Snowden's critics say that an unintended consequences of his revelations has been to undermine the global nature of the web as well as playing into the hands of dictators. His supporters counter that it is the NSA rather than Snowden that has damaged trust in the service.
During a recent national televised question and answer session, Putin batted away a question from Snowden – who won temporary asylum in Russia after having his US passport revoked – about whether Russia also intercepted and stored communications harvested from the internet, as the US did. "I hope we don't do that," he said to applause from the studio audience. "We don't have as much money as they do in the US."
Putin acknowledged that there was surveillance of criminals and potential terrorists but denied there was mass surveillance of citizens.
