America 
 
 Edward Snowden Tells SXSW He'd Leak Those Secrets Again 
 
 Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has leaked large amounts of classified information about the agency's electronic surveillance programs, spoke via video to a sympathetic audience at South By Southwest Interactive on Monday. 
 
 Snowden, who is wanted for prosecution in the U.S., was in Russia, where he's been given temporary asylum. Repeating things he's said before, Snowden declared Monday that he would do what he did all over again because he had seen the Constitution being "violated on a massive scale." 
 
 The Obama administration disagrees, though Snowden's revelations did begin a process that earlier this year led the president to say he wants the NSA to stop holding on to massive amounts of "metadata" about the phone calls and electronic communications of millions of people around the world. 
 
 We posted some highlights from Snowden's comments. As you'll see, he faced no tough questions. 
 
 Earlier today, All Tech Considered previewed his SXSW appearance. 
 
 Update at 1:02 p.m. ET. Would He Do It Again? "Absolutely Yes": 
 
 The last question to Snowden is about whether he would do what he's done again. "Absolutely yes," he says, adding that he "took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and I saw the Constitution ... being violated on a massive scale." 
 
 The surveillance programs, he adds, take the Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures and turn it into "any seizure is fine, just don't search it." 
 
 Update at 12:59 p.m. ET. The Problem With Contractors: 
 
 Snowden has worked both inside the government and for contractors outside it. The problem with contractors, he says, is that "they aren't accountable." 
 
 Update at 12:50 p.m. ET. A Tor Endorsement: 
 
 A Twitter query about what the average person can do to protect their online communications prompts Snowden to talk about Tor, the "mixed routing network" that can make it much harder to track online activity. 
 
 Update at 12:45 p.m. ET. Another Question For Snowden From The Web. Who Are You To Decide? 
 
 "On what basis do you get to be the person to unilaterally decide what material remains classified & what gets released?" (Tweeted here.) 
 
 We'll watch to see if that's asked. 
 
 Update at 12:40 p.m. ET. Question From The Web. What About Crimea? 
 
 Questions for Snowden can be posted with the Twitter hashtag #asksnowden. Tom Risen, a tech and business reporter for U.S. News, poses this topical query: 
 
 "What are you doing in Russia now that the Crimea situation is escalating?" 
 
 We'll watch to see if that's asked. 
 
 Update at 12:30 p.m. ET. Does Mass Surveillance Distract The Security Agencies? 
 
 Snowden argues that "we've actually had tremendous intelligence failures because we're monitoring the Internet ... everybody's communications, instead of the suspects' communications." His example: Tips about the brothers' accused in the Boston Marathon bombings may not have been thoroughly pursued because the surveillance programs were given priority. 
 
 Update at 12:25 p.m. ET. Says He's Not Weakening Nation's Security, NSA Is: 
 
 It's pointed out to Snowden that the NSA believes his revelations have harmed national security. His response? The NSA has "elevated offensive operations — that is, attacking — over the defense of our communications." And that, in Snowden's view, has made the nation less secure. 
 
 He makes the case that without a well-defended communications system, "our economy can't succeed." 
 
 Update at 12:15 p.m. ET. The Constitution As A Backdrop: 
 
 The background behind Snowden (presumably thanks to a "green screen" projection), is an image of the U.S. Constitution. 
 
 Note: NPR is not a SXSW sponsor, but our friends on the Music Desk are webcasting music from there and some NPR staff are appearing on some SXSW panels. ||||| Story highlights "Would I do it again? Absolutely," Edward Snowden says of leaking documents 
 
 "We need a watchdog that watches Congress," the NSA leaker says from Russia 
 
 "There's a political response that needs to occur," but also "a tech response" 
 
 He speaks via teleconference to SXSW tech conference in Texas 
 
 In a rare public talk via the Web, fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden urged a tech conference audience Monday to help "fix" the U.S. government's surveillance of its citizens. 
 
 He spoke via teleconference from Russia to an audience of thousands at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin. The event marked the first time the former National Security Agency contractor has directly addressed people in the United States since he fled the country with thousands of secret documents last June. 
 
 In response to a question, Snowden said he had no regrets about his decision to leak the NSA documents, which showed the intelligence agency has conducted secret monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet behavior in the name of national security. 
 
