Snowden spoke, but nobody listened
At an event where we have to install an app to get in, the man who turned the US upside down warned Web Summit participants that the technological "big brother" has arrived.
For the 20 minutes Edward Snowden spoke at the Altice Arena, the order was “nobody in, nobody out”. The venue was full, while another 10,000 people waited at the door for a chance to get into the arena.
It was not the first time a whistleblower had been at Web Summit, but it was Snowden’s debut. He appeared by video call from Moscow, where he has taken refuge from US justice, after exposing a programme of mass surveillance of citizens carried out by a government agency in breach of the Constitution.
AI translation from the Portuguese. First published in ECO on 7 November 2019.