What Europe Should Know about US Mass Surveillance

03-09-2014 • http://original.antiwar.com, by Edward Snowden

Address to investigative panel of the European Parliament looking into the nature and scope of U.S. surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency and its partner agencies in Europe. Following the statement are answers to written questions posed by the panel to Mr. Snowden. The original statement is available here as a pdf.

– Introductory Statement:

I would like to thank the European Parliament for the invitation to provide testimony for your inquiry into the Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens. The suspicionless surveillance programs of the NSA, GCHQ, and so many others that we learned about over the last year endanger a number of basic rights which, in aggregate, constitute the foundation of liberal societies.