 "Would I do it again? Absolutely. Regardless of what happens to me, this is something we had a right to," he said. 
 
 "I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. And I saw the Constitution was being violated on a massive scale," he added, to applause from the 3,000 people in the auditorium at the Austin Convention Center. 
 
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 "South by Southwest and the tech community, the people in the room in Austin, they're the folks who can fix this," Snowden said earlier. "There's a political response that needs to occur, but there's also a tech response that needs to occur." 
 
 He appeared on video screens with a copy of the U.S. Constitution as a backdrop. The live stream was slow, repeatedly freezing Snowden's image onscreen. 
 
 The pair of American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who hosted the discussion said Snowden's video, ultimately delivered via Google Hangouts, was streamed through several routers for security. 
 
 Snowden also said Internet users need more awareness, and better tools, to help them secure their online information from prying eyes. 
 
 While tech geeks may have no problem using encryption tools to scramble their messages or accessing the more-private "deep Web" via clients like Tor, Snowden said the average Web user should be able to access similar protections. 
 
 "This is something that people have to be able to interact with, and the way we interact with it now is not that good," he said. 
 
 Snowden took questions from two moderators -- the ACLU's Chris Sogohian and Ben Wizner, his legal counsel -- from the audience, and from Twitter. The first, fittingly, came from Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web 25 years ago this week. Berners-Lee asked Snowden what he would change about the nation's surveillance system. 
 
 "We need public oversight ... some way for trusted public figures to advocate for us. We need a watchdog that watches Congress, because if we're not informed, we can't consent to these (government) policies." 
 
 Asked about the difference between government surveillance and snooping by private Internet companies, Snowden said he considers government surveillance more insidious because "the government has the ability to deprive you of rights. They can jail you." 
 
 Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor who fled the United States after leaking details of the American government's spy programs, was granted temporary asylum in Russia last year. 
 
 He faces felony charges of espionage and theft of government property in the United States, and he has said he won't return until the U.S. changes its whistleblower protection laws. 
 
 Reaction among SXSW audience members to Snowden's comments appeared mixed. 
 
 "I think it was right on," said Michael Chalcraft, a retired software entrepreneur from Seattle. "There's always a balance between what the government should know about us and what we would expect to be private. 
 
 "If we're not constantly protecting that privacy, then we give it up." 
 
 But Megan Betterman, a health-care marketer from Minneapolis, didn't hear everything she wanted from Snowden. 
 
 "I wanted to hear about what his life is like there (in Russia), and whether he'll ever come back to the U.S.," she said. "It (his talk) was very encryption-heavy." 
 
 More than 30,000 attendees are currently in Austin for the 10-day SXSW festival, which began Friday and wraps on March 16. 
 
 The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit media organization, live streamed the session. 
 
 Also scheduled to speak at the tech-themed conference Monday afternoon -- although in person -- was journalist and civil-liberties lawyer Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story about Snowden's leaks of classified NSA documents. 
 
 Snowden's call for developers to create secure, private networks for their users is less of a no-brainer at South by Southwest than it may have once been. Having emerged from the counter-culture of the early Web, SXSW Interactive has exploded in recent years as more businesses have sought to tap into successful startups' millions of users. 
 
 In the same Austin convention hall where Snowden called for new privacy tools, other sessions were helping entrepreneurs learn how to make money with the data they collect about the users of their products.
– By leaking NSA data, Edward Snowden forced himself into exile—but he'd "absolutely" do it again, he said today during a video talk broadcast at SXSW. He spoke from Russia, saying that he "took an oath to support and defend the Constitution," NPR reports. "I saw the Constitution ... being violated on a massive scale," he continued. And for what? He argued that the US has "actually had tremendous intelligence failures because we're monitoring ... everybody's communications, instead of the suspects' communications." He pointed to the Boston Marathon bombings as an example, arguing that tips about the terrorists may have been overlooked while investigators focused on the surveillance programs. How to "fix" the system? "There's a political response that needs to occur, but there's also a tech response that needs to occur," Snowden said, according to CNN. "We need public oversight ... some way for trusted public figures to advocate for us. We need a watchdog that watches Congress, because if we're not informed, we can't consent to these (government) policies." He also suggested Internet users protect themselves, and suggested using a "mixed routing network" to make online activity more difficult to track. Today is the first time Snowden has directly addressed US citizens since fleeing the country.