National Security Agency contractor turned whistle blower Edward Snowden is likely not going to be a friend of President-elect Donald Trump but then again, he wasn’t too chummy with Barack Obama either.

Early this morning Snowden addressed the internet via a livestream hosted by Start Page and while he spoke about light-hearted topics such as the biopic directed by Oliver Stone, he also spoke about some rather serious issues as well.

One of the questions posed to Snowden was put forward by Phil Zimmerman, the creator of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption programme. Zimmerman asked about the fact that when Snowden leaked documents to the press, a journalist did not know how to use PGP encryption and added that he thought the journalist should have learned how to use it. Snowden believes otherwise and says that privacy should not be something that is learned but rather something that is a part of the technology.

“We have this tremendous fabric of technology that we’ve enveloped the earth with. This internet that creates bonds of fraternity between people who don’t even share the same language. But this fabric of communications that was intended to empower citizens and individuals and communities and families is increasingly being used to dis-empower them,” said Snowden.

[su_quote]”Defend the rights of everyone everywhere without regard to jurisdictions” Edward Snowden[/su_quote]

“Internet service providers, phone companies, governments and other corporations are beginning to spy. They’re lifting up that fabric to look at the lives underneath. Whether it’s for the purpose of profit or whether its for the purpose of power or whether its for – in some cases –  legitimate purposes. We have to think to ourselves what if we weave the fabric in a different way? What if we start changing that dynamic mechanism that we face in the status quo today?”

The global fight for privacy

Snowden anecdotally explained that right now when a call is made all that information is potentially visible to those that want to see it. He questioned why that is and why connections aren’t inherently protected for everybody so there is no need to teach people how to protect their privacy.

This, Snowden says is what we need to focus on to secure our privacy rather than focusing on elected officials.

“We are never farther than a single election away from a change in government, from a change in policy, from a change in the way the powers we’ve constructed into a system are used. What we need to start asking now is not how do we defend against President Donald Trump but how we defend the rights of everyone everywhere without regard to jurisdictions or borders,” the whistle blower said.

The trump card we all have

As you may well know Snowden is a fugitive of the United States where he is wanted for exposing confidential information that revealed the US government was spying on its people and people around the world.

When asked whether he thinks the outcome of the recent election will be better or worse for his case Snowden responded, “I’m the least important part of any of this, this is not about me this about us.”

“I see these changes in government where we see candidates who are extremely authoritarian they believe that if we have the power to do something, we should do something. We stop thinking about wrong or right we stop thinking about should or should not and instead we think about can and cannot. These I think are civic dangers to everyone,” says Snowden.

Broad social cases are what we should be focusing on rather than individual cases says Snowden. The whistleblower also says that we should be cautious in putting too much sway in one politician recounting the campaign of Barack Obama who promised to close Guantanamo Bay and end mass surveillance, two matters that are still very much ongoing. The onus of building a better world then, according to Snowden, is on us.

“If we want to build live or enjoy the fruits of a better world if we want to make sure that the rights that we have encoded into our laws are actually reliable that we live with them and pass them along to our children this will never be the work of policiticans this can only be the work of the people, of the population,” he says. “Politicians do not simply do what they think  is best, they do what they think people want to hear. They do what they think will gain them support.”

“Ultimately if we want to see a change we must force it through ourselves. If we want to have a better world we can’t hope for an Obama and we should not fear a Donald Trump rather, we should build it ourselves.”

[Source – Reuters on YouTube]