Snowden objects to Big Brother laws
Edward Snowden has criticised a repressive new surveillance law in Russia, potentially risking the ire of the Kremlin and jeopardising his asylum status in the country.
The former US intelligence officer, who fled abroad after exposing how the United States spied on its own citizens, spoke out via social media.
‘‘Russia’s new Big Brother law is an unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights that should never be signed,’’ he wrote on Twitter.
Snowden was reacting to the Duma passing a package of legislation last week that will oblige telecommunication companies and internet service providers to keep records of customers’ conversations and make them available to police for up to six months.
‘‘Mass surveillance doesn’t work,’’ the whistleblower added. ‘‘This bill will take money and liberty from every Russian without improving safety. It should not be signed.’’
The law cannot be passed unless it is approved by the upper house of parliament and then signed by President Vladimir Putin, making Snowden’s outburst a challenge to the Russian leader.
In 2013 Snowden, a former employee of the CIA and the US National Security Agency, leaked thousands of intelligence documents that exposed the extent of US eavesdropping on the private communications of Americans. He fled the US for Hong Kong before moving on to Moscow, where he was granted asylum. He was later charged with espionage in the US, but the Kremlin refused to extradite him and he is thought to be supervised by Russia’s security services.
Critics have lambasted Snowden, a campaigner for civil freedoms, for making his home in Russia, where the Kremlin has used police, courts and the security apparatus to monitor and stifle opposition.
In 2014, he asked Putin at the president’s annual phone-in: ‘‘Does Russia intercept, store or analyse, in any way, the communications of millions of individuals?’’ Sceptics said at the time that he had served, wittingly or not, as a ‘‘propaganda patsy’’, allowing the Russian leader to deny any such thing, despite evidence to the contrary.
Under the law, encrypted messaging services such as Skype, Whatsapp, and Telegram will be obliged to help the Federal Security Service to decipher data sent by their users on request.
Tanya Lokshina, the Russia programme director of Human Rights Watch, said that the amendments ‘‘severely undermine freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and the right to privacy – all in the name of protecting the public from terrorism and extremists’’.
It is possible that Snowden’s comments will be used as an excuse by the Kremlin to water down the law before it is passed. His criticisms were reported on several state television stations and news agencies.