Kill the Snowden interview, congressman tells SXSW
A member of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Pompeo, published anopen letter to South by Southwest Interactive conference organizers onFriday demanding that they rescind their invitation to Edward Snowden.Related storiesApple's SXSW iTunes Festival app doesn't require iOS 7.1FreedomPop's 'Snowden phone' encrypts your calls and dataEdward Snowden to speak at South by Southwest Pompeo, R-Kan., said he was "deeply troubled" by the scheduled videoappearance of Snowden, whom he described as lacking the credentials toauthoritatively speak on issues pertaining to "privacy, surveillance,and online monitoring." Snowden is scheduled to speak by video conferencing on Monday at 11 a.m.CT with Christopher Soghoian, a privacy advocate and principaltechnologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, who will be onstageatSXSW inAustin, Texas. Moderated by Ben Wizner, the director of the ACLU'sSpeech, Privacy, and Technology Project, Snowden is expected to answeraudience questions. The panel, "A Virtual Conversation with Edward Snowden," will focus on the impact of the NSA spying revelations and how technology can be used to protect privacy. Snowden's "only apparent qualification," Pompeo wrote, "is hiswillingness to steal from his own government and then flee to thatbeacon of First Amendment freedoms, the Russia of Vladimir Putin."Representing Kansas' fourth district, Pompeo has been critical ofSnowden's whistle-blowing. He described Snowden as a "traitor" in thepress release announcing the SXSW letter, and said that the documentsleaked by Snowden are "now in the hands of other countries."Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo (R).pompeo.house.gov Snowden and the reporters to whom he leaked the NSA documents have denied that accusation, saying he gave all his copies of the documents to reporters.Snowden denied giving the documents to other governments. "There's azero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received anydocuments," he said last October. Snowden fled the US before leaking the documents, and eventually settled in Russia, which granted him asylum for one year. Neither Rep. Pompeo nor SXSW returned requests for comment. CNET will update the story when we hear back from them.
