‘NSA could have written this’: Edward Snowden slams British surveillance bill
NSA whistle-blower says it ‘defies belief’ that bill must be hurried through after government ignored issue for a year
The NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has condemned the new surveillance bill being pushed through the British parliament this week, expressing concern about the speed at which it is being done, a lack of public debate, fear-mongering, and what he described as increased powers of intrusion.
Snowden said it was very unusual for a public body to pass an emergency law such as this in circumstances other than a time of total war. “I mean, we don’t have bombs falling. We don’t have U-boats in the harbour.”
It is suddenly a priority, he said, after the government had ignored it for an entire year. “It defies belief.”
He found the urgency with which the British government was moving extraordinary and said it mirrored a similar move in the US in 2007 when the Bush administration was forced to introduce legislation, the Protect America Act, citing the same concerns about terrorist threats and the NSA losing cooperation from telecoms and internet companies.
I mean, the NSA could have written this draft
“I mean, the NSA could have written this draft,” he said. “They passed it under the same sort of emergency justification. They said we would be at risk. They said companies will no longer cooperate with us. We’re losing valuable intelligence that puts the nation at risk.”