Edward Snowden: Mass surveillance won’t stop terrorism

TERROR attacks like the Sydney siege and Charlie Hedbo won’t be stopped by metadata collection says Edward Snowden.

Edward Snowden Gives First Interview In Russia

WHISTLEBLOWER Edward Snowden has slammed governments such as the UK and Australia, calling for them to stop “weasling their way out” by calling mass surveillance terms like “bulk collection”.

Speaking in a video interview at FutureFest in London, Snowden defended spying as a whole, but wanted surveillance to be done for a purpose and not to be conducted over all of us.

He referenced both the Sydney siege and Charlie Hedbo attacks, noting that the attackers in both incidents were known to governments already.

“They’re not going to stop the next attacks either,” he said. “Because they’re not public safety programs. They’re spying programs.”

“But the question that we as a society have to ask, our are collective rights worth a small advantage in our ability to spy,” Snowden added.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - DECEMBER 2013: (EXCLUSIVE ACCESS; PREMIUM RATES (3X) APPLY) Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden poses for a photo during an interview in an undisclosed location in December 2013 in Moscow, Russia. Snowden who exposed extensive details of global electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency has been in Moscow since June 2012 after getting temporary asylum in order to evade prosecution by authorities in the U.S. (Photo by Barton Gellman/Getty Images)

The Australian government has been trying to push the ability to keep our metadata for two years, claiming it’s necessary for national security.

Critics like Snowden argue that this would be a massive privacy breach, but the government believes it is necessary to protect Australia.

A recent Essential poll has shown that around 40 per cent of Australians support the introduction of the new metadata laws, while 44 per cent do not.

Most of the concern surrounds people’s privacy, particularly with two years worth of data being stored on multiple servers, with some in Asia. Even Telstra has labelled the storage of the data as a “honey pot for hackers.”

Last month, a police insider even claimed that, “The Australian people are being sleepwalked into a system the Attorney-General can’t even articulate.”

The government wants the new metadata collection laws to be passed by the end of this month.