National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden spoke directly to Britain in a televised Christmas message, stressing the importance of privacy and urging an end to government surveillance.
Snowden delivered the annual "Alternative Christmas Message" for Channel 4, which said the pre-recorded message was Snowden's first television broadcast since he arrived in Moscow, where he has been granted temporary asylum after his exposure of the NSA's secret domestic surveillance apparatus. Snowden's revelations have prompted a global debate over the limits of surveillance and the value of privacy.
"The conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it," he says, according to excerpts released by Channel 4.
"Together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel asking is always cheaper than spying."
He calls modern surveillance more invasive than envisioned by 1984 author George Orwell, saying that children today will grow up without knowing what it means to have an unrecorded or private moment.
