Video: How Edward Snowden and The Yes Men trolled music fans at Roskilde Festival

The Danish Roskilde music festival recently created a minor controversy with signs warning attendees about a new policy: complete surveillance of all phone and internet traffic. It turns out the festival actually trolled its visitors. The stunt was coordinated with culture jamming group The Yes Men and whistleblower Edward Snowden.

A feedback booth featuring a comedian posing as a poorly informed PR representative was also present to manage social media backlash. The actual intention of the signs was to lure festival goers to a specific stage using anger marketing.

Attendees experienced a remote speech by Edward Snowden regarding civil rights, privacy and mass surveillance. Roskilde Festival has released a summary of the events in a YouTube video which includes the reactions of fans encountering an actor who looks like Snowden.

It’s not about Snowden, the person

Regardless of opinions on the optics of Snowden ending up in Russia after his 2013 data leak, his message remains relevant. He currently has no chance of a fair trial in the USA. His information has pushed the IT industry to include privacy rights in the conversation.

Russian intelligence likely debriefed Snowden upon his arrival. However, the former NSA contractor’s leaks have raised unprecedented awareness over information security topics.

Most of the revelations were suspected by security professionals for years. The general public and decision makers previously dismissed these concerns as paranoia.

Snowden’s leaks reveal how Western countries like the United Kingdom and Sweden collaborate with the USA to build a global mass surveillance apparatus. This system harvests vast amounts of information from the internet.

How the Snowden Leaks have helped you

The leaks detailed how intelligence agencies collected information from companies like Google by eavesdropping on private fiber optic cables. Google has since started encrypting more traffic within its own networks. Products like WhatsApp have implemented strong encryption for mobile messaging to protect citizen conversations.

Surveillance can be used to undermine democracy. Snowden mentioned how authorities followed every move of Dr. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement.

Modern technology grants corporations and governments access to information that the KGB or Stasi could only dream about. This is a breach of Rechtsstaat principles that sustain democracy. Furthermore, mass surveillance does little to stop terrorism.

Russia uses Snowden’s exile for propaganda to create distrust towards Western governments. Making the West look like hypocrites on human rights is convenient for authoritarian regimes. It helps them defend their own practices of digital surveillance which occur without legal buffers.

This is a reason to stop intelligence agencies from undermining civilization.