‘ARREST UIDAI, NOT JOURNALIST WHO EXPOSED BREACH OF DATA’

whistleblower Edward Snowden on Tuesday said the Indian journalist, whose report on Aadhaar data breach has led to lodging of an FIR, merits an award and not a government probe for his reportage.

Snowden, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who blew the lid off US surveillance on phone and internet communications, also said the Indian government should reform its policy to safeguard privacy of its citizens.

“The journalists exposing the #Aadhaar breach deserve an award, not an investigation. If the government were truly concerned for justice, they would be reforming the policies that destroyed the privacy of a billion Indians. Want to arrest those responsible? They are called @UIDAI,” Snowden tweeted.

The Delhi police has registered an “open-ended” FIR on a complaint from UIDAI over the investigative report. “It is the natural tendency of government to desire perfect records of private lives. History shows that no matter the laws, the result is abuse,” Snowden, 34, living in asylum in Russia since 2013, had tweeted in context of the Aadhaar issue last week.

Meanwhile, Union minister for electronics and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has said the administration was “fully committed to freedom of press” and that the FIR filed was “against unknown”.

LONDON:American