The man who exposed the actions of the National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, appeared today via Google Hangout at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas and stated that he has no regrets about what he did and that if he could do it again, he would.
The former government contractor whose leak of thousands of classified government documents has led to a global debate over internet privacy appeared on a screen showing Article 1 of the US Constitution.
Speaking to Christopher Soghoian of the ACLU, Snowden said:
“I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and I saw that it had been violated on a massive scale,” stating that he did not regret what he did.
Snowden also spoke about the importance that encryption software will play in protecting private communications, and spoke about the need for technicians at leading technology companies to lead this effort.
“I think we’ve really made a lot of progress,” he said from an undisclosed location in Russia. To address the conference, he used seven proxies to prevent the U.S. government from tracking him.
He also said that two former and current NSA directors destroyed US national security, making the country more vulnerable to cyberattacks.
