Top 12 Most Fascinating Takeaways from Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald’s Reddit AMA

Q: Very exciting to see you here Mr. Snowden.

We’ve now known about the scary stuff happening at the NSA for quite some time. And yet from what I’ve seen, there’s been no real effort to stop it.

What are your thoughts on what we, as regular citizens, can do now?

Snowden: One of the biggest problems in governance today is the difficulty faced by citizens looking to hold officials to account when they cross the line. We can develop new tools and traditions to protect our rights, and we can do our best to elect new and better representatives, but if we cannot enforce consequences on powerful officials for abusive behavior, we end up in a system where the incentives reward bad behavior post-election.

That’s how we end up with candidates who say one thing but, once in power, do something radically different. How do you fix that? Good question.