Video Released: Edward Snowden at Sam Adams Award Ceremony

The website WikiLeaks released on Friday the first video to be seen of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden since he was granted asylum in Russia.

The videos from October 9, 2013 show Snowden receiving the Integrity Award from the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, presented by a group of fellow U.S. government whistleblowers in Moscow.

“If we can’t understand the policies and programs of our government we can’t grant our consent in regulating them,” Snowden said at the ceremony in regards to the NSA’s dragnet surveillance policies.

“It’s a sort of dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under a sort of eye that sees everything, even when it’s not needed,” he said.

“People all over the world are realizing that these programs don’t make us more safe, they hurt our economy, they hurt our country, they limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships, to associate freely.”

Former ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern present Snowden with the award, stating

Also present at the ceremony was WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison who took Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow and obtained his asylum, Thomas Drake (NSA whistleblower), Jesselyn Raddack (DoJ whistleblower) and Coleen Rowley (FBI whistleblower).

Watch below: