the laws of the Internet become the laws of society," he said, adding that through the NSA's "penetration of the Internet" has led to a "military occupation" of civilian space.

Assange has taken asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault charge, which he has said would be merely a first step in efforts to move him to the U.S. to face charges over publishing hundreds of thousands of secret documents.

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'WikiLeaks' Assange hints at more leaks

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -

From his sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with roughly a dozen police officers outside, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Saturday that everyone in the world will be just as effectively monitored soon -- at least digitally.

"The ability to surveil everyone on the planet is almost there and, arguably, will be there in the next couple of years," said Assange, speaking via Skype to a large audience at the South by Southwest Interactive festival here.

Assange rocketed to international fame, and infamy, in 2010 after WikiLeaks began helping publish secret government documents online.

Ecuador granted Assange asylum in June 2012 and he fled to the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he raped one woman and sexually molested another.

He calls those charges false and politically motivated, but has said he fears Sweden will transfer him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty for the work of WikiLeaks if he were charged and convicted of a crime.

On Saturday, he called life in the embassy "like a prison," adding that actual inmates "arguably" have it worse.

Saturday's talk was billed as a question-and-answer session, but because of technological glitches it ended up being mostly an hourlong speech by Assange, punctuated occasionally with questions from Twitter.

The one-sided conversation seemed to turn off some members of the 2,000 people in the audience, many of whom streamed out before Assange was finished speaking.

With little to guide him other than his own thoughts (moderator Benjamin Palmer's audio connection appeared to go down after about 15 minutes), Assange was largely left to expound upon his views that world powers like the United States and England have overstepped their bounds in terms of online surveillance.

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WikiLeaks founder has harsh words for Google, Facebook

What is it like to live inside an embassy?

Julian Assange addressed the topic during a Skype conversation with Benjamin Palmer of The Barbarian Group at SXSW in Austin. Assange, who has been a political refugee inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since June 2012, said it's "a bit like prison" because he's confined inside and is surrounded by police surveillance, though he acknowledged that prisoners have it much worse.

The WikiLeaks founderalso spoke at length about national security and Internet privacy during the occasionally buggy Skype conversation. At one point the conversation turned to fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden and his leak of thousands of classified documents about surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency. Assange said that it worked to the media's benefit that the NSA did not have a public relations plan following the leak.

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"The response to press reports was to not respond," he said. "The White House's actions in trying to crush Edward Snowden grew to such volumethat it couldnt be ignored... To some degree these people whove been trying for years to call attention to this phenomenon of state overreach, we got lucky because we ended up with an opponent that didnt really have a PR strategy except to not exist at all."

He went on to say the politicization of the Internet over the last five years is the most important development in the last 10 years. Assange also touched on the conflict in Ukraine, saying that "Ukraine is very dear to my heart. Ive spent time in the Ukraine and Ive got extremely good friends there."

When asked about WikiLeaks he said that the platform has some important leaks coming up but declined to specify on the grounds that "Idont like to give time frames because it tends to give the opponents of that material more time to prepare their spin lines."

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Assange also addressed the 2010 leak of U.S. military documents that put WikiLeakson the map. "Adegree of pressure and perceived pressure rained down on our organization and me personally that caused a change in peoples behavior and it meant for example that individuals that normally you could trust couldnt be trusted."

When asked if he was afraid, Assange responded, "perhaps I feel the fear more keenly."

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SXSW: Julian Assange Says Living in Ecuadorian Embassy Is 'Like Prison'