NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden participated in a live online chat Thursday starting at 3 PM EST.
The forum was hosted on the Free Snowden website here, which is run by The Courage Foundation and is the only officially endorsed Snowden Defense Fund.
This comes exactly one week after U.S. President Barack Obama gave an address in response to the public concerns raised by Snowden’s revelations about US surveillance practices. In the live chat, Edward Snowden gave his first reaction to the President’s speech.
What follows, in order from most recent to earliest, are the selected questions and his answers:
@mperkel #ASKSNOWDEN They say it’s a balance of privacy and safety. I think spying makes us less safe. do you agree?
@mrbass21 Recently several threats have been made on your life by the intelligence community. Are you afraid for your life? Thoughts? #AskSnowden
@ferenstein what’s the worst and most realistic harm from bulk collection of data? Why do you think it outweighs national security? #AskSnowden
@LukasReuter #AskSnowden How should the community of states react to the new information concerning surveillance? What actions have to be made?
@wikileaks #AskSnowden The Ecuadorean Consul in London, Fidel Narvaez, lost his job after his helping you to safety was spun. Message for his family?
@jaketapper #AskSnowden Under what conditions would you agree to return to the U.S.?
@Valio_ch #asksnowden Do you think that the Watchdog Report by Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board will have any impact at all?
@RagBagUSA #AskSnowden what (in your opinion) is the appropriate extent of US national security apparatus? Surely some spying is needed?
@MichaelHargrov1 #AskSnowden Was the privacy of your co-workers considered while you were stealing their log-in and password information?
@auerfeld #AskSnowden do you think it’s a shame that #Obama gave his #NSA speech before his Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board reported?
@VilleThompson What do you think about Obama’s whistleblowing protection act? #AskSnowden
@midwire How quickly can the NSA, et. al. decrypt AES messages with strong keys #AskSnowden Does encrypting our emails even work?
@savagejen Do you think it is possible for our democracy to recover from the damage NSA spying has done to our liberties? #AskSnowden
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The official @FreeSnowden Twitter feed is here:
Tweets by @free_snowden
People are using the hashtag #AskSnowden to post questions via Twitter:
Tweets about “#AskSnowden”
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