WhatFinger


A comedian does the only substantive Snowden interview.

Comedian John Oliver interviews Edward Snowden. ..And it's pretty fantastic.



It's no secret that I'm fascinated with the Edward Snowden story.

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While I don't think he's quite the traitorous spy that many on the right like to accuse him of being, I also don't think he's the patriot whistleblower that the left and Libertarians have decided to worship. The fact is that we all know there's something inherently wrong about the domestic surveillance state we've created since 9/11 and the "if you're not doing anything illegal you have nothing to hide" argument is as hollow as a rotten log. ...As is the opinion of anyone who's willing to completely overlook the very real damage Snowden has done to our foreign operations. So the fuzzy middle-ground between whistleblower and spy has become an interesting thing to explore. Snowden himself seems comfortable delivering speeches, pre-taped messages, and statements, but he's clearly not crazy about interviews - unless it's with an outfit that he can reasonably assume to be friendly. Maybe that's why HBO's resident liberal, John Oliver, was able to score a Snowden sit-down for his show "Last week tonight." If Snowden thought he was walking on exclusively friendly territory, he was in for a surprise. In particular, he seems stunned by a line of questioning regarding a New York Times article in which Snowden-provided materials exposed U.S. operatives working against Al Qaeda in Mosul. The entire segment appears below. If you're only interested in the interview (though you should watch the whole thing because Oliver's genuinely funny) it begins around 13 minutes in. Be warned, the language gets a bit "saucy" as Oliver boils a multitude of federal surveillance programs down to the one issue that it seems everyone can understand. Namely, the naked pictures that people have been sending each other. Now, to be fair, this is a comedy show. Like The Daily Show before it, it thrives on innuendo and editing. As a result, you never quite know how much the tape has been manipulated. Still, how sad is it that the only "media member" (pun intended) who's managed to get a substantive interview with Snowden is a comedian from HBO?


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