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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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? <\/p>\n
You have to own that thing, Oliver said. Youre giving documents with information you know could be harmful which could get out there. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Snowden, laughing, kept his cool and spoke up for himself. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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