National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden appeared via Google Hangout at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas today and said if he could do it all again, he would.
The former government contractor whose leaking of thousands of classified government documents has led to a global discussion about Internet privacy and surveillance, appeared in front of a green screen that showed Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
Speaking to the ACLU's Christopher Soghoian, Snowden said of his disclosures, "The public has benefited. The government has benefited. Every society in the world has benefited.”
“I took an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, and I saw it was being violated on a massive scale," he said, stating he had no regrets.
Snowden also spoke at length of the importance that encryption software should play in protecting our private communications, and spoke of the need for engineers at leading technology companies to spearhead that effort.
"I think we've actually seen a lot of progress," he said from an undisclosed location in Russia, speaking to the conference through seven proxies used to deter government snoops from tracking him down.
He also said that two former and current NSA directors had damaged U.S. national security by making the country more vulnerable to cyber attacks.