No legal means exist to challenge mass surveillance - Snowden
No legal means exist to challenge mass surveillance, said NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, testifying to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. ● A former NSA contractor, Snowden was speaking to the PACE session in Strasbourg via a video link-up from Moscow. Wanted in the US on treason charges, he sparked a huge international scandal last year he leaked to the media classified evidence of American government spying programs. “I would like to clarify that I have no intention of harming the US government or straining bilateral ties between any nations. My motivation is to improve the government, not to bring it down,” Snowden said. The NSA gathered “explicit sexual material regarding religious conservatives whose political views it disfavored and considered radical for the purpose of exposing it to damage their reputations and discredit them within their communities,” Snowden told PACE. “This is an unprecedented form of political interference that I don’t believe can be seen elsewhere in western governments,” he went on. “But no legal means currently exist to challenge such activities or to see penalties for such abuses,” he said.
VoR: US refuses to let Merkel have a look at her NSA dossier