Snowden takes a bow for whistleblowing after NSA pulls back surveillance

BY COLIN DAILEDA

Edward Snowden felt a little bit of vindication Friday. 

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People said speaking up isn't worth the risk. Today, we can see they were wrong. Blow the whistle, change the world. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-surveillance-idUSKBN17U2OF …

12:29 AM - 29 Apr 2017

U.S. spy agency abandons controversial surveillance technique

The U.S. National Security Agency said on Friday it had stopped a form of surveillance that allowed it to collect without a warrant the digital communications of Americans who mentioned a foreign...

reuters.com

 
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Before Friday, the NSA had a policy of sucking up texts and emails exchanged between Americans and people outside the U.S., with impunity, if those communications even mentioned non-American targets of NSA surveillance. The agency did not require a warrant to collect this information.

SEE ALSO: Edward Snowden weighs in on WikiLeaks CIA dump

But the NSA announced Friday that it would no longer participate in this form of collection. Snowden counted that as a win for whistleblowing. 

Snowden is the former NSA contractor who leaked documents about the agency's spying programs and techniques to several journalists and news outlets in 2013. 

The NSA's Friday announcement, as the ACLU has pointed out, is not irreversible. And it's not as if the NSA has come close to spying altogether. But it does show that the power of a government entity like this can recede.

WATCH: Edward Snowden says Russians probably hacked the NSA

TOPICS: EDWARD SNOWDEN, EMAIL, TECH, TEXTS, WHISTLEBLOWING

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