Edward Snowden popped-up via video-link from an undisclosed location in Russia on Friday to talk surveillance reform efforts in Congress, the so-called Torture Report, and his chances of returning to the US.
He spoke to a CATO conference on surveillance, privacy, and civil liberties, and he said Congress is mostly taking “baby steps” toward reform and that nothing so far “really solves the problem.”
“We really need to think more broadly about the kind of society we want to live in,” he said during a question and answer session.
Snowden questioned the need for powerful spy agencies like the NSA and the CIA given how traditional law enforcement agencies have grown.
“We’ve got these tanks driving around Ferguson, we’ve got stingrays flying around New York…that is an intelligence power,” he said. “When our police are capable of things other countries spy agencies aren’t capable of, what utility is unique to our spy agencies that can’t be provided through transparent public legislation?”
At odds with true reform is the power of the political donor class, Snowden contended. “Everyone sitting on the intelligence committee received twice as much in campaign donations from defense contractors seeking business with the CIA and the NSA,” he said.
“They have every incentive to approve these programs to keep their seats.”
Snowden also referenced his experience working at the CIA to talk about the recently released torture report, focusing on claims that detainees simply disappeared.
“Twenty-nine people do not disappear from a secret government torture program without any records,” he said.
About his prospect for return to the US, Snowden was hopeful. He said that that US government is “becoming more open” in negotiations over his return, though he didn’t elaborate any further.
At several moments throughout the 113th Congress, it appeared lawmakers might take steps to rein in the NSA. Last year, shortly after the first revelations about PATRIOT Act section 215 bulk phone data collection, a measure to defund the program narrowly passed the House of Representatives. In November, the so-called USA Freedom Act fell two votes shy of overcoming a filibuster in the Senate.
In its final days, however, the 113th Congress moved in the opposite direction. For the first time, it authorized ongoing foreign surveillance that collects huge swaths of data belonging to Americans. And before passage of the “Cromnibus,” a measure to prohibit “back-door” searches for Americans’ data within NSA repositories was removed.
There’s virtually no chance Congress will agree to eliminate the NSA, the CIA or other intelligence agencies, as Snowden suggested. Even if the USA Freedom Act were revived in the 114th Congress, it would only prohibit a fraction of NSA activities.
Snowden, nevertheless, was optimistic about the future of reform. “We’ve got a lot of reforms out there which are good ideas,” he said.
“We’ve got to start somewhere – we have to build momentum.”
