Edward Snowden: NSA Spies More on Americans Than Russians

Dustin Volz nationaljournal.com Edward Snowden told a crowd of fans Wednesday that the government's surveillance programs collect more data on Americans than any other country. "Does the NSA know more about Americans in America than Russians in Russia?" Snowden said, appearing by live video during an awards ceremony in Washington. "We watch our own people more closely than anyone else in the world." Snowden also took several shots at the National Security Agency and its top officials, and criticized the agency for wearing two contradictory hats of protecting U.S. data and exploiting security flaws to gather intelligence on foreign threats. "U.S. government policy directed by the NSA ... is now making a choice, a binary choice, between security of our communications and the vulnerability of our communications," Snowden said, suggesting the government was biased toward the latter activity. The former NSA contractor was awarded the Ridenhour Award for Truth-Telling along with Laura Poitras, one of his chief confidants. The 30-year-old fugitive remains in Russia, where he fled and earned temporary asylum following his disclosures of classified information about the NSA's bulk data-collection practices. Poitras also beamed into the ceremony from Berlin. The documentary filmmaker is believed to be one of only two people—along with journalist Glenn Greenwald—to possess the entire cache of Snowden files. The two collectively lambasted both the Senate and House Intelligence committees for what they said was a failure of sufficient oversight of the intelligence community. to read more: nationaljournal.com