With Citizenfour's Oscar win during Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony, everyone is talking about Edward Snowden again, even if it has been nearly two years since he leaked classified NSA documents. Now with HBO premiering the documentary, which details the aftermath of that leak, Snowden, journalist Glenn Greenwald and Citizenfour's director Laura Poitras hosted a Reddit AMA Monday to answer everyone's burning questions.
If you participated in the AMA, you may have wondered why Snowden seemed to disappear for a little bit during the Q&A. It appears that the Reddit moderators accidentally temporarily banned him, as Gawker points out.
"Hey guys, sorry -- the reddit mods are being a little weird. My account is /u/SuddenlySnowden," Snowden wrote during the AMA. "Mods: Can you pull back the ban? I can't post from the primary account. Thanks."
It took the mods about nine minutes to respond and lift the ban, according to Gawker, but they eventually did.
"Mod here - really sorry for the confusion. Your colleagues set up the OPs account for you and when you started replying on a different account we had to assume it was a fake," one of the moderators wrote. "Your new account /u/SuddenlySnowden is good to go."
Phew, that was a close one. It's a good thing Snowden was allowed back on Reddit because there were some fascinating tidbits from his AMA. For one, Snowden cleared up the elephant in the room, i.e. how he felt about Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris' joke that he didn't attend the Oscars "for some treason" right after Citizenfour won the award for Best documentary feature.
"To be honest, I laughed at NPH. I don't think it was meant as a political statement, but even if it was, that's not so bad. My perspective is if you're not willing to be called a few names to help out your country, you don't care enough," Snowden wrote before quoting Patrick Henry ("If this be treason, then let us make the most of it.") and linking to the statesman's Wikipedia page.
Snowden also spoke about what he would have done differently, if anything.
"I would have come forward sooner," Snowden wrote. "Had I come forward a little sooner, these programs would have been a little less entrenched, and those abusing them would have felt a little less familiar with and accustomed to the exercise of those powers.... Don't let it happen in your country."
We also found out that Snowden has a sense of humor. One Reddit user asked, "Is winter harsh? Do you ever want to go out, but wake up and find yourself suddenly snowed in?" Greenwald must have not gotten the pun right away and responded with, "Canada, Sweden and North Dakota have pretty harsh winters, too. As does Boston." But Snowden corrected him by writing, "This kills the joke."
It looks like his life in exile hasn't broken him too much. Head over to Reddit to read the full AMA.
