Stephen Fry has denounced the government's failure to act over the mass surveillance programme revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, labelling its behaviour as "squalid and rancid"
.
Opening a day of debate to galvanise action against spying by the British and US intelligence agencies, Fry said that exploiting the fear of terrorism is a "duplicitous and deeply wrong means of excusing something as base as spying on the citizens of your own country".
The performer was speaking via a prerecorded interview at a London summit on Saturday marking the anniversary of the start of Snowden's revelations, which were first published in the Guardian and the Washington Post.
The day of action is billed as the biggest privacy event of 2014, with more than 500 people attending the event at Shoreditch Town Hall in east London.
In his video message, Fry, 56, said: "The idea of having your letters read by somebody, your telegrams, your faxes, your postcards intercepted, was always considered one of the meanest, most beastly things a human being could do, and for a government to do, without good cause. Using the fear of terrorism that we all have, the fear of the unknown that we all share, the fear of enemies that hate us, is a duplicitous and deeply wrong means of excusing something as base as spying on the citizens of your own country."
The broadcaster said GCHQ and NSA had cooperated to "read and intercept everything we send".
Read more: Stephen Fry attacks 'squalid' coalition for inaction on Snowden revelations | World news | The Observer
No comments:
Post a Comment