Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has urged people to work together to protect themselves from intrusive Government surveillance as Donald Trump prepares to move into the White House.
“If we want to have a better world, we cannot hope for an Obama and we should not fear a Donald Trump. Rather we should build it ourselves,” Snowden said late yesterday, addressing an audience in the Netherlands in a live video chat from Russia.
While he said Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s US presidential elections was “a dark moment” in American history, he insisted the bigger question was “how do we defend the rights of everyone, everywhere, without regard to bordersIJ”
Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents in 2013 revealing the vast US surveillance of private data put in place after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
After fleeing from his home in Hawaii, he currently lives as a fugitive in Russia where he has been given shelter.