Whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden gave a speech via video conference at McGill University Wednesday evening.
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The topic: surveillance in Canada.
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Earlier this week, Snowden tweeted his thoughts on Montreal police allegedly spying on several journalists.
“Are you a journalist? The police spying on you specifically to ID your sources isn’t a hypothetical. This is today,” he wrote.
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Snowden equated the police’s surveillance on La Presse journalist Patrick Lagacé to “a radical attack” against freedom of the press.
“It unsettles me. It’s a threat to the traditional model of our democracy,” he said.
He also criticized the Trudeau government for backing down on its electoral promise to revoke the anti-terror law.
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The former contractor for the United States government is best known for leaking classified documents in 2013 from the National Security Agency (NSA) without authorization.
He was forced to flee to Hong Kong and eventually Russia.
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Snowden currently faces charges in the U.S. that could land him in prison for up to 30 years.
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The event was held at McGill’s Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street Ouest.
READ MORE: 3 other journalists allegedly under surveillance by Montreal police
rachel.lau@globalnews.ca
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