14 DAY TRIAL // Edward Snowden is urging all online businesses to encrypt their communications and promises that there are more important details to be revealed about the NSA in the coming months.
The NSA whistleblower made an appearance via a Beam telepresence robot at the TED Conference in Vancouver, the second in the past eight days.
“The biggest thing that an Internet company in America can do today, right now, without consulting lawyers, to protect users of the Internet around the world, is to enable Web encryption on every page you visit,” Snowden said.
He explains that if anyone searches for a copy of “1984” on Amazon, the NSA, the Russians and the French can see the record of that query. This is something that needs to change, not just for Amazon, but for all companies.
His urge to have everyone chose encrypted communications by default comes just a few days after it was revealed that Australian authorities are trying to get permission to force everyone to hand over encryption keys to make sense of intercepted communications.
Talking about the documents that have not been reported on thus far, Snowden has said that there are a lot more revelations to come and some of them are the most important yet, indicating that the trove of files contains a lot more treasures that the NSA would rather never see the light of day.
Despite people accusing him of not choosing the responsible path to reveal the wrongdoings of the NSA, Snowden defended himself.
“We did a lot of good things in the intelligence community. But there are also things that go too far; decisions made in secret without the public's awareness, the public's consent. When I really came to struggle with these issues, I thought to myself, how can I do these things in the most responsible way?” he said.
That’s why he chose responsible media outlets, mainly because journalists are guaranteed freedom through the constitution, especially when challenging the government. Those he chose to reveal the NSA stories work to do just that, but also work with the government to make sure national security isn’t put at risk.
In the past few months, Snowden has been criticized by more voices about the path he has taken. Many have said that he should have gone to his superiors to reveal his concerns, but Snowden said he had already done that and they only tried to steer him away from the issue or shut him down completely, doing their best to ignore the elephant in the room.