Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced his support for the National Security Agency in an interview with Russia Today on Wednesday.
During a visit to the state-sponsored news network, Putin, 60, gave a lengthy interview that touched on former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s controversial leak of classified surveillance programs that the U.S. government uses to fight terrorism.
Asked what he thought of the leak, the former KGB lieutenant colonel said “He told us nothing we didn’t know before.” Calling cyber surveillance a “global phenomenon” that is “generally practicable,” Putin gave the Obama administration a rare stamp of approval.
The Obama administration is probably not eager to be identified with Putin’s standards on civil liberties. The Russian President — and before that, Prime Minister; and before that, President; and before that, Prime Minister — has kept a tight grip on Russian life over the past decade. Since 1999, Putin has consolidated power around the Kremlin and repeatedly restricted freedom of expression, most recently by passing a law banning discussion of homosexuality in public.
Putin asserted that privacy is actually more respected in Russia than in the U.S: “At least in Russia, you cannot just go and tap into someone’s phone conversation without a warrant issued by court. That’s more or less the way a civilized society should go about fighting terrorism.”
When asked to react to President Obama’s defense of the programs — “You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.” — Putin disagreed.
“Yes you can. I’d like to reiterate: you do have to obtain a warrant for specific policing activities domestically, so why shouldn’t this requirement be valid for intelligence agencies as well,” Putin said.
This is not the first time the Russian president has sought to school Obama on freedom. In 2009 Putin warned the United States not to abandon its free-market traditions for “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence.”
Other topics covered in the interview included Putin’s recent divorce from Lyudmila Putina, his wife of 29 years, and the situation in Syria.
Full video of RT’s interview with Vladimir Putin: