Snowden to speak at SXSW

Edward Snowden will speak via video conference at South By Southwest in Austin next week, the festival announced Tuesday.

The National Security Agency leaker will speak with Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist of the American Civil Liberties Union, about NSA's spying techniques and "the ways in which technology can help to protect us from mass surveillance." The event will take place Monday and be moderated by Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project (who is also a legal advisor for Snowden). Snowden will take audience questions.

"Surveillance and online privacy look to be one of the biggest topics of conversation at the 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival. The number of sessions on this topic reflect the importance of this issue to the digital creatives who converge in Austin each March," South By Southwest Director Hugh Forrest wrote in a news release. "As organizers, SXSW agrees that a healthy debate with regards to the limits of surveillance is vital to the future of the online ecosystem."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/03/snowden-to-speak-at-sxsw-184446.html