Edward Snowden speaks via Skype at Phoenix cybersecurity conference
Oct 19, 2016, 10:27 AM
(AP Photo/Juliet Linderman, File)
The fourth annual Privacy Xchange Forum was on Monday afternoon in Carefree, and the event had perhaps their most infamous guest speaker to date.
Edward Snowden, known globally for copying and leaking classified information to reveal National Security Agency secrets in 2013, spoke at the conference via Skype.
The controversial figure was interviewed by CyberScout chief privacy officer Eduard Goodman, and when asked if he would have changed anything he did in the past in regards to the leaks, Snowden said he would have done the same thing “without hesitation.”
“The government was no longer monitoring someone with nefarious intellect, rather they were embracing the new convenience to monitor everyone everywhere,” Snowden said. “What I set out to do was enable these legal challenges. I wanted to give society a chance to decide how constitutional this was.”
Snowden has been living in Russia since the U.S. government has been pursuing his extradition. He was charged under the Espionage act, which could see him spend decades in jail.