An episode of levity tightened into a matter of scrutiny when John Oliver of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” challenged ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden on whether he read all of the documents he handed over to journalists.
Oliver’s trip to Russia for Sunday’s installment of the show included an interview with the former NSA contractor who has released thousands of classified documents since 2013 and after being charged with espionage by the US government, decided to live in Russia for the past one and half years to avoid prosecution.
“I have evaluated all of the documents that are in the archive,” said Snowden in response to Oliver’s question, before providing the commentator with a non-answer, saying that he does “understand” what he handed over.
Oliver, sensing blood in the water, said there is a “difference between understanding what’s in the documents and reading what’s in the documents.”
The Englishman then went on to argue that actually reading the documents is important, given the significance of the material that Snowden leaked.
Snowden fired back saying, “Well, in my defense, I’m not handling anything anymore,’’ which did not seem to deter Oliver saying that Snowden should take responsibility for handing over any documents “that could be harmful.”
Snowden did acknowledge that the release of information can be harmful “if people act in bad faith” or if the information is handled — as Oliver described it — with “incompetence.”
The interview had taken some by surprise, considering Oliver, a former writer and guest host for the comedy news series “The Daily Show,” has used his HBO show to take a comical stance on real-world politics.
After seeing Snowden sweat a few five minutes or so, Oliver reverted back to his comedic side. He showed Snowden videos of people on the streets who were asked if they knew who Edward Snowden was. Nearly all of them guessed incorrectly, with some identifying him as the man behind Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks.
Still, Oliver’s intention was clear: to make the impact of Snowden’s leaks easier for the average person to understand.
