Whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that the rise of politicians such as Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or the AfD in Germany can only be regarded as a temporary departure from the political norm.
"Everywhere politicians and entrepreneurs have understood that they can use technology to influence the world on a new level," said the 36-year-old in a conversation with the SPIEGEL in Moscow. "Trump is not the problem, it's a product of the problem." (Read the full interview here).
He regrets that he "could become part of a system that uses my abilities to cause global damage," said Snowden, whose biographical book "Permanent Record" will be released worldwide on September 17th. Today, he leads a largely normal life in his Russian exile, Snowden said, but he deliberately keeps a certain distance from Russian society: "I do not take selfies in front of the Kremlin because the US government would use that to discredit my work. "
Russia had "fairly certainly" manipulated elections, Snowden said in the conversation. The same applies, however, also for the USA. "Any country larger than Iceland will try to intervene in crucial elections, and everyone will always deny it because intelligence agencies do it," Snowden said.
"We have to stop the mass data collection," demanded the ex-spy, who today is president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. That applies not only to intelligence agencies, but also to data companies such as Facebook and Google. In a first step, it would be important for every smartphone user "to see how much we are persecuted at every turn," explained Snowden in the SPIEGEL conversation. The users would have to decide for themselves which functions of the smartphone are active. "And if no one else develops an alternative, then I'll fucking do it myself."
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