It was live when I posted it. Ended about 15 minutes ago. Summary from memory:
- The interviewers asked questions about his relationship with the press, specifically Snowdens request/condition that the media confer with the governments involved about what could and could not be published, given implications on national security.
- Did Snowden personally look through all the material? Pretty much, yes.
- Danish representative asked about the involvement of Denmark (the reply was a very diplomatic answer to the effect that such rumours should not be considered unfounded).
- They asked about his relationship to the Russian government (none official, bureaucratic contact mostly conducted through lawyers, they probably consider him a pain in the ass).
- Would others, such as Russia and China have similar abilities? Most probably, yes.
At the end, they lost the connection with Snowden and there was some outrage at EU governments denying Snowden asylum or even entry into the country to testify. There was some mention of extra problems brought to light by Snowden's revelations and things that need to be fixed, including in the treatment of whistleblowers.
About Denmark, there was a longer article in Information about it recently, which I still have to muster the courage and the dictionaries to read in details, but it sounded like "not unfounded" was quite the understatement.
Wrong title. The European Council consists of the political leaders of the member states, that is, the very people who were (and presumably, still are) accomplices of the NSA, and muttered a few embarrassed words when the Snowden documents came out.
The Council of Europe, which is the group doing the interview, is a European human rights organization. The EU Court of Human Rights is a Council of Europe body.
The official names of European institutions - and what even high-profile journalists and lawyers make of them - are a constant source of head-shaking (and amusement). Council of Europe (non-EU) ≠ European Council (EU) ≠ Council of the European Union (EU). Court of Justice of the European Union = European Court of Justice + General Court (+ others; all EU).
Of course, the EU has 24 official languages, and needless to say, the translations of these terms are rarely literal, so the confusion is multiplied.
Seriously, the people who come up with this are either brain-dead or they don't want ordinary people to understand this system. I don't know which option frightens me more.
To add to that, the European Council is a formal institution of the European Union. It has no formal powers, but it generally guides the policy of the EU through the influence of the executive branches of member nations (according to Wikipedia).
The Council of Europe, which is the organization that did this interview, has nothing to do with the European Union.
There is at least one other similarly-named entity, the Council of the European Union, which is one of the houses of the EU legislature. The names are quite confusing.
The hearing was dealing with the wider topic of whistle blowing both in relation to governments and multi-national corporations. Snowden was offering testimony on his specific circumstances and on what protections should be offered to whistle blowers. The committee memo is here http://whistlenetwork.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/as-jur-201...
Interesting that Pieter Omtzigt, the Dutch committee member, seemed to suggest in his comments at the end that technical problems with the video link to Snowden might be related to interference by an outside party. He also commented that the committee had tried to facilitate Snowden's attendance in person but seemed to imply that the UK and Germany had blocked the attempt.
There was also a member of a whistle blower's support organisation (I forget the name) who had some interesting comments at the end about the challenge of protecting whistleblowers at multinationals who may not have protection in their own country but who may be releasing information of importance to another country's citizens eg: say a German company poisoning a river in South America but the German employee does not have whistleblower protection in their own country.
You can watch current ongoing proceedings by clicking on "live". It made me really dislike someone called Sir Gale. He was speaking in a debate over "Violence in and through the media". You can guess the rest.
Edit: Oh God. It's basically old people complaining and thanking each other.
Yes, but with the interpretation on I found that the interpretation was about the same volume as the original track, which I found difficult to follow. Of course this probably depends on the speaker and interpreter.
We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.
This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.
- The interviewers asked questions about his relationship with the press, specifically Snowdens request/condition that the media confer with the governments involved about what could and could not be published, given implications on national security. - Did Snowden personally look through all the material? Pretty much, yes. - Danish representative asked about the involvement of Denmark (the reply was a very diplomatic answer to the effect that such rumours should not be considered unfounded). - They asked about his relationship to the Russian government (none official, bureaucratic contact mostly conducted through lawyers, they probably consider him a pain in the ass). - Would others, such as Russia and China have similar abilities? Most probably, yes.
At the end, they lost the connection with Snowden and there was some outrage at EU governments denying Snowden asylum or even entry into the country to testify. There was some mention of extra problems brought to light by Snowden's revelations and things that need to be fixed, including in the treatment of whistleblowers.