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Snowden on those that say ‘I have nothing to hide’

Over the past year, the world has become much more aware of the way government's sniff out data on potential criminals: in short, everything is recorded. Edward Snowden's revelations about this have helped create a growing tide of disquiet with regards to overly intrusive surveillance and especially when it comes to gag orders on services that are forced to cooperate with law enforcement. However there's still a lot of people that suggest that there isn't a problem with the police or anyone else going through all of their personal files, because they ‘have nothing to hide.'

During a chat at the New Yorker Festival this weekend, Edward Snowden himself addressed these claims in a video interview.

“When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right,'” he said. “You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights.”

snowden

Ultimately, this inverts the way rights work he said and called for governments to change their policies on spying. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fidq3jow8bc']

This is particularly poignant at the moment here in the UK, after Cameron and co. rushed through new human rights breaching snooping laws earlier this year and recently pledged to ditch the European sanctioned human rights legislation in favour of a newly designed British one, in order to better tackle ‘terrorism'.

Snowden went on in his chat, to recommend that web users around the world make use of more encryption tools to at the very least make their data harder to read and therefore less valuable a resource to collect. While some critics claim that heavier end user encryption could make it harder for law enforcement to tackle criminal threats, Snowden said that warrants give full access to a person's phone or other electronic device, thereby often handing over the private keys too. It just makes it harder for mass data collection.

When asked if he would ever return to the US, Snowden said that he would love to, but only on condition that the government offer him an open trial so he could fairly explain himself. It has so far declined.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It's amazing that politicians can decry the hackers that leak private photos of individuals, when their spy agencies do almost the exact same thing. [Thanks TechCrunch]

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8 comments

  1. the government have declined a fair trial….
    says it all

  2. “blah blah blah muh hooman rites blah blah blah” can this traitor just go away to his Russian sponsors and shut up

  3. on one hand, sure. On the other hand… terrorism is real and now even more americans are clearly willing to be involved in those activities. Like it or not, something has to give. Unless someone has a better idea on how to find these people

  4. I love the people trying to justify the US government data collection with the term “terrorist” Please, the US invaded a country for oil, and in turned piss’d a lot of people off and now there are “terror” threats. Keep drinking the kool-aid. The US government is the biggest terror threat on this planet. Big money to be made in creating wars and the US is a master at it.

  5. the problem with the word terrorism is it could mean any group who opposes any other group or standard it is too broad a term therefore the bush ear “war on terrorism” is a never ending war because unfortunately people on this planet though we be of the same species war. we always will war because we lack the intelligence to set aside our differences any other way, even though society has advanced so much we lack the common decency to compromise unless we see people die for our causes.

    This is sad because the things people war over are land, resources and power. All each individual is already born with freely but certain groups of people want to control those free rights. Sad when we are all created with the same potential from birth we must as a species set out to destroy all we feel threatened about. And this current culture is no different then the originating cultures who warred many millenia ago. The only differance is the weapons we use kill much more effectively today.

    So until we accept other religions as peoples choice on all fronts, and willingly aid others to prosper as we do then terrorism will always exist, Their will be no end to the wars because evolution of our species has and probably never will reach the intelligence to do so, It is sad all the advances we have made from cavemen to the renaissance to the industrial age to now the information super age and we still are no more mentally equip then our caveman brethren we just don;t get what life is about.

    and so the governing bodies know this already they know heartfelt speeches and empty promises will move the masses in any direction they want and they will continue to use every means possible to aquire the power which actually does not belong to them but to each and every one of us born on this earth and no man has any more power over another unless we give it to them. Sadly we have.

    So when you watch the news and see what they want you to see and are lead by your emotions down the road to where they want you to go, they being the ones who hold current power. Remember this is not a war for religion, no Jihad here, no stopping of terrorism and no fight for freedom and democracy exists. This is a war for resources and power nothing more nothing less and the soldiers fighting are just pawns in a game which has gone on since caveman days.

    So sad 6 million years out of caves and we still fight for petty power and minerals. we have advanced so little and it saddens this heart we will die from our own ignorance.

  6. “traitor”

  7. This guy deserves respect !

  8. *sniff* *sniff* I smell a troll afoot.