Edward Snowden a former NSA Contractor who turned whistleblower when he leaked the most devastating information of this decade, about how the top U.S Spy agency broke all the rules and hacked into firms like Gemalto has landed an Oscar for his documentary along with director Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald. It is not easy to be a Whistleblower. Specially when your leaked information is about your countries top Spy agency. But Snowden risk it all for us and he showed us the true picture that how easy it is for these agencies to destroy our privacy.

Edword snowden who revealed information regarding global surveillance programs running by NSA expresses his regret about not coming forward sooner and exposing these documents. Snowden said after landing the Oscar for his documentary that, “I would have come sooner.”

Many described Snowden as the patriot and a hero which is pretty big words for a whistleblower. His disclosures have boosted debates over mass surveillance, government privacy, and the balance between public safety and information confidentiality.

He said that if he came forward a little sooner, these programs would not have been a lodged to that extent and those abusing them would have felt a little less familiar with and accustomed to the exercise of those powers. This is something we see in almost every sector of government, not just in the national security space. Once the government is permitted some new power or authority, it becomes strenuous to give back.
Snowden participated in the question-and-answer session with Laura Poitras, a journalist and director of CITIZENFOUR and Greenwald.

Snowden said that privacy and surveillance can be a contentious topic in the next presidential elections if the people are impassioned about laying stress on politicians via advocacy because Government can only be changed if there is demand and desire of the natives.

He admitted that people have got inborn rights, they are not bestowed us by the government. But it’s entirely the opposite for government their benefits are definitely equal to only those which we agonize them to enjoy.

Greenwald mentioned that “prescription related to privacy  had got a lot of support from both sides of the political span, with both Republicans and Democrats trying to constitutionalize together on the issue. The leadership of both parties is firmly behind the NSA and mass surveillance. But until there are leaders of one of the two parties willing to dissent on this issue, it will be hard to make it a big political issue,” he said.

At Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony, the host Neil Patrick Harris has poked
Snowden using the wordplay “for some treason”.Snowden said that he didn’t care about Harris’ comment as it was not meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that’s not so bad.

He said “My perspective is if you’re not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don’t care enough.”

In his response to answering a question about meeting Russian president, he refused allegations that he was a Russian spy, pointing out that it made no sense. If he had been working for Putin’s pals, he argued, he wouldn’t have made any files public or gone to Hong Kong originally, and he also wouldn’t have had to spend more than a month living in a Moscow airport.

“The reality is I spent so long in that damn airport because I wouldn’t play ball and nobody knew what to do with me. I refused to co-operate with Russian intelligence in any way (see my testimony to EU Parliament on this one if you’re interested), and that hasn’t changed,” he said.

In a question Snowden was asked whether he was dishearten by the lack of public resentment over the NSA’s spying activities. He replied that it is evident that people are cautious about their confidentiality but feel but they have no choice, although he said the technology community is leading the way in making alterations.

He concluded that politicians must limit the power of intelligence agencies to conduct mass surveillance and inventing software and policies to make it uneconomic. The technological community has taken considerable steps in the field.