NSA leaker Edward Snowden accused the U.S. surveillance agency of “setting fire to the future of the Internet,” and called Monday for the tech community to be “the firefighters.”
The former NSA contractor received a warm reception while speaking at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival remotely via video from Russia where he’s lived since having been granted temporary asylum.
Snowden appeared in front of a green-screen that showed Article One of the U.S. Constitution.
“I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and I saw that the Constitution was being violated on a massive scale,” Snowden said.
Snowden faces felony charges in the U.S. after revealing the agency’s mass surveillance program by leaking thousands of classified documents to media outlets.
Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, also spoke at Monday’s event.
“Let me be clear about one thing: His disclosures have improved Internet security,” he said of Snowden, NBC News reported.
Fugitive WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addressed the Austin conference on Saturday, and called the NSA a “rogue agency.” Assange is living in asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Monday’s session began at 11 a.m. Central Time and ended about an hour later.
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