On Sunday's edition of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," host John Oliver traveled to Russia to interview National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
It's been almost two years since Snowden fled to Moscow after leaking hundreds of thousands of documents revealing the NSA's spying programs.
The interview started off on an awkward footing as Snowden was more than an hour late for the interview and Oliver realized that the building they were filming in was directly across from the headquarters of Russia's Federal Security Bureau.
Oliver seemed genuinely surprised when the man he described as the "most famous hero and/or traitor in recent American history" did show up.
After asking Snowden how much he missed America and Hot Pockets, Oliver challenged Snowden on how many of the leaked documents he had read. Here's that exchange:
Oliver: How many of those documents have you actually read?
Snowden: I’ve evaluated all the documents that are in the archive.
Oliver: You’ve read every single one?
Snowden: Well, I do understand what I turned over.
Oliver: There’s a difference between understanding what's in the documents and reading what's in the documents.
Snowden: I recognize the concerns.
Oliver: Right, because when you are handing over thousands of NSA documents, the last thing you want to do is read them.
Snowden: I think it's fair to be concerned about, Did this person do enough? Were they careful enough? Were they …
Oliver: Especially when you are handling material like we know you are handling.
Snowden: In my defense, I’m not handling anything anymore. That’s been passed to the journalists. They are using extraordinary security measures to make sure this is reported in the most responsible way.
Oliver: But those are journalists with a lower technical skill set than you.
Snowden: That’s true, but they do understand just like you and I do just how important this is to get right.
Oliver: So The New York Times took a slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to see that something was being used in Mosul on Al Qaeda.
Snowden: That is a problem.
Oliver: That is a f-----up.
Snowden: That is a f----up and these things do happen in reporting. In journalism, we have to accept that some mistakes will be made. This is a fundamental concept of liberty.
Oliver: Right, but you have to own that then. You are giving documents with information you know could be harmful, which could get out there.
Snowden: Yes, if people act in bad faith.
Oliver: No, we’re not even talking about bad faith. We’re talking about incompetence.
Snowden: We are, but you will never be completely free from risk if you are free. The only time you can be completely free from risk is when you are in prison.
Snowden seemed genuinely taken aback by Oliver's hard stance.
From there on, the interview loosened up a bit. Oliver showed Snowden a compilation of New Yorkers who barely knew who Snowden was or what he did, and were far more concerned when the interviewer asked them about the government spying on their "dick pics."
Oliver then had Snowden explain each NSA program and executive order in terms of how it allowed the government to view your "dick pics."
The interview starts at about 14:00 in the video below:
