NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden speaks to students about privacy and information
-By Jared Servantez
USC Gould School of Law hosted a rare opportunity for students and guests to engage in a Q&A session via livestream with former NSA contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden.
As part of a two-day symposium hosted in conjunction with the UC Irvine Forum for the Academy and the Public, “What Cannot Be Said: Freedom of Expression in a Changing World,” Snowden spoke with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Barton Gellman, who interviewed Snowden before opening the floor to audience questions.
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| Students and guests gathered at USC Gould to watch Edward Snowden speak via Google Hangouts. |
Snowden, who lives in Russia on temporary asylum after leaking thousands of classified documents revealing mass surveillance and bulk data collection programs by the NSA and other global intelligence agencies, told the crowds gathered at both USC and UCI that he grew concerned about how the surveillance programs, which he saw as unconstitutional, would affect the freedom of the American press.
“The freedom of the press is our final safeguard against a government that is basically abusing its privileges, using extraordinary powers or secret powers against the public,” he said. “The question becomes how can the freedom of press work in a society if you can’t engage in investigative journalism, if you can’t securely and privately reach out to a source and have that done in a safe way.”
Although Snowden focused on issues of constitutionality and First Amendment rights, he warned that because of rapid advances in technology, those privacy concerns have become a global problem that does not end with the NSA and the U.S. government. Even if everything were to be completely reformed in the U.S. tomorrow, he said, the nature of the global communications network means that information crosses borders – and jurisdictions – “invisibly and instantly.”
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| Snowden spoke about the importance of an individual's right to privacy as well as a free and open press. |
When asked why someone like the average student should care about government surveillance, Snowden explained the concept of metadata, which federal courts have ruled the NSA can collect in bulk without violating the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
He said that while metadata only includes “activity records” – whom you called, when you called and from where, for example, but not the content of those conversations – the government can get all the information it needs from metadata alone, often with the willing consent of telecommunications providers like AT&T.
Snowden stressed the importance of privacy for the individual as a “foundation right … from which all other rights derive.” He called a government’s infringement of that right a serious violation.
“The question here is should we change our lives because the government has abused our rights, or should we change our government to respect our rights?” Snowden said.
For the final question from the student audience, Snowden was asked how he wanted the American people to remember him for what he did. He paused for a few seconds, smiling as he gathered his thoughts.
“I don’t,” he said. “I’m not so important. I was simply the mechanism of disclosure.”
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