Edward Snowden, the famous whistleblower who leaked information from the National Security Agency in 2012, has come out of hiding to share a warning with the world about the coronavirus.
Snowden told Vice that governments could exploit the coronavirus pandemic in order to keep their control over the public.
The cautionary words comes at a time where officials have set strict emergency laws, increased surveillance and suspended civil rights to limit the spread of the disease.
Snowden also believes that experts and intelligence agencies knew the outbreak was coming, as he himself has read reports planning for such an event.
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Edward Snowden has come out of hiding to share a warning with the world about the coronavirus. Snowden told Vice that governments could exploit the coronavirus pandemic in order to keep their control over the public
The interview was the first episode of VICE TV’s ‘Shelter in Place’ that aired Thursday, which was conducted by Vice co-founder Shane Smith via a virtual meeting.
Snowden explained that as authoritarianism spreads and emergency laws are set in place, the public will be forced to sacrifice their rights in order to survive the pandemic.
And he believes officials will attempt to hold this power long after the pandemic is over.
‘Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what’ is being built is the architecture of oppression,’ he said.
The cautionary words comes at a time where officials have set strict emergency laws, increased surveillance and suspended civil rights to limit the spread of the disease. Snowden also believes that experts and intelligence agencies knew the outbreak was coming, as he himself has read reports planning for such an event
The coronavirus started in Wuhan, China December 2019 and quickly spread through the country and then the world.
It made landfall in the US in late February, with California being the first state to impose a lockdown.
The virus has now made its way to at least 42 US states, which have reported more than 561,700 cases and over 22,100 deaths.
President Donald Trump has come under fire for his relaxed attitude about putting policies in place that would help limit the spread, as many officials have come forward saying that Trump knew about the coronavirus well in advance.
Snowden explained that this crisis was predicted by scientists and intelligent agencies and is not sold on the fact that the US and the world for that matter was ill-prepared.
‘There is nothing more foreseeable as a public health crisis in a world where we are just living on top of each other in crowded and polluted cities, than a pandemic,’ he said.
‘And every academic, every researcher who’s looked at this knew this was coming.
‘And in fact, even intelligence agencies, I can tell you firsthand, because they used to read the reports had been planning for pandemics.’
The Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said Monday that he had recommended more states in the US implement a lockdown as early as February.
‘As February 28 – as we got into March – we recognized the different areas that mitigation was now important,’ Redfiled told Today show host Savannah Guthrie.
‘CDC sent recommendations to Washington, to California, to New York and to Florida recommending that they expand mitigation in those areas.’
The nation’s top immunologist Anthony Fauci has also shamed Trump for not locking down the country sooner.
‘Obviously you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier you could’ve saved lives, obviously,’ Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning.
‘No-one is going to deny that,’ he continued, but added ‘there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.’
The virus has now made its way to at least 42 US states, which have reported more than 561,700 cases and over 22,100 deaths.
There are several reports that intelligence officials told the White House that there was a virus threat coming from China as early as November, indicating that the president knew about coronavirus sooner than he let on.
‘You know, Jake, as I have said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint,’ Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper. ‘We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes, it’s not.’
‘But it is what it is,’ he continued. ‘We are where we are right now.’