What's This?
Image: Bret Hartman
2014-03-20 21:11:51 UTC
VANCOUVER, Canada — TED Curator Chris Anderson on Tuesday joked that the National Security Agency was watching Edward Snowden's appearance, which everyone thought was a surprise at the time. Then he threw conference-goers for another loop the next day when he announced that NSA Deputy Director Rich Ledgett would respond in a video interview.
"We didn't realize [Snowden] was going to show up there, so kudos to you guys," Ledgett said during the conference on Thursday.
And that was truly believable to the crowd. The interview, which was left off the official TED schedule until Wednesday evening, seemed reactionary. Maybe it was something Snowden had said on Tuesday that finally compelled the agency’s highest civilian authority to respond?
But, as it turns out, the whole thing has been in the works for awhile. Anderson knew the NSA was watching because that was the plan all along.
Anderson told Mashable he wanted to get Snowden months ago, and went through a personal contact of his at the American Civil Liberties Union to make it happen. What appealed most to Snowden, however, was the opportunity to speak via telepresence robot.
"It was emotional for him to have a physical presence," said Anderson. He said the first time Snowden tried out the robot at the ACLU’s New York City office, he rolled it to the window and looked at the Statue of Liberty.
As for the NSA, Anderson said agency officials showed an interest in working with TED months ago, before a Snowden appearance was ever on the plate. "If logistics were easier, they would have come in person," he said. Once the Snowden interview had ended on Tuesday, Anderson reached out to the NSA again and made the offer, which they quickly accepted.
But some things didn't go as planned.
Ledgett was scheduled to talk at 8:30 a.m. PT on Thursday but because of technical difficulties, he didn't go on until nearly two hours later. In the meantime, TED organizers pressed on with other speakers of the "Hacked" session. That included cybersecurity expert Keren Elazari, who fired up the audience with bold comments about hackers and Internet freedom. The irony that she went before Ledgett was no lost on the crowd.
So, Ledgett wasn’t exactly facing a welcoming crowd in the beginning — in fact it was dead silent when his face appeared on screen. At a conference like TED, where the echelons of the tech industry pal around with each other in lunch lines, most attendees support Snowden — at least that's what more than half said by a show of hands when Anderson asked the crowd earlier this week if they considered Snowden to be "fundamentally heroic."
Snowden claims he's trying to protect a free Internet, a cause that hits home for many long-time TED-goers. Tim Berners-Lee, who jumped on stage with robot Snowden and shook his virtual hand, has called the whistleblower a "hero" on several occasions. However, Ledgett surprisingly received a very enthusiastic applause — some even stood — at the end of his session.
“It was an intense experience," Anderson said after the NSA interview. "It pushed my own marginal comfort to the edge.”
When asked why Ledgett didn't do the interview via telepresence robot like Snowden, Anderson said it wasn't even on the table because it would have been weird.
“That would have felt wrong," Anderson said. "It would have felt embarrassing for both parties.”
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Topics: edward snowden, NSA, TED, U.S., US & World, World
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