Apparently, there are many fans of Edward Snowdencertainly Bill Gates not one of them.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the Microsoft co-founder and the richest man in the world didn't mince words when asked what he thought of Snowden: Hero or traitor?
“I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn’t call him a hero,” Gates said. “If he had raised these issues in his country and engaged in civil disobedience or something like that, or if he had been more careful about what he put out, then he would have fit more into the model of, ‘Okay, I’m really trying to make things better.’ I’m not going to tell you that I admire him.”
Gates said that “there needs to be a conversation” about government wiretapping, but he suggested that some aspects of government surveillance are best kept secret. Microsoft, of course, is heavily involved in the wiretapping scandal, having been involved in the NSA scandal since the very first reports.
Last July, the Guardian reported that Microsoft had helped both the NSA and the FBI by giving them access to its users’ data, such as video and audio from Skype conversations and more. A Der Spiegel report in December reported that the NSA was using fake Windows error messages to trick unsuspecting users into sending them information.
Of course, we should also remember that Microsoft was the first technology company to begin collaborating with the NSA on the PRISM program.
After all these events, if we expected to hear a different statement from Mr. Gates, we are probably living on another planet.
